Tag: France

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Palimpsest
The story of a name
(隱蹟之書：重寫自我)

Palimpsest: The story of a name (隱蹟之書：重寫自我)

Director – Mary Stephen – 2025 – France – Cert. – 108m

*****

Exploring her family history, Hong Kong-born Mary Stephen delves into the mystery behind her surname being British rather than Chinese – plays at the Barbican as is the opening film of the UK’s Hong Kong Film Festival which runs from Friday, September 25th to Sunday, 4th October at various venues

The director narrates her film in the first person, talking about the fact of her father’s name being Henry Stephen on his birth certificate, while her mother retained her Chinese name on the document. Mary Stephen herself was born in Hong Kong in 1953, the same year as Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in Britain. Archive images of Hong Kong from that year show a strange dislocation, with images of the new English monarch jostling side by side with Chinese words on buildings. A British built clock tower looks strangely out of place.

She worked for years with celebrated New Wave director Eric Rohmer as his editor. His name, too, was a palimpsest.

Her father died and was buried in Canada in 1979, alongside her mother. When the family first moved there, she was a teenager.… Read the rest

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Animation Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Remake

Remake

Director – Ross McElwee – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 114m

***

Having filmed his son Adrian since early childhood, the filmmaker uses that footage to come to terms with Adrian’s death – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 25th

Documentary filmmaker Ross McElwee used to film his son Adrian for a few minutes about once a month. On a visit to Paraguay, he shot footage of the family, which always included his future adopted daughter. He screened the film about Paraguay at the Venice Film Festival, then put off screenings for quite a while. For a time, he went through a ‘golden age’ of filming, but as Adrian entered his late teens, the family seemed to get fed up with his filmmaking.

Then, Hollywood producer Steve Carr contacted him about a narrative remake of his documentary Sherman’s March (1985), which was the film in which Ross started to film and incorporate elements of his own life. Ross goes to consult his professional advisers – his brother and sister. He goes to Los Angeles to talk with Steve Carr, who had directed a series of commercially successful comedies. He signs a deal which will also allow him to make a documentary about the remake.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

De Gaulle
Part 2
Liberté
(La Bataille de Gaulle
J’écris ton Nom)

De Gaulle: Part 2 – Liberté

(La Bataille de Gaulle: J’écris ton Nom)

Director – Antonin Baudry – 2025 – France – Cert. 15 – 160m

*****

Second part of a two-part movie continues the story of De Gaulle up to and including the Liberation of Paris in 1944 – out in UK cinemas on out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 18th

Somewhat surprisingly, the second part of Baudry’s epic doesn’t begin where its predecessor left off, but instead jumps forward to 1943. with exiled French General De Gaulle (Simon Abkarian) in London both sticking to his guns and an increasingly isolated figure on the international stage. Polish plumber turned assistant Blazej (Karim Leklou) carries on offering him encouragement.

Still, De Gaulle continues to inspire the Free French forces in North Africa, with General LeClerc (Nils Schneider) taking on a German tank division at Ksar Ghilane with only infantry and the odd anti-tank gun. Impossible odds, but as with the first part’s Bir Hakeim siege story, the Free French’s selfless actions, vowing never to surrender and fight ‘til the last man, help the Allied war effort a great deal.

In Lyon, France and separated from her boyfriend, Livia (Anamaria Vartolomei) works for the Resistance, who face a major political challenge: to unite the various different groups that want to stand against the Vichy government and the Nazis, but don’t necessarily share the same aims in terms of any post-war settlement.… Read the rest

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Art Exhibitions Features Live Action Movies

Exhibition on Screen
James McNeill Whistler

Courtesy of Exhibition on Screen

Exhibition on Screen: James McNeill Whistler

Director – David Bickerstaff – 2026 – UK – Cert. U – 90m

*****

A look at the work of 19th Century painter Whistler, seen through the lens of the 2026 Tate Britain exhibition – out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, 15th September

Before watching this latest Exhibition on Screen feature, I was able to visit Tate Britain’s stunning James McNeill Whistler show, which sits very much at the film’s core. The film had the effect of making me want to go back for further visits.

