TICKLED ★★★☆ 

I was told that the less you know about this film before you see it, the better, so I’ll say little about it. The documentary is about competitive tickling, but furthermore about what happened to the film makers when they wanted to make a film about it. Check it out if you can. I felt my heart racing at points as the story unfolded. 

INDIGNATION ★★★★

Surprise of the festival, so far. Before I went into this, I re-read the synopsis and couldn’t remember why I’d picked it. I was wondering if I’d possibly made a mistake and booked it accidentally. Anyway, I’m so glad I made it because Indignation has been one of my festival favourites this year. It’s a love story set in the early 1950s about a young jewish man from New Jersey entering college in Ohio, and his relationship with a student there who’s had some difficulties in her past. It deals with a variety of topics and interrelationships, sons and parents, men and women, students and educators. The final scene made my eyes water a little bit. Wonderful.

LOUIS THEROUX: MY SCIENTOLOGY MOVIE ★★★

As expected, Louis provided an entertaining look at a scary/weird ‘religion’, whom I have very little time for. The thing is, *EVERYBODY*’s been doing these investigations for a while now. Lots of people have written books about how scientology is full of freaks. Lots of people have done documentaries about how scientology is full of freaks. Lots of people have run websites about how scientology is full of freaks (and then they proved it by chasing and harassing the hosting provider of one of them. At one point in this film, one of the ex-scientologists refers to another saying that he knows where the dead bodies are. Where were they? Tell us something new Louis, or at least uncover something that warrants this being a cinema release rather than a two part TV documentary. Anyway, it wasn’t a *bad* film, though it did seem to kind of just end without resolving anything. I enjoyed it, I just wanted it to be more.