David R. Walker

Archive for the ‘European Film Festival’ Category

Christy

Director: Brendan Canty

Cast: Danny Power, Diamuid Noyes, Emma Willis

Running Time: 1 hour 34 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Film Festival: European Film Festival

Language: English

Irish director Brendan Canty’s directorial debut feature film Christy is a gritty, realist film about brotherly love or lack thereof as it follows the coming of age story of foster kid Christy, a 17 year old who gets kicked out of foster care and rescued by his older brother Shane wonderfully played by Diamuid Noyes.

Set in contemporary Cork, the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland, Christy played by Danny Power is a typically non-communicative boy trying to find his feet in a hostile world. His older brother resents having to look after him while also dealing with a new wife and young baby girl.

Christy helps Shane in his painting business but these characters are grappling on the fringe of success not quite making it. Christy desperately tries to escape his brother’s commanding shadow and finds his dodgy cousins, while hanging out with a group foul mouthed Cork youngsters.

Shane is trying to get his younger brother back into foster care for the remainder of his time under age, but his 18^th birthday is fast approaching.

Christy well played by newcomer Danny Power finds a talent for being a really good barber, a trait he inherited from his deceased mother who perished from a drug overdose. The salt of the earth young lad gets a job helping a local hairdresser with cutting all the gents’ hair.

What director Brendan Canty and screenwriter Alan O’Gorman do correctly is capture the atmosphere of working class Cork as he navigates a feel good coming of age story about a young man who is tempted to go down the wrong path with his conniving cousins but instead gets saved by common sense and a desire to earn a decent living.

While Alan O’Gorman did need to write more of a backstory surrounding these characters, he does manage to capture the inherit anger and resentment felt between the two brothers, Shane and Christy with the older feeling the responsibility for the younger, while the latter is tempted to rebel but has to find his own independence in order to survive.

There is no explicit conflict in Christy, but the temptation and anger is hinted at, it does make for an interesting coming of age story if viewers can look past the swearing. While this Irish drama does thematically hint at such issues as drug abuse, youth unemployment and foster care, the film chooses to dwell on the overwhelming power of brotherly love and inherent protection, rather than drove home social issues.

Christy gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is recommended viewing as a gritty street style coming of age story in which fraternity triumphs over strife. Worth seeing.

My Father’s Shadow

Director: Akinola Davies Jr

Cast: Sope Dirisu, Godwin Egbo, Chibuke Marvellous Egbo

Running Time: 1 hour and 34 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Film Festival: European Film Festival 2026

Language: English

After premiering in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, British Nigerian director Akinola Davies Jr’s impressive debut film My Father’s Shadow is a touching and poignant story of a journey a father takes with his two sons through Lagos, Nigeria in the summer of 1993 on the eve of the announcement that the presidential elections had been nullified resulting in catastrophic political unrest in the country.

What makes My Father’s Shadow unique, is that it is told through the eyes of two young brothers aged 8 and 11, Remi and Akin played respectively by Chibuke Marvellous Egbo and Godwin Egbo.

As the film begins the boys are playing in an impoverished yard with cut out paper action figures, imagining a world of superhero’s and villains. The sudden arrival of their big strong father Folarin expertly played by Sope Dirisu (Mothering Sunday), who decides on a whim to take his sons with him on an arduous journey into downtown Lagos to collect some back pay owed to him.

As Folarin and his sons travel from the Yoruba village into Lagos, their transport is communal, getting rides in taxis with fuel shortages and then with motorbikes until their final arrival in the bustling and vibrant centre of the biggest city in Nigeria.

Remi and Akin are oblivious to the simmering political unrest that is about to occur. The brothers relish the time with their father who visits his work colleague and even eats at a café where he sees his city mistress.

Akinola Davies Jr’s film is filled with foreshadowing images of vultures circling over the city as his camera pans across Lagos encompassing the diversity of religion both Christian and Muslim and also the vibrancy of the city with an authentic African energy.

