Film

The notebooks of world-renowned double Oscar-winning British costume designer, John Mollo, who designed the Star Wars universe, could sell for over £250,000 when they go under the hammer

The title of actress Tuva Novotny’s film alludes to something you can’t see coming, and that’s what happens both to the characters and the audience in this emotionally intense real-time drama. Things start slowly, with 12 year old Tea (Nora Mathea Øien) and her friend Anna (Ellen Heyerdahl Janzon) walking home from handball practice. Along the way they talk about small things; homework, an upcoming exam, girls in their class who wear too much makeup. We’re settling in, we assume,...

King of the HillBetween the Palme D’Or winning triumph of his 1989 feature debut sex, lies and videotape and his 1998 mainstream breakthrough in Out of Sight, Steven Soderbergh made several more esoteric films that struggled to win over a wide audience. If any of them should have broken through, it was King of the Hill; a 1930s set coming of age film from the memoirs of A.E. Hotchner. The story is, to begin with, one of small dramas, as...

Snuff is one of the best known and likely one of the least seen of the video nasties. The title and its reputation have passed into urban legend and served as one of the major boogeymen of the moral panic around the nasties, with the rumour always circulating that this was the film that showed a real murder. If it had been more widely seen, people would realise how funny this is. The long, weird and fascinating story of Snuff...

From the beginning of American Animals, which opens to the sound of bird song and a quote from Charles Darwin, it is clear that it is interested in weightier themes than the average crime thriller. The film takes place in 2003 and is set in Lexington, Kentucky, where Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan) is an art student. At the University of Transylvania, where Spencer studies, there are a collection of rare books in their library worth an estimated $12 million. He mentions it in passing to his friend Warren Lipka (Evan...

Directed by Corin Hardy, the new instalment in what is now being referred to as the “Conjuring Universe" is a rather stale and scare-free affair that’s only just slightly rescued by its female lead’s incredible screen presence, and remarkable performance. Written by Gary Dauberman (It, Annabelle) from a story by James Wan, The Nun offers more of the same old tropes and hackneyed ideas we’ve come to expected from this hugely lucrative and admittedly very popular franchise, but in the end the film fails to bring anything new to...

Over the past couple of years there has been a growing conversation about representation in film. The Miseducation of Cameron Post isn’t the first coming of age film about an LGBT teen (indeed, it’s enough of a subgenre to have its own established cliches), nor is it the first of those to deal with ‘conversion therapy’ (1999’s But I’m A Cheerleader, also directed by a queer woman, looks at a similar situation with a more comedic eye). It is, however,...

It is the first time the jacket has gone under the hammer since Harrison Ford wore it in the 1980 instalment of the popular Star Wars saga, The Empire Strikes Back.

Kicking off this year’s Venice International Film Critics’ Week is Indian fantasy-horror Tumbbad. From the go, it quickly becomes apparent that Tumbbad is on course to serve as a parable for the corrupting nature of greed.  Narration tells us, as we sweep over the bleak, rain-sodden countryside of Tumbadd in the far reaches of western India, the legend of Hastar, a God undone by his own his avarice. Rahi Anil Barve and co-director Adesh Prasad have crafted a film with the ambitions...