Don’t miss! Four films for Saturday 20 October

The Vice of Hope

Maria (an impressive Pina Turco) is a survivor. A tough young woman who lives with the memory of a terrible childhood incident and who has a dissolute family relying on her, she fights to keep her head above water. Living in a bleak neighbourhood on the outskirts of Naples, Maria is inextricably caught up in the prostitution and child trafficking business. Treating everyday horrors as a way of life, everything changes for her when she discovers she is pregnant. Following his impressive Indivisible, director Edoardo De Angelis’ latest is an all-too-credible drama, with Ferran Paredes’ cinematography evocatively rendering a haunting landscape. Imbued with poetic sensitivity and conviction, while conveying the desperate reality of these characters’ lives, De Angelis’ film offers hope of escape and renewal.

Adrian Wootton

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Mr Soul!

In the wake of the civil-rights movement, a TV show with a tendency to celebrate black artistry and black culture entered American households. Running from 1968 to 1973, SOUL! was both ahead of its time and – depending on the perspective of its viewer – finely attuned to it, giving centre stage to a wave of militant poets and intellectuals, dancers, soul musicians and African-American artists, including Sidney Poitier, Stevie Wonder and James Baldwin. The man behind it all was Ellis Haizlip, the gentle screen presence whose life and career are assembled here via excerpts from the show and present-day interviews. This fascinating and inspirational documentary is directed by Sam D Pollard and Ellis’ niece Melissa Haizlip, showing that talent can indeed run in the family. Mr. Soul! will have you dancing all the way home.

Ana David

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This Teacher

What horrors await us when we leave home, when we swap the bustle of the city for the silence of the remote? And what lurks beneath things unsaid? This is the murky world of Mark Jackson’s wholly distinctive character study. Gifted a ticket by her childhood best friend, Hafsia (Hafsia Herzi) arrives in New York with little money. Disoriented by the persona her friend projects to this world, French-speaking Hafsia impulsively books herself a remote cabin upstate. There, she is confronted by both conservative responses to her (foreign) presence and the unnerving solitude of her surroundings. A quietly unsettling flirtation with genre conventions, rather than a straightforward thriller, Jackson gently builds a multi-layered sense of unease, culminating with truly terrifying insights into the monsters within us all.

Jemma Desai

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The Prey

Hunting human beings for sport has been a fixture of exploitation cinema since The Most Dangerous Game in 1932. However, the latest crime caper from the insanely prolific Jimmy Henderson – who brought us the equally badass Jailbreak (LFF 2017) – gives this genre staple a barrel-kick to the guts. Chinese undercover cop Xin (Gu Shang Wei) is arrested during a raid on a gang he infiltrated, but handles himself well in prison. Unfortunately, he has been targeted by the corrupt prison warden (Only God Forgives’ Vithaya Pansringarm), who is in the business of inviting rich businessmen on human hunting expeditions in a nearby forest. In the meantime, the Chinese government has picked up on Xin’s trail, having found a signal from his GPS device. When the two teams unexpectedly converge, it’s just the beginning of a battle for survival.

Damon Wise

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