My Father’s Shadow does employ non-European film techniques whereby every frame is filled with the community and how they relate to each other, avoiding making the individual the focus. However the narrative is slow and the ending of this film will leave viewers pondering whether the journey was imaginary or remembered.

The best scene in the film is on the beach in Lagos when Folarin tells his sons how much he loves them as they recover from swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a beautifully shot scene which specifically highlights masculine vulnerability and that sometimes tenuous connection between a father and his sons, bordering on honour, humour and hero worship.

A prime example of vital African cinema and made history as the first Nigerian film to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival, My Father’s Shadow is a surreal and significant achievement although the film’s narrative which was co-written with the director’s brother Wale Davies could have been stronger and more specific.

My Father’s Shadow gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is enjoyable.  Recommended viewing.

Franz

Director: Agnieszka Holland

Cast: Idan Weiss, Peter Kurth, Aaron Friesz, Katharina Stark, Sebastian Schwarz

Running Time: 2 hour and 7 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Film Festival: European Film Festival 2026 – check out website for full details – https://www.eurofilmfest.co.za/

Languages: French, German, Czech

PLEASE NOTE THIS FILM HAS ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Warning this film has a torture scene and graphic nudity.

Europa Europa, Washington Square and Chalatan director Agnieszka Holland’s new film simply titled Franz takes an unconventional and self-reflexive look at the strange life of famed Czech writer Franz Kafka who penned such extraordinary books as the infamous Metamorphosis, Amerika and The Trial.

Kafka was brought up in a wealthy Jewish family in Prague at the beginning of the 20^th century. He was the only son with two sisters and had a very strict and abusive textile merchant father Hermann Kafka expertly played by Peter Kurth.

Franz is played by Idan Weiss who encapsulates the awkwardness of Kafka as a character, not physically strong but clever and questioning. Kafka was hard working and employed in a large insurance company in Prague before and during World War I.

Following his lifelong friendship with Max Brod played by German actor Sebastian Schwarz (I am Your Man), Franz is encouraged in his writing which he finds quite difficult in between dealing with his overbearing family and his demands at the insurance company.

Eventually Franz breaks free from this restrictive environment when he meets Max’s cousin the beautiful Felice played by Carol Schuler and they move to Berlin where finally as a writer he has a room of his own. Here and in later years he penned his famous works while retaining the charm of a martyr.

Polish director Agnieszka Holland doesn’t offer the viewer a packaged conventional biography but instead a unique self-reflexive non-linear storyline in which several key figures in Franz’s life break the fourth wall of the screen and talk directly to the audience offering enticing insights into the complex character of Kafka.

Holland goes a step further as she also reflects on his cultural impact on European literature and how in the 21^st century the Franz Kafka museum in Prague has commodified the writer in the same vein that America has commodified their most famous artists and writers.

The commodification of famous writers is an ideal form of attracting tourists and for a beautiful city like Prague, the Kafka museum is a huge commercial attraction, something which Agnieszka Holland emphasizes in Franz.

As a film, Franz is an unconventional strongly European portrait of a writer that made the character Gregor Samsa famous as he transformed into a monstrous insect.

As World War I changed Europe, Kafka’s fame grew but his health declined.

Franz will appeal to literary enthusiasts and is a fascinating and strange portrait of a unique writer whose unconventionality changed the face of European literature just as the modernist writers were beginning to flourish in England and America in the 1920’s.

With lavish production values, Agnieszka Holland serves up an intellectually challenging film filled with some bizarre scenes especially at the treatment spa in Vienna, while commenting on the relevancy of Kafka in the 21^st century.

Franz gets a film rating of 8 out of 10 and is a unique and challenging film retaining its Bohemian quality and will appeal to lovers of Kafka and literary biographies. Highly recommended viewing for lovers of genuine European content.

Under the Volcano

Director: Damian Kocur

Cast: Roman Lutskyi, Anastasiya Karpenko, Sofia Berezovka

Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Film Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Film Festival: European Film Festival

Language: Ukrainian with English Subtitles.

Polish director Damian Kocur’s film Under the Volcano explores the effect of the 2022 Russian Invasion of the Ukraine has on a blended Ukrainian family on holiday in the Canary Islands in Tenerife at the time of the invasion.

