French icon Juliette Binoche and Twilight star Kristen Stewart are two actresses you might not have thought would ever co-star in a film together, and yet in Clouds of Sils Maria they do a fine job of holding this overly talky French drama together. The film about an actress facing a transition in her career due to her age was written and directed by French director Olivier Assayas after Binoche challenged him to write a film centered on women. It’s a mature, beautiful shot film that explores perceptions of age, and while at times it’s a little ambiguous, you can’t miss the obvious – Stewart is surprisingly good in it, and Bincohe is the class act we expect. Clouds of Sils Maria screens on Saturday 30th April at 8.30pm.

Here are my other highlights for the week. 

French icon Juliette Binoche and Twilight star Kristen Stewart are two actresses you might not have thought would ever co-star in a film together, and yet in Clouds of Sils Maria they do a fine job of holding this overly talky French drama together. The film about an actress facing a transition in her career due to her age was written and directed by French director Olivier Assayas after Binoche challenged him to write a film centered on women. It’s a mature, beautiful shot film that explores perceptions of age, and while at times it’s a little ambiguous, you can’t miss the obvious – Stewart is surprisingly good in it, and Bincohe is the class act we expect. Clouds of Sils Maria screens on Saturday 30th April at 8.30pm.

Here are my other highlights for the week. 

The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared… Monday 25th April, 8.30pm

Based on the popular Swedish novel by Jonas Jonasson, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared is a dry and whimsical Swedish black comedy about the adventures of an explosives obsessed centenarian. Out antihero is a character called Allan Karlsson, played by the Swedish comic Robert Gustafsson who slips out the window of his retirement home on his 100^th birthday in search of adventure. The story also flashes back through Allan’s life, from his tragic childhood to his unlikely relationships with some of the biggest historical figures of the 20th century, such as General Franco, Stalin, Truman, Robert Oppenheimer and Ronald Reagan. Yes, Allan is the Scandinavian Forest Gump. Karlsson’s inability to comprehend the consequences of his actions makes him a hard character to like, and the film does ramble on a little too long, however, this absurd and satirical journey through history is marked with plenty of wit and hilarity. The film, directed by Felix Herngren, received an Oscar nomination at the 2016 Academy Awards for Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling, and rightly so. Gustafsson’s transformation throughout the film is remarkable. 

The War On Kids …Wednesday 27^th April, 8.30pm

The War On Kids is an up front documentary that looks at public education in America and explores the origin and effect of it’s zero tolerance policy on children today. Director Cevin Soling interviews educators, academics, students and medical professionals and makes the point that American public schools look more like prisons than educational institutions. Nobody wants to see another tragedy along the lines of the Columbine High School massacre, but Soling asks whether a zero tolerance policy and the medicating of students is the answer. Introduced by Judy Bailey for the series Rialto Presenters. 

Deep Web … Thursday 28^th April, 8.30pm
Deep Web explores one of the most important and riveting digital crime sagas of the century -- the arrest of Ross William Ulbricht, the convicted 30-year-old entrepreneur accused to be 'Dread Pirate Roberts,' creator and operator of online black market Silk Road. Ulbricht is currently serving a life sentence without parole and his trial has set an unnerving precedent for the future of technological freedom around the world. This documentary explains the origins of the Dark Web thanks to the creation of Tor and bitcoin software, and attempts to unravel the truth behind Ulbricht’s involvement in Silk Road. The film has been shot with the co-operation of Ulbricht’s family and friends, and features rare interviews with core architects of the Deep Web; the anarchistic cryptographers who developed the Deep Web’s tools for the military in the early 1990s. The film is the work of filmmaker and actor Alex Winter who made a name for himself as Bill in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and it’s not the first time Winter has delved into the digital world. In 2013 he directed the documentary Downloaded exploring the downloading revolution. What’s next from this versatile filmmaker? Would you believe it’s Bill & Ted 3