DEFA was East Germany’s state film studio, operating between 1946 and 1992. Among its vast output were four lavish science fiction adventures, released between 1960 and 1976 and shown here in gleaming new transfers. Each one, to varying degrees, depicts the future through a rose-coloured lens, the world evolving into a utopian socialist paradise where disputes are settled peacefully.While Hollywood sci-fi films tended to resemble action-packed westerns set in space, these DEFA features are more cerebral and thoughtful. Their tone is closer to the humanist ethos espoused by Gene Roddenberry’s Read more ...

It can be reasonably argued that Mike Hodges, who died on 17 December, was the finest director of British crime films since Alfred Hitchcock. Though Hodges succeeded in other genres, his Get Carter (1971), Croupier (1998), and I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (2003) comprise an existential trilogy – and rumination on beleaguered masculinity – as potent as Paul Schrader’s “man in a room” series. In the spirit of Michael Caine’s Jack Carter, we raise “a tall thin glass” of Newcastle ale to Hodges and republish David Thompson’s 2020 interview with him.Mike Hodges arrived in Read more ...

It was inevitable that someone would soon tackle the question of how does Hollywood start behaving in the post-MeToo world, but few would have put money on a comedy drama starring Steve Coogan, the creator of Alan Partridge. But here it is, a whip-smart satire he co-wrote with Sarah Solemani, who also stars as Bobby, the indie filmmaker who is the polar opposite of his old-school (for which read, attracted only to women half his age) film producer Cameron.The neat contrivance that brings these two odd-bods together is when he hires her to detoxify a film he is making with Pierre, another Read more ...

Back in 1999, The Matrix offered something revolutionary. With a heady brew of William Gibson-influenced cyberpunk, Platonic philosophy and Prada, it proved that blockbusters could be both smart and action-packed. Remember those days? Two decades on, The Matrix films have been the subject of doctoral theses, inspired a new era of sci-fi's, video games, and spawned the idea we are all living in a simulation (it’s worth digging out Rodney Ascher’s incredibly enjoyable, A Glitch in the Matrix). Now in The Matrix Resurrections we return to the world created by the Wachowskis. Lana Read more ...

It all started so promisingly. Parasite's triumph at the Oscars was a resounding response to 2019's saccharine and problematic Green Book. Art house was in and here to stay. And in some ways, this came to pass - with cinemas caught in a cycle of opening and closing, the blockbusters were nowhere to be seen. Instead, it's been the indies and the streamers keeping us entertained through these days of isolation.This year's Best Of selection reflects the strange and diverse release calendar of 2020. Film has proved to be resilient, and a sparser schedule allowed for some hidden gems to shine Read more ...

So you want to be a TV screenwriter? You might do a lot worse than to sign up for Jed Mercurio's new online course at BBC Maestro, where over 28 lessons he explores the pitfalls and hurdles of a screenwriter's life, from the nuts and bolts of creating a workable script to ways of gaining access to the right people in the TV industry who can help bring your work to the screen.The Lancashire-born Mercurio knows whereof he speaks, as fans of his hit series Line of Duty and Bodyguard are well aware. He made his breakthrough into TV in the mid-Nineties when, as a junior hospital doctor, he was Read more ...

After Bassam Tariq's feature debut These Birds Walk was released at SXSW 2013, things seemed to slow down. The documentary about a runaway boy in Pakistan garnered strong reviews, but soon Tariq was working in a New York butchers pondering his career. However, the film did catch the eye of someone: Hollywood star Riz Ahmed. The two began talking, and realised they shared the same interests in heritage and generational relationships. And thus, Mogul Mowgli was born.In the film, Ahmed plays Zed, a rapper on the brink of international success. During a flying visit to his family home in Read more ...

There are films to meet every taste in theartsdesk's guide to the best movies currently on release. In our considered opinion, any of the titles below is well worth your attention.Enola Holmes ★★★★ Millie Bobby Brown gives the patriarchy what-for in a new Sherlock-related franchiseEternal Beauty ★★★★ Craig Roberts's fantasy conjurs surreal images and magnetic performancesI'm Thinking of Ending Things ★★★★ Charlie Kaufman's eerie road trip through love and lossLes Misérables ★★★★★ An immersive, morally complex thriller set in the troubled suburbs of present day ParisMax Richter's Sleep ★★★★ Read more ...

I’m Thinking of Ending Things ends in a giddying gusher of weirdness, the steady drip of earlier oddness finally bursting its narrative banks, till a horror scene becomes a Gene Kelly ballet, and an Oklahoma! tune is sung in bitter valediction by a male lead now resembling elderly Charles Foster Kane. It’s a Charlie Kaufman overdose, trashing convention to alienating effect. And yet this also stays his simplest chamber piece, about a young couple driving to meet the boyfriend’s parents in the country one snowy night.Later, you forget the first sight of Lucy (Jessie Buckley) as she lets a Read more ...

The master of crowd-pleasing comedy, Judd Apatow, returns with another on-brand tale of arrested development with The King of Staten Island. While it's near his signature anarchic charm, this comedy-drama shows that even a veteran director/writer/producer like Apatow has room for growth. Perhaps Apatow's development is down to his collaboration with 26-year-old SNL comedian and Staten Island native Pete Davidson, who combines his writing and acting talents to explore how he came to terms with losing his firefighter father during 9/11. Set in the working-class world of Staten Read more ...

The second half of Mark Cousins’ documentary on films by women filmmakers starts with religion; it ends with song and dance. This is a second seven-hour journey through cinema. It reconfirms Women Make Film as a remarkable feat of excavation and curation, as its twenty chapters showcase overlooked, excellent work by far-flung filmmakers. Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi and Wang Ping, socialist China’s first female director, are featured alongside film-school favourites like Denis and Akerman.The actresses Thandie Newton (pictured below) and Debra Winger are lead narrators now. Their Read more ...

A small-time heroin dealer harbours idealistic dreams of building a hospital “to help da limmless in Peshawar and Kabul”. This is the premise of The Book of Naseeb, the debut novel from Khaled Nurul Hakim. Perhaps audaciously billed as a “degraded epic”, The Book succeeds in what is an extremely ambitious undertaking, following its unlikely protagonist across the backstreets of London and Birmingham to motorway service-station toilets as he attempts to cash-in on his latest smack haul.That The Book should exist as a novel at all owes itself as much to chance as to Hakim’s dedication. Adapted Read more ...