Kocur’s family drama focuses on a father Roma played by Ukrainian actor Roman Lutskyi and his new wife Nastia played by Anastassiya Karpenko, and their son Fedir aged 6 and Roma’s daughter from another marriage Sofia played by Sofia Berezovka.

The happy go lucky Ukrainian family are enjoying the sites of Tenerife and when their plan to return to Kyiv in the Ukraine is thwarted as they discover that Russia has invaded. Their flights are cancelled and the Spanish hotel manager says they can stay in Tenerife for as long as is required.

Their stranded situation in Tenerife is amplified when Sofia, the teenage girl meets an African immigrant who came to Tenerife by boat. Their stilted relationship reflects two people stranded in a geographic location in which they had no choice to be there and seemingly cannot escape from.

The main tension in this family drama comes from the strained relationship between husband and wife as Roma realizes that when he returns to the Ukraine he will have to join his friends in the military front lines. Nastia will have to remain in Warsaw as a refugee with her young son Fedir and her mother.

Unfortunately, Under the Volcano does not have a good script and many scenes are drawn out and just involve fighting. The pace of this film is very slow and there is no dimensionality to an otherwise fascinating topic – what do families do when they are away from their own country when it has been invaded?

Besides the beautiful settings of Tenerife, Under the Volcano could have been a much better film, but its narrative meanders pointlessly so that one crucial scene of the family getting lost on a mountainous hike sums up the efforts of a mediocre scriptwriter.

Director Damian Kocur’s film about refugees and war’s effect on the family needs to be sharpened in terms of pace and tone. While Under the Volcano is not a bad film, it could have been so much better. There was so much more to unpack on this subject and the director seem to hold back.

Under the Volcano gets a film rating of 6.5 out of 10 and is a slow paced family drama about the effects of an ongoing European war which has reshaped that continent security concerns.

Unicorns

Directors: Sally El Hosaini & James Krishna Floyd

Cast: Ben Hardy, Kate Lindsey, Jason Patel, Sagar Radia, Ali Afzal, Taylor Sullivan

Running time: 1 hour and 59 minutes

Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Festival: European Film Festival

PLEASE NOTE THIS FILM IS NOT FOR SENSITIVE VIEWERS

Unicorns is an odd mixture for a British film, at times fascination and other times, disturbing. From directing duo Sally El Hosaini & James Krishna Floyd, Unicorns explores the strange sexually charged relationship between a mechanic from Essex, the brawny Luke, superbly played by Ben Hardy (Bohemian Rhapsody, X-Men: Apocalypse) and Aysha, an Indian drag queen well played by Jason Patel.

Aysha also known as Ashiq actually comes from a conservative Muslim family in Manchester but when living in London he transforms himself into the flamboyant and radiant Aysha, a sparkling drag queen for the Gasian community also known as the Gay Asian community.

Luke is a single dad to a 5 year old boy played by Taylor Sullivan but has split from the mother of his child, Charlie, a confused young woman who abandons her son and lets Luke take charge.

Sexually, Luke is an enigma as initially in the film’s provocative opening shot he is having sex with a woman on an open field outside an east London housing estate.

Aysha is all glamour and attitude and her pronouns are Legend and Icon. The two meet when Luke mistakenly walks through the back room of an Indian restaurant into a secret Gasian disco complete with drag queens and muscle boys, one in particular is Faiz who is Aysha’s designated driver.

Let’s face it drag queens don’t drive themselves to parties. Faiz is played by Industry star Sagar Radia who was brilliant in the British TV version of Succession as the foul mouthed, coke sniffing gambler Rishi Ramdani who marries into WASP privilege in the smart London set.

At the heart of Unicorns is the complex story of two people from very different worlds who meet, fall in love and ultimately navigate a tricky world between conservative Indian culture and the non-descript world of a working class mechanic in Essex who is dazzled by Aysha, a fascinating drag queen whose identity as a cross dresser is ultimately threatened in a vicious queer subculture which is as much about making money as it is about cutting edge glamour.