Exhibition on Screen’s film opens with shots of a Victorian concert hall interior where the unseen Whistler (voice: Bret Jones) is addressing the room with his spoken lecture on art, something the film will return to towards its close. After a montage of brushes, painting surfaces and palettes, establishing shots of Tate Britain take us straight into the current Whistler show. “People sometimes think of Whistler as being based in French art, and sometimes as being based in British art,” explains Carol Jacobi, Curator of British Art 1850-1915, Tate Britain, “whereas…he was very much an independent…and very much leading the avant-garde in both those countries.”

Susan Grace Galassi, Curator Emeritas, The Frick Collection, New York, who considers Whistler one of the greatest American artists, notes that he didn’t distinguish between fine or applied art, that he was as great a painter as he was a printmaker.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

La Femme Infidèle
(The Unfaithful Wife)

La Femme Infidèle (The Unfaithful Wife)

Director – Claude Chabrol – 1969 – France – Cert. 15 – 98m

*****

A man suspects his wife is having an affair, hires a private detective, and then acts upon what emerges… – back out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 11th; Claude Chabrol – Elements of Crime, a season of the director’s films, plays at BFI Southbank from Tuesday, September 1st to Tuesday, October 6th 2026.

Charles Desvallées (Michel Bouquet from Just Before Nightfall, 1971; Cop au Vin, 1985, both Claude Chabrol; The Bride Wore Black, François Truffaut, 1966) lives outside Paris with his wife Hélène (Stéphane Audran, then the director’s wife, from Les Biches, 1968, Le Boucher, 1970, both Claude Chabrol; Babette’s Feast, Gabriel Axel, 1987) and pre-teenage son Michel (Stéphane Di Napoli from Que la Bête Meure, Claude Chabrol, 1969).

He works in an office in Paris, to which he commutes by car. She often goes into town, for instance to get her hair done or visit the cinema. One day, he becomes suspicious and hires a private detective to follow her, who reports back that she is visiting the apartment of another man Victor Pegala every few days.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Just an Illusion
(Juste Une Illusion)

Just an Illusion (Juste Une Illusion)

Directors – Eric Toledano, Olivier Nakache – 2026 – France – Cert. 12a – 119m

***

The trials and tribulations of a young French teenager in the mid 1980s – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 11th

1985. 13-year-old Vincent Dayan (Simon Boubill) is fed up with living at home with his elder brother Arnaud (Alexis Rosenstiehl) who loves listening to new wave music while Vincent prefers funk. Vincent wants his own room, because he can’t do his homework in there with Arnaud playing his music, and Arnaud doesn’t want him putting up his own music posters. The two brothers can be fighting tooth and nail one minute, and relaxing together the next.

Vincent is also fed up with the constant arguing of their parents Sandrine (Camille Cottin from House of Gucci, Ridley Scott, 2021; Call My Agent!, TV series, 2015-2020; Allied, Robert Zemeckis, 2017) and Yves (Louis Garrel from Little Women, Greta Gerwig, 2019; Redoutable, Michael Hazanavicius, 2017; The Dreamers, Bernardo Bertolucci, 2003).

Dad has a run in with neighbour and car park attendant Berger (Pierre Lottin from The Stranger, 2025; When Autumn Falls, 2024, By the Grace of God, 2018; all François Ozon) when he discovers he’s lost his cherished no.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Pressure

Pressure

Director – Anthony Maras – 2026 – UK, France – Cert. 12a – 100m

*****

Days before the proposed Allied D-Day landings in 1944, the Scots meteorologist in charge becomes convinced that it should be postponed due to impending bad weather – out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, September 9th

Taking leave from his heavily pregnant wife Liz (Tamsin Topolski), due in hospital imminently for the birth, Scots meteorologist RAF Gp Capt. James Stagg (Andrew Scott) travels by military car to Southwick House, the stately home requisitioned for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) under General Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser), where he meets his own liaison officer Andrew Carter (Jojo Macari) and, in what is to be his office, MTC First Lt. Kay Summersby (a nicely understated Kerry Condon), Eisenhower’s private secretary. All communications with the General go through her.

