Categories
Animation Features Movies

Forgotten Island

Forgotten Island

Directors – Joel Crawford, Januel Mercado – 2026 – US – Cert. PG – 98m

***

Two young, Filipino women, best friends since childhood, are transported back to the mythical land of the ancestors of one of them – out in cinemas worldwide on Friday, October 16th

The Philippines. (You’re supposed to know this is the location, but if the film explained it anywhere, apart from stating the setting is outside the US, I missed it.) New girl in class Jo (voice: H.E.R.) is doing a show and tell about the island of Natali, which her grandmother claims to have visited as a child, complete with terrifying descriptions of the Manananggal, the bat-winged demon which can split in two – lower half and upper half.

The teacher sends her to the principal for presenting falsehoods as real. Jo is soon joined by the more intellectual Raissa (voice: Lisa Soberano) who stands up for Jo after Jo has been sent out of the classroom. They bond outside the principal’s office, vowing to be best friends and to find the island of Natali together. Raissa is put off by Jo’s producing a knife to make them blood sisters, but it turns out she only wants to cut her a bracelet.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Mondays:
See You ‘This’ Week!
(Mondays/
Kono Taimu Ruupu,
Joshi ni Kizukasenaito Owaranai,
MONDAYS/
このタイムループ、
上司に気づかせないと
終わらない)

Director – Ryo Takebayashi – 2022 – Japan – Cert. – 82m

****

A comedy in which a group of office workers must find a way to escape the week-long time loop in which they find themselves trapped – plays UK cinemas in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2024 between Friday, 2nd February and Sunday, 31st March

A dream. A Friday night conversation with the client she’s always wanted to work for and with whom she starts a job next Monday. Monday, October 25th. Akemi Yoshikawa (Wan Marui) wakes up in the office where she and advertising her co-workers have just pulled an all-nighter to get the presentations done for the client. They are exhausted, necks in travel pillows as they kip on the floor. A hapless bird strikes the window. Their middle-aged boss Mr. Nagahisa (Sports Makita) saunters in after a restful weekend.

Now Yoshiwaka must get working on that Miso Soup Soda Tablet product launch that the client wants to sound like something out of the ordinary. But then, the two guys at the next desk try to tell her that they are trapped in a time loop. They, as in, everyone in the office. She doesn’t really have the time to listen.… Read the rest