arm Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Director – Mohamed Ali Nahdi – 2025 – Tunisia, Cyprus, Qatar, Saudi Arabia – 85m

*****

A young boy is diagnosed with a tumour in his arm, and his parents must guide him through his ensuing medical treatment – premieres in the Critics’ Picks Competition of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

My third Critics’ Picks entry is another five star movie. Which is great, but once again, I wonder, for how many more films can this last? What IS true is that this is not another ‘urban unease and finding your way in the world’ movie like China Sea (Jurgis Matulevičius. 2025) or Mo Papa (Eeva Mägi, 2025), it’s something altogether different.

Sabri (Hedi Ben Jabouria) is a very ordinary eight-year-old boy who likes boxing. We first meet him out with his dad in the cinema where the pair are watching a black and white movie about boxing. They return home where Sabri looks at his dad’s old photos of his days as a boxer in Rome.

They are interrupted by Sabri’s mum Semia whose name curiously isn’t spoken until about ten minutes before the end of the movie (Afef Ben Mahmoud) and who wants to know why she can never reach Kamel (Helmi Drid), the boy’s dad, on the phone.… Read the rest

The Bone Breakers
(Spaccaossa)

Director – Vincenzo Pirrotta – 2022 – Italy – 105m

***1/2

A gang of criminals in Palermo runs an insurance fraud operation involving the breaking of people’s bones – Italian film inspired by real facts premieres at the 26th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

The scene you’re most likely to remember comes right at the start of The Bone Breakers. Inside a warehouse, bodybuilding weights are packed into a suitcase which, once sealed, is carried up some scaffolding. Below, men hold another man’s arm so that it rests on two blocks, one at each end, then the man on the scaffolding drops the case from the scaffolding onto the man below’s rested arm, painfully breaking it. You’re immediately wondering what’s going on, possibly assuming the men are gangsters and the man whose arm has been broken has upset or crossed them in some way.

However, the man is compliant and even though his fractured arm clearly causes him considerable pain afterwards, he goes along with and and doesn’t appear to bear the men who have done this any ill will. They get him to the hospital where his arm is put in a sling, then take him to another building in which he’ll live in the short term, presumably to recuperate.… Read the rest