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Features Live Action Movies

A Summer Tale
(Cuento de Verano)

Director – Matías Szulanski – 2025 – Argentina – 78m

*****

A moneylender’s difficulties getting money owed back from clients on time cause his heart to play up – premieres in the Critics’ Picks Competition of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival

It’s a lovely Summer day. Jorge (Fabián Arenillas) is out on the street, getting up again, gathering his briefcase. What happened? A blackout? A heart attack? 

The camera follows him from behind as he enters a modern building. In the hairdresser’s, the owner asks him to come back later as he’s busy with a client. A cigarette on the go, stopping for a glass of Coke, he makes his next call. When the door opens, it’s the client’s son, who turns out not to have nearly enough money to make a significant payment. 

He returns to the hairdresser’s, where one of the customers heaps abuse on him. If what he had at the start was a heart attack, it’s not hard to see why. Jorge leads a highly stressful life. 

Wherever he goes, he seems to want to extract money from people. A phone call to Diana (Tamara Leschner) leads to a quick meeting where he picks up $124 000 and gives her an invoice.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

The First
Slam Dunk

Director – Takehiko Inoue – 2022 – Japan – Cert. 12a tbc – 124m

*****

A high school basketball team sets out to defeat the seemingly unstoppable league championson 4K UHD + Blu-ray Collector’s Edition, Steelbook, Blu-ray, and DVD on 24th March

The coastal town of Shohoku. 11-year-old Ryota Miyagi (voice: Miyuri Shimabukuro) lives in the shadow of his 14-year-old, elder brother and school basketball star Sota (voice: Gakuto Kajiwara). One evening, Sota takes his younger sibling out for a practice at the local court, playing as hard as he can to push Ryota, which makes the youngster want to push himself harder still. Sota then alienates Ryota by going on a fishing trip with his peer group rather than respond to Ryota’s demand to extend their practice session. When his elder brother is tragically killed at sea, Ryota must both step into both the role of man of the house and prove himself in the school basketball team.

By the time Ryota is 17 (voice: Shugo Nakamura), he is one of the players on the Shohoku school basketball team which itself faces challenges: specifically, if it is to win the national championships, it must defeat the the seemingly unstoppable reigning champions the Sannoh school basketball club and their star player Masashi Kawata (voice: Mitsuaki Kanuka), Ryota’s opposite number (both wear their team’s no.… Read the rest