Don’t miss! Four films for Tuesday 16 October

Journey to a Mother’s Room

Leonor (Anna Castillo) is keen to leave home. She’s just broken up with her partner and isn’t happy in the job her mother Estrella (Zama’s Lola Dueñas) has secured for her in a tailor’s workshop. She wants to escape the small-town mentality of southern Spain and experience the big-city life in London. But leaving her mother when they are both still reeling from the recent death of a loving husband and caring father is not easy. Whatever decision Leonor makes will have important consequences. Grounded by the two outstanding performances of Castillo and Dueñas, this highly accomplished feature delicately handles the challenges of generational difference in a close emotional relationship, where so much remains unspoken and nothing can be taken for granted.

Maria Delgado

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The Green Fog

From Bullitt to Jagged Edge, The Conversation to Blue Jasmine, the city of San Francisco has been a gloriously dramatic backdrop to many essential movies. No one film, though, dominates its iconography like Vertigo, from the rooftops to the redwoods – and not forgetting that famous jetty alongside the Golden Gate Bridge. The Green Fog plunges into the archives to create a step-by-step facsimile of Hitchcock’s masterpiece, cutting together moments from a multitude of films that have ventured to the same landmarks. An homage to a city and a devout act of cine-worship, this is a truly delectable experiment.

Tim Robey

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Eldorado

Contrasting current immigration policies with childhood memories of his family offering shelter to an Italian girl during the Second World War, Imhoof shifts between his reminiscences over old photos and letters, and dramatic footage of an Italian warship rescuing desperate refugees from the sea, only to deposit them in transit camps where they become easy prey for criminals who force them into slave labour and sex work. Are these immigrants, in search of their Eldorado, any different from European migrants of yesteryear who were driven by war and poverty to seek better lives on other continents? Is it fair that Europe continues to extract the wealth of Africa’s natural resources whilst denying entry to Europe for its people? These urgent questions are articulately presented through observation and personal testimony.

Christine Bardsley

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Chained for Life

Aaron Schimberg’s impressive second feature is his response, as a filmmaker with facial deformity, to cinematic portrayals of disfigured people, from Freaks to The Elephant Man. Simultaneously empathetic and sardonic, Chained for Life’s multi-layered meta narrative casts Jess Weixler (Teeth) as Mabel, a well-intentioned Hollywood star. She takes the role of a blind woman in a hospital-based horror movie about abnormalities, directed by an egomaniacal German auteur. As shooting progresses, Mabel gradually falls for friendly British co-star Rosenthal, played by Under the Skin actor Adam Pearson, who has neurofibromatosis. Writer-director Schimberg challenges you to think about representation and exploitation whilst refusing to offer up any simplistic answers, while also paying homage to previous film-within-a-film-practitioners from Fassbinder to the Muppets.

Manish Agarwal

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