MADDY THE MODEL – ★★★

This documentary should be celebrating Maddy’s mum more than Maddy herself. Maddy, who has Down syndrome, wanted to be a catwalk model, and her mother who is endlessly supportive, did what she could to help realise the dream. You can see that the mum’s expectations are reasonable, and she’s not a stage mum. But it’s a difficult situation that requires a real commitment and juggle. Congrats to Maddy’s mum for the hard work, and to Maddy for pursuing her dreams.

THE LETTER – ★★★

Maybe I’m hitting documentary fatigue. This film about an African community that appears to be suffering from issues around the elderly being accused of witchcraft and then attacked by machetes just felt a little but too surreal. At points it felt like a war of Christian beliefs vs Witchcraft, when both feel like the wrong answer in the face of science.

PERFECT 10 – ★★★☆

Mostly well excecuted British film about a young gymnast and her attempts to make sense of her place in the world. Her mum is no longer around, and her dad isn’t the most attentive parent. She meets her half brother for the first time, and starts dabbling into the wrong side of the law with his influence. Perhaps a little predictable in parts, but a nice enough story nonetheless.

LOOKY LOOKY HERE COMES COOKY – ★★★

Short, but reasonable documentary marrying the story of Australia’s ‘discovery’ by James Cook from the indigenous Australian perspective. This is worth watching in hearing about the continuing difficulties of the people who were here before colonisation, and the marrying of the stories to song was mostly well done. Recognising that something does need to be done, I’d like to have heard a little more about what can be done to improve the situation from the perspective of indigenous Australians, assuming that the issues have been heard.

SUK SUK – ★★★

An okay drama from Hong Kong about a couple of gay men hiding their true colours from society. Their story together is nice, but the film felt a little bit laboured and didn’t advance as much as I’d’ve liked. And it doesn’t really reach a conclusion of note.

PRAYER FOR A LOST MITTEN – ★★

Disappointing. I thought the idea of a documentary about a lost and found office at a train station would have interesting stories. This started there, and then went a wandering with several far too long jazz incidental scenes and rambling conversations. I feel like the filmmakers were trying to create a allegory to the concept of loss, but it just didn’t do that for me.

WELCOME TO CHECHNYA – ★★★★

Incredible documentary covering the efforts of a Russian organisation to help LGBT people in Chechnya escape from persecution. There were some pretty distressing scenes in this showing the treatment of these groups in Chechnya. It’s hard to believe that in 2020 this kind of bigotry and hatred can still exist. Please consider donating to https://outrightinternational.org to help make a difference.

CORPUS CHRISTI – ★★★☆

This Polish film sounded like its plot was similar to that of ‘Troubled Water’, a Norwegian film from MIFF 2009; in both films someone comes out of jail, and ends up trying to escape their past by becoming part of a church in a small town. (The former was by playing the organ, the latter, by pretending to be a priest). This one is apparently based on real events, and I thought it was very well done. It’s obvious that the character is trying to reconcile their past, and uses it to help provide good to a community that is still trying to come to terms with a recent tragedy. An excellent performance by the lead, too.

SWEET THING – ★★★☆

Nice enough (mostly) black and white film about a brother and sister going through a series of adventures when dealt a pretty bad hand when it comes to parents. Brilliant performances by the real life kids of the writer/director.