Goodness gracious there’s a lot going on this month. The Festival de Cannes kicks off in just over a week and Rialto Channel is celebrating. Every night throughout May, Rialto Channel screens critically acclaimed feature films and documentaries that have screened in competition at Cannes recently, such as Oscar nominated films Mr. Turner, Timbuktu and Leviathan to name a few. Join me for Wednesday evening’s Rialto Presenters series when I introduce an eclectic collection of films from around the world that made a name for themselves at the Cannes Film Festival, including the beautiful The Assassin and this week’s cult horror hit It Follows.

Here are my highlights for the week. 

Goodness gracious there’s a lot going on this month. The Festival de Cannes kicks off in just over a week and Rialto Channel is celebrating. Every night throughout May, Rialto Channel screens critically acclaimed feature films and documentaries that have screened in competition at Cannes recently, such as Oscar nominated films Mr. Turner, Timbuktu and Leviathan to name a few. Join me for Wednesday evening’s Rialto Presenters series when I introduce an eclectic collection of films from around the world that made a name for themselves at the Cannes Film Festival, including the beautiful The Assassin and this week’s cult horror hit It Follows.

Here are my highlights for the week. 

Timbuktu …Monday 2^nd May, 8.30pm
Nominated for an Academy Award and winner of 25 international film awards, Timbuktu is a stunning drama from acclaimed world cinema director Abderrahmane Sissako.

The film centers on cattle herder Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed aka Pino) who lives with his wife and daughter in the dunes around the ancient Malian city of Timbuktu. Jihadis have recently moved into the city where they terrorise the locals with their stringent rules and violent punishments, and when an argument with a neighbour turns fatal, Kidane’s peaceful life is shattered. Timbuktu is an extraordinary film, one that attempts to show the reality of living under sharia law and jihadis rule in all its humour and horror. It’s a film filled with dread – you know when the jihadis get their act together horrible acts will unfold, and they do.
Currently Africa’s most prominent director, Sissako was born in Mali and raised in neighbouring Mauritania (where the film was shot), and both places are important to him. Originally Sissako had planned to make Timbuktu as a documentary, but realised it would be impossible for people to speak freely on camera. Instead Timbuktu is a moving cry from the heart as Sissako laments what has happened to his homeland and his religion. 

It Follows… Wednesday 4^th May, 8.30pm
David Robert Mitchell’s indie horror It Follows is fast becoming a cult classic. It premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival where a programmer introduced the film as “a blend of the atmospheric classic horror movies of Jacques Tourneur (I Walked With a Zombie) and the metaphorical coming-of-age elements of John Carpenter”.
After a sexual encounter with a young man, Joy (Maika Monroe) discovers a phantom monster that takes the form of people she knows or who represent her subconscious fears is stalking her. The monster walks slowly and constantly towards its victim with the intention of killing them, and can only be outrun or passed onto someone else via sex. It’s an original and unnerving idea that captures the feeling of near-constant dread, and Mitchell brilliantly executes it.
The film follows on from Mitchell’s gentle, rambling teen ensemble debut drama The Myth Of The American Sleepover. While It Follows might be a completely different genre to his first film, Mitchell retains the dream-like quality seen in The Myth Of The American Sleepover, and the result is a film that is timeless and placeless – it could have happened anywhere or anytime from the late 80s on.
The film is actually set and shot in Mitchell’s hometown in Michigan where he filmed in parks and playgrounds he went to as a kid. Not that it matters – his monsters can find you anywhere. This really is a wonderful respite from the predictable teen horrors churned out by Hollywood. 

Queen & Country … Sunday 8^th May, 8.30pm
This gentle, amusing dramedy is the follow up to veteran British director John Boorman’s Hope and Glory (1987). In Hope and Glory, nine year old Bill Rohan rejoices in the destruction of his school by an errant Luftwaffe bomb. Queen & Country picks up Bill’s story a decade later when he’s called up for National Service during the Korean War.
Bill, Boorman’s alter ego played by Callum Turner, does his six weeks of basic training, but instead of being shipped out to fight in Korea, he finds himself teaching new recruits how to type. Along with his trouble-making army mate, Percy (Caleb Landry Jones), the two regularly find themselves in trouble with their superiors Major Bradley (David Thewlis) and Major Cross (Richard E. Grant) mostly thanks to a series of farcical incidents.
As this is a coming of age story set in a period of post war adjustment, there’s also love and lust, and a multitude of slightly eccentric characters who are either desperately holding on to the past, or getting on with the future. Even thought it struggles to balance the humour and drama at times, it’s charmingly acted and shot, and works nicely as a pleasant and nostalgic period piece.