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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

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

DÌDI (弟弟,
translates as
‘little brother’)

Director – Sean Wang – 2023 – US – Cert. 15 – 94m

*****

A young, Taiwanese-American teenager must deal with issues of ethnicity, family and love in 2008, when social media has become a significant element of growing up – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 2nd

2008. California. Summer. 13-year-old Taiwanese-American Chris (Izaac Wang), who prefers to go by the nickname Wang Wang, is rebelling. Mandarin is spoken at home by Nai Nai (‘grandma’; Chang Li Hua) and mum (Joan Chen), but that doesn’t stop mega-sweary English language shouting contests at the supper table between Wang Wang and elder sister Vivian (Shirley Chen) who is due to attend UCSD later in the year. When she’s out, Wang Wang hangs out in her room and posts as her on her Facebook (about which, amazingly, she never comes back to him). In the bathroom, he pees into her moisturising cream (leading to her threatening to period him in the mouth if he ever does it again).

Outside the house, he hangs out with his peers Farhad Mahmood (Raul DIal) and Jimmy Kim aka SOUP (Aaron Chang). Egged on by them in the manner of pubescents everywhere, he attempts to hang out with Madi (Mahaela Park), the girl he fancies.… Read the rest