MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
Berlin Film festival
Europe dominates the programme – and the awards
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New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production that panders – if inadvertently – to Western prejudice against China
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a history that excavates the enormous role played by agricultural workers in recent times
ALEX HALL recommends a book that places empirical evidence at the heart of understanding racism
THIS YEAR’S Berlin film festival, with a competition line-up including just three films made outside Europe and a jury consisting entirely of white people, all previous winners of the Golden Bear, offered no representation from Latin America or Africa. It was a markedly Eurocentric, if not incestuous, affair.
The Golden Bear prize went to Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn by Romanian director Radu Jude, a clumsy and chaotic social satire shot during the pandemic with actors wearing anti-viral masks.
In it, a schoolteacher finds her career and reputation on the line after a personal sex tape is leaked online and while this take on her plight might resonate nationally, it lacks universal appeal.
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