As Luke becomes Aysha’s driver around England usurping the sulky Faiz, their relationship gradually transforms from transactional to emotional.

While some of the Gasian subculture scenes are very frenetic and overdone, it is really the performances of the two main actors who make this uniquely queer love story riveting, while transcending traditional social, cultural and religious conformities.

The fabulous but gritty Unicorns gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and is recommended viewing for those that enjoy queer love stories.

Le Mohican

Director: Frederic Farrucci

Cast: Alexis Manenti, Mara Taquin, Paul Garette, Marie-Pierre Nouveau

Running Time: 1 hour 27 minutes

Language: French with English subtitles

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Festival: The European Film Festival

French director Frederic Farucci combines the beauty of Corsica with a shadowy mafia in his new thriller Le Mohican (The Mohican) about a goat herder Joseph Cardelli who has a beautiful plot of land on the coast which greedy developers want to take from him and which he refuses to sell.

Cardelli well played by Alexis Manenti becomes a fugitive on the island and soon reaches folklore status after he accidentally kills the nephew of a Parisian crime boss, and subsequently goes on the run.

His tech savvy niece Vannina played by Mara Taquin makes Joseph an island hero on social media using the hashtag #LeMohican as he deftly evades the gangsters who also have the police on their payroll. Despite his efforts to escape to Sardinia, Joseph needs to confront the gangsters and protect his right to exist in an island which is beautiful yet increasingly becoming a target for crime, overdevelopment and urbanization.

Le Mohican had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice Film Festival and is worth watching with a strong narrative about a fugitive, a decent and honest goat herder who stands up for his rights to continue existing in a pastoral fashion and not give in to the greed and corruption of organized crime.

With exquisite cinematography by Jeanne Lapoirie, Le Mohican is a gripping action film about survival and resilience while the continual threat of being hunted takes its bloody toll on the hero Joseph Cardelli. The violence is systemic and shocking while the storyline is straightforward with sparse dialogue which could have been elaborated upon.

Like many islands in the Mediterranean, Corsica is in danger of being over commercialized and Le Mohican shines a light on this issue as greedy mobsters plan on developing land meant for farming.

Le Mohican focuses on the story of an ordinary man’s survival and his niece’s uncanny ability to turn him into a local hero with the nickname the Mohican, the last of the coastal goat herders.

With a beautiful backdrop, Le Mohican gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is recommended viewing as a genre action film about one ordinary man fighting the mafia in a storyline which is distinctly French and unassuming. Worth seeing.

The Peasants

Director: Dorota Kobiela Welchman and Hugh Welchman

Cast: Kamila Urzędowska, Robert Gulaczyk, Mirosław Baka, Sonia Mietielica, Cezary Łukaszewicz, Andrzej Konopka, Maciej Musiał

Running Time: 1 hour and 54 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Language: Polish with English Subtitles

Festivals: Toronto, European Film Festival

PLEASE NOTE THIS FILM IS ANIMATED.

Polish directors Dorota Kobiela Welchman and Hugh Welchman who previously brought viewers the adult animated Oscar nominated film Loving Vincent in 2017, have returned with a new film simply entitled The Peasants which takes place in a small Polish village Lipce at the beginning of the 20^th century and based on the novel by Władysław Reymont.

The gorgeous style of animation somehow amplifies the action and drama of this community story about the beautiful Jagna as she falls in love with a wealthy land owner’s son Antek.

Skilfully interwoven with polish folk songs, local gossip and conflict, The Peasants focuses on the bizarre love triangle of Jagna, a beautiful if slightly promiscuous young eligible lady who has an affair with Antek while in the process of marrying his recently widowed wealthy father Maciej Boryna. Antek is also married to Hanka. As the adulterous couple continue a scandalous relationship, the rest of the village soon discovers the ramifications of such an affair as a conflict with the landowner’s emissary soon exposes Maciej’s weakness and Jagna’s vulnerability.

