By Sofia Majstorovic “I’m gonna tell you this and then I’m gonna go,” says Carey (Adelaide Clemens), the reluctantly wistful protagonist of The Swearing Jar, Lindsay MacKay’s banter-laden follow-up to Wet Bum (2014). Carey’s ding-dong-ditch attitude towards her romantic partners manifests throughout MacKay’s sophomore effort via Adam Sandler-esque acoustic sets whose consistency counterbalances the film’s…

By Sofia Majstorovic “I never asked them to come here,”proffers Jael, a young woman from the Kenyan village of Kogutu, who quite literally becomes the child left behind in Sam Soko and Laren DeFilippo’s sprawling documentary Free Money. The clerical error that bends Jael’s fate over the course of four years of filming tacitly substantiates…

By Sofia Majstorovic “This snow just won’t melt away. I wonder what shame it’s hiding under it,” says Refik, one of many men whose bear encounter structures the rumour mill at the centre of writer-director Selcen Ergun’s debut feature Snow and the Bear. Played carefully and quietly by Merve Dizdar, newcomer Aslı (or “Miss Nurse”)…

By Sofia Majstorovic Not every Catholic parent is a transphobic mouthpiece for the Vatican itself. This is the simple but somewhat radical territory that Luis De Filippis’ debut feature Something You Said Last Night operates in. Trapped in their own sullenness, sisters Renata (Carmen Madonia) and Siena (Paige Evans) join their enthusiastic albeit financially strained…