Stephanie Brown

Latest Film Reviews

• 
  I'm People, I Am Nobody (2022)

  Review preview for I'm People, I Am Nobody

  Dragomirovic’s minimalistic setting captures the separation and struggle of Stevan and his loved ones.

  Documentary about Stevan, a 60-year-old, former porn performer from Serbia, who is awaiting the outcome of a Kafkaesque trial process in a Maltese prison.
• 
  The Man From The Island West (1991)

  Review preview for The Man From The Island West

  An interesting character study that observes the unreachability of inner contentment through the theme of existential suffering.

  Two men search for meaning in an impoverished coastal village in Taiwan, straying further from the community through their journeys.
• 
  The Sinners (2020)

  Review preview for The Sinners

  While the plot appears pretty simplistic, there is a subtlety to the way that Paige experiments with the narrative conventions that have been pre-established within the network of slasher compositions.

  An A-List Girl clique starts a secret cult where each of them must embody one of the seven deadly sins. They realise there's more to their small religious town when they start to go missing one by one.
• 
  Lapwing (2021)

  Review preview for Lapwing

  Lapwing is a gritty, dark, period drama with more bite than the setting suggests.

  In 1555 England, the love affair between an aphonic English girl and the son of Egyptians seeking illegal passage to Europe from a small community of salt farmers, brings a menacing enemy to light.
• 
  Lady Buds (2021)

  Review preview for Lady Buds

  For a documentary directly focused on the money side of the cannabis industry in California, Russo finds poignancy in the roots of the plant’s history.

  The story of six women who come out of the shadows of the cannabis underground to enter the new commercial industry in California.
• 
  The Blazing World (2021)

  Review preview for The Blazing World

  Despite its share of mismatched moments, Young’s feature has a lot of creative flair.

  Decades after the accidental drowning of her twin sister, a self-destructive young woman returns to her family home, finding herself drawn to an alternate dimension where her sister may still be alive.
• 
  Roots (2021)

  Review preview for Roots

  The stories within the film are deeply in tune with its tone, a mix of pensiveness, euphoria, melancholy and intrigue.

  Passengers travelling around the small town of Dvor that looks onto a vast forest, share different fragments of their lives, past and present.
• 
  Promises (2021)

  Review preview for Promises

  If Kruithof’s main ambition with Promises is to make audiences debate and ponder over the relationships between politicians and the public then it is definitely succeeds in its efforts to bring these puzzling and interesting topics to light.

  A mayor in the final term of her political career faces a choice between integrity and ambition.
• 
  Aya (2021)

  Review preview for Aya

  Once in a while a director like Gillard comes along as a reminder of the entrancing possibilities of cinema.

  Aya lives on an island with her mum and brother, as flooding threatens her house, Aya makes a choice.
• 
  Softie (2021)

  Review preview for Softie

  Theis approaches the coming-of-age formula in a refreshingly new way that focuses on the beauty of weakness.

  Things change for a sensitive youngster from a deprived area after a new teacher takes over his class.