From their first encounter – three days from the proposed D-Day landing on Monday morning, when USAAF Col. Krick (Chris Messina) and his weather room staff are improvising a version of The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B with a piano – Stagg is less than impressed with his American counterpart. Krick boasts that he not only correctly predicted the weather for Eisenhower ahead of various military battles in North Africa and elsewhere, but also did the same for David O.… Read the rest

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Super Nature

Super Nature

Director – Ed Sayers – 2025 – UK – Cert. PG – 82m

*****

The process of shooting the natural world on the Super 8 amateur home movie format of the 1970s brings a participating community of people closer to nature – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 4th

This starts and ends with the image zooming in to and zooming out from Super 8 footage. The Kodak Super 8 system was the premier format for home movies in the late1960s through the 1970s before it was replaced for the most part by videotape in the 1980s.

For some years, Ed Sayers was involved in a Super 8 film competition wherein punters would enter their films, and most of the material was much the same – family memories or holiday footage. Some of it extremely wild. As he puts it, the medium “painted our memories on film.”

One year, a very different submission turned up from a Frenchman named Roger. Roger had shot footage of flamingoes. 

The nature of Super 8 was that the film came on little cartridges of reversal film inserted into the camera. In terms of footage, the cartridges didn’t run that long. You’d shoot by squeezing the trigger, which would stop filming when released. … Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Landship

Landship

Director – Callum Burn – 2026 – UK – Cert. 15 – 89m

****

A British tank crew on the offensive on WW1’s Western Front becomes stranded behind enemy lines when their vehicle is immobilised – out on DVD, Blu-ray and Digital in the UK and Ireland on Monday August 10th

Doom-laden music. Historial WW1 footage. 1917. Captions explain the situation. The Allies, surrounded on three sides near Ypres, France, push forward, sustaining heavy casualties. Visuals: a lone British officer – you can tell by his revolver and moustache – moves around in the murk near a barbed wire barricade. One hesitates to say “advances” because he appears to be going back and forth. Possibly, he’s lost. A German knocks him out with a rifle butt.

Half-way through the movie, we’ll realise this sequence was a flash-forward. Perhaps the screenplay could have delivered a better oening (this one feels like it came out of the editing).

August 22nd 1917. Four privates inside an industrial metal structure, playing cards, argueing. One of them, Ernest (Ernest Hans Braedy – Nadav Burstein) is sketching a bird from memory. Their C.O., who we’ll later learn is Lieutenant Hill (David Dobson from Spitfire Over Berlin, 2022; Lancaster Skies, 2019; Fray Bentos, short, 2014, all Callum Burn), introduces a senior officer Captain Richardson (Vin Hawke from Battle Over Britain, Callum Burn, 2023) who is joining them today.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

A Private Life
(Vie Privée)

A Private Life (Vie Privée)

Director – Rebecca Zlotowski – 2025 – France – Cert. 15 – 107m

****

A psychiatrist with an unusual eye problem must unravel the mystery of the recent death of one of her patients – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 26th

Parisian psychiatrist Dr. Lilian Steiner (Jodie Foster from The Mauritanian, Kevin Macdonald, 2021, The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme, 1991; Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese, 1976) is having a hard time. One of her patients Pierre is terminating his sessions after years of treatment following his visit to a hypnotist who managed to cure him of his long-standing smoking habit in one session; indeed, he may sue Dr. Lilian for non-effectiveness of treatment. Another regular Paula hasn’t turned up for her last two sessions, and Dr. Lilian is chasing the invoices.

The reason Paula hasn’t turned up, Dr. Lilian learns in a phone call from Paula’s daughter Valérie (Luana Bajrami (Luana Bajrami from Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma, 2019)), is simple: Paula has just died. Valérie invites Dr. Lilian to the Shemira (basically, a Jewish wake) only for Paula’s outraged husband Simon (Matthieu Amalric from Nino, Pauline Loquès, 2025; The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson, 2014; Munich, Steven Spielberg, 2005) to tell her to get out.… Read the rest