Review of Lute Como Uma Menina

Documentary about a wave of school occupations in Brazil in 2015 (the film was made in 2016), and screened by local radical youth group The RYSE.

The student strikers interviewed are all young women - there are some men/boys involved in the strike, but the film doesn't centre them. They're all passionate, articulate and thoughtful, and it's a joy to watch. Lots of surprises about corruption in the Brazilian school system, and the brutal response of the police.

Watched at the Trinity Rooms as part of Stroud Film Festival.

Review of Shoot The People

Another documentary in the Stroud Film Festival, this time about photographer Misan Harriman, who captures pictures of people engaged in protest. It was good, enjoyable and moving, though I did wonder whether - in the era of facial recognition - it's actually a good thing to put pictures of protesters online. Not a few were wearing masks, but not all of them. 

Misan Harriman is clearly a mensch - even though he's documenting the protests for Palestine he makes it clear he's not on the side of Hamas, or hostage taking, and he has lots of pictures of Jews protesting for Palestine.

Review of Santosh

Really good Indian film about a police investigation, in which the main investigators are both women  -because the case, which is about the rape and murder of a Dalit woman, is handled by a special women's police unit.

The younger of the police women is only in the force because she has "inherited" her policeman husband's job on his death, which seems like a very weird arrangement, but turns out to be a real thing.

It's a very hard watch, with lots of graphic depictions of police brutality, corruption and caste-based hatred. 

Reminded me again why I really don't want to go to India and experience the beauty and the culture.

Watched at Lansdown as part of Stroud Film Festival.

Review of Blue Has No Borders

Nice and rather beautiful documentary about the way different people in Folkestone have responded to the arrival of migrants crossing the channel in small boats, and featuring the documentary maker's attempt to get people with very different perspectives to talk and listen to each other. As the film unfolds there's a lot about identity, and belonging, and of course Brexit. At one point there are interviews (voice over only, we don't see the people talking) with French people about how they feel they've lost their connection with England, which had been important to them. 

The film was very moving, the more so because of the panel discussion with the director Jessi Gutch, who moved to Folkestone from London and spoke about how she'd set out to make one film (about confrontation with the far right) and found herself making another. The panel was chaired by one friend and included two others - I love Stroud.

It rather reminded me of another film from a couple of years ago - Seaside Special, about Cromer and how it processed Brexit.

Watched in Lansdown as part of Sroud Film Festival.

Review of Sanatorium

A really dismal and depressing documentary film about a crumbling sanatorium in Ukraine. Someone thought it was quirky and charming, but it's grim watching. A sanatorium is a weird thing anyway, a cross between a hotel-resort and a hospital, with lots of unpleasant looking treatments administered by weird overweight therapists using antiquated equipment that looks like it belongs in a steampunk movie. Mud baths, inside wrapped in plastic sheet, and outdoors in the shallow waters of a river estuary that is silting up.  The guests are mainly miserable - bereaved, ill, and overweight like the staff - though some of them cheer each other up occasionally. And all this against the background of the war with Russia - one of the guests is a recovering soldier with PTSD, one a bereaved widow, and there are frequent air raid alerts and trips to the shelters.

Watched at Lansdown Hall as part of the Stroud Film Festival.