Shabana Mahmood has said she finds it “deeply offensive” when MPs quote Tommy Robinson at her in the Commons, after the far-right activist backed the government’s sweeping asylum reforms. Asked about ...

Contrasting locations of Tokyo and Manila form part of Lily Franky’s journey in search of happiness after a couple of sad events touch his life. Janus Victoria’s feature debut Diamonds in the Sand is in competition for the Sutherland Award at London Film Festival. Salaryman Yoji (Lily Franky) works in a soulless office, is divorced and lives alone, and occasionally visits his ailing mother in her care home.

This love story, encompassing a relationship over decades in Beirut, is at times funnier than you would expect, but also very touching, and grounded in reality. In fact, A Sad and Beautiful World m…

A glorious Carmen Maura stars as an older woman who refuses to be dictated to by her daughter when money becomes an issue. Set in the well-established Spanish community of Tangiers, Morocco, Calle Malaga is touching, funny and sad, and gives an older woman agency at the centre of her own story. It’s a delight to have seen two films this LFF which both feature older women taking control of their lives and not fading into old age just because it suits others or is expected of them – the other being the previously reviewed…

A broken family and an emotionally broken young woman are brought together following an accident, and lives start to be rebuilt - until the truth emerges. Christian Petzold’s new offering Miroirs no.3 plays at London Film Festival 2025. Barbara Auer, Paula Beer, Mathias Brandt, Enno Trebs - it must be the next Christian Petzold film. Petzold is known for having an ensemble of actors with whom he likes to work repeatedly, and…

Based loosely on writer/director Carla Simón’s own search to discover something about her deceased parents’ lives in 1980’s Spain, Romería is a fascinating story of family secrets, half-truths, and the issues arising for Spain after Franco. It’s 2004, and in order to apply for a university scholarship, Marina (Llúcia Garcia) is in need of documents pertaining to her biological parents, both of whom died when she was a baby in the mid 1980’s.