LFF 2016 PREVIEW: THE ORNITHOLOGIST

'The Ornithologist offered as pleasurable and fully sustained an immersion in pure cinema as any film in [Toronto]'

Justin Chang, The Los Angeles Times

'The single most delightful and narratively adventurous movie I saw at Toronto'

Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

'The gorgeous, supremely self-confident film I always felt Rodrigues could do if he would only let go - and he did'

Jorge Mourinha, MUBI's Notebook

Joao Pedro Rodrigues ranks among the most popular though idiosyncratic filmmakers on the contemporary arthouse scene, and his latest film, The Ornithologist, has proved the value of that status. Since its Locarno world premiere in August, where it won JPR a Best Director prize, the provocative drama has built upon the strong impression it made with critics there with an equally well-received screening at Toronto last month. Its next stops are slots at Busan and New York, and at the London Film Festival too. One glance at Rodrigues' past pedigree and at a brief synopsis of The Ornithologist would be enough to convince you why it was one of the first films to claim a space in my 2016 LFF programme. Definitely among my most hotly-anticipated films of this year's fest.

LFF 2016 PREVIEW: AFTER THE STORM

'A characteristically gentle, affectionate and wryly amusing domestic drama from Hirokazu Koreeda'

Geoff Andrew, Sight & Sound

'It's hard to think of another filmmaker who maps the emotional landscape of divorce-torn families as precisely as Kore-eda'

Justin Chang, The Los Angeles Times

'[Kore-eda] remains one of the best filmmakers the world has'

Bilge Ebiri, The Village Voice

There's pretty much no getting past Koreeda Hirokazu as a director. Are there any others who command such a faithful following in the international arthouse community, in such large numbers, and do so with such a commercially viable style? And who manage such a feat making roughly a film a year? Keeping up with Koreeda is an easy task for film fans, however, given the consistent quality of his output. The latest is After the Storm, which opened at Cannes to typically good reviews in May and will make my LFF 2016 programme next month. The drama about a fuckup father trying to rebuild relationships with his family stands a firm chance at being one of my fest favourites this year.

LFF 2016 PREVIEW: MOONLIGHT

A singular piece of cinema

Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

[An] immeasurably tender portrait of a young black man struggling with his repressed sexuality over the course of three decades

Eric Kohn, IndieWire

There's not much more you can ask from a movie

Stephanie Zacharek, Time

Critics rarely react better to a film than they have for Barry Jenkins' Moonlight - the film sits, at the time of writing, at a Metascore of 100. It's this overwhelming wave of positive buzz that has seen this indie drama with a focus on minorities shoot straight to the top of many pundits' Oscar predictions, booking one high profile festival slot after another. Among those is a place in the 60th BFI London Film Festival next month, and Moonlight will be the first of 23 features on Screen On Screen's schedule. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to this one. Just a bit. Just an enormous, colossal, gargantuan bit. Released in the US on the 21st of October.