If, like me, you were a particularly lonely, bookish and internet-savvy teenager, you may already be familiar with the concept of fanfiction, in which keen fans pen their own stories revolving around the characters, settings or general lore of a certain pop culture artefact. Fanfiction has been around for decades – in fact, some cooler youth pastors might even refer to the Bible as fanfiction – but the medium really took off with the dawn of the internet, (Star Trek is widely credited with being a keystone fandom) with websites like FanFiction.net, WattPad and AO3 becoming popular hubs for w ..read more

David Leitch got his Hollywood start working in stunts – notably doubling for Brad Pitt in Fight Club and later coordinating on films including X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Tron: Legacy. There’s no doubt that Leitch is exceptionally good at this, and stunt work is something he’s always been extremely keen to champion since his ascent as a filmmaker began when he co-directed John Wick. Leitch has been one of the most vocal advocates for a stunt category at the Academy Awards, and across his filmography the action scenes are reliably the best part of anything he makes. It was only a matter of ..read more

As the camera sweeps over a glittering party scene in Emerald Fennell’s sensation Saltburn – the one where Barry Keoghan sports antlers and Jacob Elordi wears angel wings – we hear the shrill hook of Mason and Princess Superstar’s “Perfect (Exceeder)”. “1-2-3-4, let me hear you scream if you want some more!” – the lyrics, paired with the heavy punch of the beat, gesture toward the film’s depictions of bacchanalian excess. Soon after the film’s release, the 2006 dance classic shot back into the UK and US charts, while on Spotify, the number of monthly listeners for Princess Superstar jumped a ..read more

Elene Naveriani’s delightful, eccentrically-titled Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry offers a celebration of the fact that we are all masters of our own destiny, even when hampered by fear, self-loathing and even an arrogant belief that a decision made in the past shall forever strand in the changeable present. Eka Chavleishvili stars as Etero, a curmudgeonly grocery shop owner and a sad-sack rock of the local community, who due to a near-death experience while blackberry picking, suddenly decides to neglect her 40-plus year stretch of militantly self-imposed sexual abstinence and engage in a s ..read more

Nezouh means displacement in Arabic. This three-syllable word denotes a situation where someone is forced to leave their home. It’s an unfathomable term for Motaz (Samir al-Masri), who lives in a ravaged Damascus neighbourhood with his wife Hala (Kinda Alloush) and 14-year-old daughter Zeina (Hala Zein), and refuses to abandon his home as militants close in during the Syrian civil war. Syrian filmmaker Kaadan’s second feature is less about war and more about a lost childhood. It opens with a shot of Zeina cramped under her bed, drawing flowers on her walls, before hurriedly scurrying out whe ..read more

Of all the powerful scenes I saw at the cinema in 2023, there is one that has truly stuck with me. It’s not from an award winner, blockbuster, or similar critical darling – the moment occurred during the sports documentary Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Edge of Everything. Film fans may be forgiven for not having caught The Edge of Everything, not least because it is a documentary about snooker, but also – fittingly for a subject nicknamed ‘The Rocket’ – since it had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cinema presentation before quickly landing on streaming. As a snooker fan old enough to have witnessed O’Su ..read more

After achieving critical acclaim for her breakout debut Saint Maud, Rose Glass teamed up with Kristen Stewart for a rough-n-ready romp in the New Mexico desert. The result is Love Lies Bleeding – a thriller about girls and guns, both the literal and metaphorical kind. LWLies: There’s a real ‘midnight movie’ feel to Love Lies Bleeding – like the sort of thing that you’d stumble across as a teenager on late-night television that would change your entire world. Are there any films that felt like that for you when you were younger? Glass: Yeah, loads, but they sort of fell into different categori ..read more

At the climax of David Fincher’s Gone Girl, in a confrontation with her husband after her carefully constructed mask has peeled off, Amy Dunne utters the immortal line, “I’ve killed for you. Who else can say that?” The same sentiment runs through Rose Glass and co-writer Weronika Tofilska’s lead-filled Love Lies Bleeding, about two women on a quest to prove their devotion. Through a sheen of sweat, blood and steroids, the all-consuming impact of Lou (Kristen Stewart) and Jackie’s (Katy O’Brian) whirlwind romance will have lasting consequences on the New Mexico dustbowl town that Lou’s bug-ob ..read more

On the opening night of Queer East Film Festival’s fifth edition, I can see faces old and new from the past few years as we gather for A Song Sung Blue at the Barbican, a coming-of-age film set in Harbin in China exploring a younger teenage girl Xian’s infatuation with Mingmei, a modern femme fatale. The festival director, Yi Wang, says, “I felt like this was the perfect opening film, as it reflects our current state, as Queer East is also in its coming-of-age.” The debut film led by a female team – director Zihan Geng and Jiayue Hao creates the dreamy but gritty atmosphere of Harbin in the ..read more

Nezouh means displacement in Arabic. This three-syllable word denotes a situation where someone is forced to leave their home. It’s an unfathomable term for Motaz (Samir al-Masri), who lives in a ravaged Damascus neighbourhood with his wife Hala (Kinda Alloush) and 14-year-old daughter Zeina (Hala Zein), and refuses to abandon his home as militants close in during the Syrian civil war. Syrian filmmaker Kaadan’s second feature is less about war and more about a lost childhood. It opens with a shot of Zeina cramped under her bed, drawing flowers on her walls, before hurriedly scurrying out whe ..read more