Visually astounding and beautifully portrayed, The Peasants expertly uses a technique known as painted animation to tell the unbelievable story of the two lovers who defy a community and eventually ruin a family.

The directors use animation to soften the effects of such controversial themes as rape, humiliation and ostracism as they portray The Peasants as a lively yet gossip mongering group of villagers in a series of seasonal shifts depicting the gradual change in community relationships.

Interspersed with issues about land ownership, dowry negotiations and rural hardships, The Peasants has beautiful moments particularly the lavish wedding scene between Jagna and Maciej despite the controversial scandal which eventually unfolds.

Gossip becomes a weapon of exclusion in the case of Jagna who has to sacrifice her position in the village when all the secrets are revealed, exposing how little civil rights women had in rural Poland at the beginning of the 20^th century. Antek is revealed to be an angry farmer who is only after satisfying his sexual desires.

The Peasants proves to be a cinematic treat and a brilliant animated depiction of rural life in Poland incorporating all their customs, rituals and songs.

Dazzling and artfully executed, The Peasants gets a film rating of 8 out of 10. Recommended viewing for those that love quality animation and an imaginative folk tale.

Kneecap

Director: Rich Peppiatt

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Josie Walker, Jessica Reynolds, Simone Kirby, Naoise Ó Cairealláin, Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, DJ Próvaí

Running Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Language: Irish with English Subtitles

Festivals: European Film Festival / Sundance Film Festival / South by South West Film Festival

Warning: This film has rude lyrics and portrays copious amounts of drug taking.

Director Rich Peppiatt’s first full length narrative film Kneecap which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2024 and is an official entry for Ireland’s submission for Best Foreign Language film at the 2025 Oscars is certainly worth seeing. A frenetic film about the rise of the influential and detrimental Irish hip hop band Kneecap in which the band members play themselves in this fast paced quirky film about the rise of Irish hip hop on the streets of Belfast and is almost like Trainspotting but set in Northern Ireland.

Naoise Ó Cairealláin, Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, DJ Próvaí all play themselves as the tyrannical trio who preach the significance of hip hop in the Irish language, a form of subversive behaviour against the British and general normative society.

Luckily the film’s band members are supported by screen actors including a superb appearance by Oscar nominee Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave, Steve Jobs) as Arlo O Cairealláin, the mysterious father of Naoise. Simone Kirby plays the agoraphobic mother of Naoise, Dolores Ó Cairealláin who rallies her son’s interest through the hairdressing network in Belfast.

Set in West Belfast in the later 2010’s, Kneecap is an explosive and foul-mouthed portrayal of renegade lads whose drug induced rise to fame helped with huge doses of MDMA, ketamine along with other snorting substances.

Kneecap is anti-establishment and captured the zeitgeist of a generation of young Irish youths who wanted to stamp their own Irish identity on a country which is effectively still being governed by England.

Besides the misbehaviour and the rude lyrics, Kneecap is about the authentic rap music, which was always a style of music which was subversive, counter-culture and aimed at the underdog ready to attract the lunatic fringe.

With great performances by all the bandmembers and a stunning supporting role by Fassbender who is channelling all the Irish side of his German-Irish heritage, Kneecap is an insanely entertaining film about the rise of Irish language hip hop, the politicization of indigenous languages and how fame often immortalizes the miscreants of society.

Rich Peppiatt’s thoroughly entertaining and a visually impressive film, hugely inspired by Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, Kneecap is a must see film. Energetic and absolutely boisterous, Kneecap gets a film rating of 8 out of 10 and is highly recommended viewing.

The Other Way Around

Director: Jonas Trueba

Cast: Itsaso Arana, Vito Sanz, Fernando Trueba

Running Time: 112 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10  

Language: Spanish with English Subtitles

Festivals: Cannes Film Festival, European Film Festival

Madrid based film director Jonas Trueba presents an unconventional romantic drama The Other Way Around set in the Spanish capital. This slightly bizarre, self-reflexive film focuses on a hip young couple who work in the film industry who decide that it’s time to separate after being together for 15 years, a sort of conscious uncoupling, a term celebrity couple Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow (Shakespeare in Love) and Coldplay Lead singer Chris Martin used when they parted company.

