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Nino
(Nino)

Director – Pauline Loquès – 2025 – France – Cert. 15 – 96m

****1/2

A young man attempts to cope with the news that he has throat cancer in his first weekend following diagnosis – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 19th

There are some films you watch which are so close to parts of your own life that it’s impossible to be objective about them. This doesn’t happen very often to this writer, but it happened on this film. Over a year ago, completely out of the blue, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a UK citizen I’m entitled to free healthcare, and as a cancer patient my treatment is fast-tracked. My initial experience was of being tested for cancer, waiting a week or so for the results to come back, and having the presence of the cancer confirmed. That gave me around ten days to adjust, but it was a terrible shock. Not least because my (mis)understanding was that men didn’t get breast cancer, only women did, so that couldn’t possibly be what I had. And, obviously, it was life-changing.

Cut to the film Nino. A name film, named after its central character. What follows is my own highly personalised reaction as a cancer patient / survivor.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies Music

Mogul Mowgli

Director – Bassam Tariq – 2020 – UK – Cert. 15 – 90m

****

A UK British Pakistani rap artist is stopped in his career tracks by an auto-immune system suppression illness – in cinemas from Friday, October 30th and on BFI Player Subscription Exclusive from Friday, February 5th

This opens with British Pakistani rapper Zed (Riz Ahmed, who also co-wrote the film) waiting in the wings then going on stage to perform before a massively enthusiastic New York crowd. I had fairly high expectations and my heart sank. Ahmed’s performance as the singer was leaving me absolutely cold. (To be fair, I’m not a huge fan of rap music.) Happily I was much more impressed with almost everything that followed.

This opening performance turns out to be the final leg of a tour. Zed has a major European Tour planned imminently. Back in Britain, he gets into a street fight with a fan/stalker and in the course of the resultant fight starts to experience severe stomach pains. He wakes up in the local hospital to learn that he’s suffering from an auto-immune system suppression illness and consequently will be unable to tour. He’s horrified by the the suggestion from his trusted manager Vaseem (Anjana Vasam) that his admirer and rival performer RPG (Nabhaan Rizwan), whom Zed despises, can cover for him on the European Tour.… Read the rest