The couple are Ale played by Itasso Arana and Alex played by Vito Sanz who not only tell all their family and friends that they are separating on the last day of the European summer, 22^nd September to be precise, but that in preparation for this event they are throwing a massive party. This would be an event celebrating their separation as opposed to them getting together.

Director Jonas Trueba presents a thoroughly bizarre comedy with lots of rapid fire Spanish dialogue in which both man and woman have almost an existential crisis in their relationship, the types of relationships so brilliantly portrayed in some of Woody Allen’s earlier films like Husbands and Wives.

While Ale and Alex prepare for their separation much to the horror of their friends and family, they inadvertently fall back in love with each other.

The Other Way Round is filled with European film references, however as a film which is nearly two hours long, the story doesn’t achieve any form of cathartic release and there is no sense of a neatly tied up plot, instead ending in a strange montage of what their separation party at Ale’s father’s house would have looked like.

Director Jonas Trueba’s film which was presented at the 2024 Cannes directors’ fortnight seems strange and slightly repetitive which was perhaps the point of the film, given the couple’s philosophical inclinations and their preoccupation with Danish philosopher Kierkegaard’s 1843 book Repetition.

The Other Way Around is a strange romantic comedy about how a couple decided sensibly to uncouple.

With a distinctly Spanish style, The Other Way Around is recommended viewing for those that like obscure European cinema.

The Other Way Around gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is a fascinating film, except when the self-reflexivity detracts from the narrative.

The Eight Mountains

Directors: Felix van Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch

Cast: Luca Marinelli, Alessandro Borghi, Elisabetta Mazzullo, Filippo Timi  

Running Time: 2 hours and 27 minutes

Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Language: Italian with English Subtitles

Festival: European Film Festival

Belgian directing duo Felix van Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch present the slightly long winded friendship film The Eight Mountains about two young boys who become friends in August 1984 and this film tracks their friendship as they grow into teenagers and eventually into adults.

Both boys are the only child of a family, Pietro Guasti and Bruno Guglielmina become firm friends as they spend the idyllic summers together in the Italian Alps. Pietro is a city boy from Turin with a strict father, Giovanni played by Filippo Timi while Bruno is a child of nature and literally the last child in the village, a remote place in the alps filled with beautiful mountains and stunning scenery but sparsely populated.

As the years go by, Pietro struggles to find his own identity as a man and has a fall out with his aging father although all the time attempting to be a writer and describe his experiences from mountain climbing to studying literature. Bruno just wants to remain in the same area and starts isolating emotionally as he attaches himself more to the natural environment.

Both men follow different dreams although as friends they unite to build a chalet in memory of Pietro’s father. This arduous task completed during the summer months cements their long-time friendship although soon love and self-exploration changes their dynamic. Bruno meets a lovely woman Lara played by Elisabetta Mazzullo and they have a child together, while he dreams of opening his own cheese making farm.

Pietro stretches his wings and travels to Nepal to climb the Himalayas and gain a perspective on his Italian childhood and the lost years that he can’t get back with his late father.

The Eight Mountains is a fascinating if slow moving story of the progression of a male friendship from boyhood until adulthood, all the highs and lows, the family tragedy and the complex relationships. Unfortunately with two directors, this film while interesting does suffer from a lack uniformity regarding cinematic vision.

With spectacular scenery and some insightful philosophical approaches to the fickle nature of human relationships, The Eight Mountains is a story of two men whose trajectories start the same but their destinies are vastly different.

Fortunately both Luca Marinelli (The Great Beauty) and Alessandro Borghi are excellent as the lifelong friends Pietro and Bruno. If audiences enjoy a slow burning tale of platonic friendship, then they will enjoy The Eight Mountains, an interesting story which needed to be edited properly and have a far superior soundtrack. This film’s soundtrack was completely incongruous with the narrative.

While the scenery is gorgeous, The Eight Mountains gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and the storyline needed more conflict to make this friendship narrative more exciting and humorous.