This monthly feature offers an overview of what’s new on the big screen, spanning both mainstream and arthouse films across all genres while also revisiting titles from the archive of classic cinema.
Rich Flu
Written by: Pedro Rivero, Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, Sam Steiner, David Desola
Directed by: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia
Produced in: Spain, Chile, US
The core concept of this film is compelling: a mysterious epidemic with no scientific explanation, resembling a deadly strain of flu that afflicts only the wealthy. Its unusual symptom is the transformation of the infected person’s teeth into a luminous, blinding white, both radiant and lethal.
In a nod to the fear that surrounded the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected everyone whether rich or poor, the film flips the script, presenting a democratic virus that targets only the rich, who are depicted as showing no concern for anything other than themselves.
The story centres on Laura (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a business-class flight attendant who serves high-net-worth passengers between Barcelona and the United States. Before the outbreak, she was a diligent worker and part of the upper-middle class. Yet the illness causes her circumstances to change dramatically; she becomes unexpectedly wealthy as the pandemic spreads.
It forces Laura and her family (her father, teenage daughter, and mother) to journey from Europe to Africa, from privilege to hardship. Descending into poverty becomes the only way to survive. This is familiar ground for the director, who was behind the acclaimed Netflix production The Platform, in which he explored the notion of social justice and the pursuit of equality across the vertical hierarchy—or floors—of the platform.
In Rich Flu, Gaztelu-Urrutia attributes the world’s collapse to white Western greed, yet the film suffers from a weak screenplay. Penned by multiple writers, it feels fragmented and overcrowded with characters and subplots, some of which emerge in the first half only to disappear in the second.
If the film grips the viewer, it is through Laura’s journey to the Global South, peaking in a striking scene where she and her family—now European refugees—endure harsh treatment on African soil, a reversed act of retribution, exposing Europe’s narcissism and its unyielding stance on migration.
Perhaps the film’s most haunting and enduring image is its final scene, which extinguishes any lingering hope that humanity might one day rid itself of the curse of greed and the obsessive drive to possess at all costs.
The Monkey
Written by: Osgood Perkins (based on a short story by Stephen King)
Directed by: Osgood Perkins
Produced in: US, UK, Canada
This is one of the year’s most anticipated films, whether for fans of horror maestro Stephen King or aficionados of the genre more broadly, particularly given that its director and screenwriter, Osgood Perkins, is the mind behind Longlegs, one of last year’s most acclaimed American horror releases. Expectations were, therefore, high.
The film takes its title from a globally recognisable children’s toy: the wind-up monkey, forever poised to celebrate by beating its little drums. In classic horror fashion, however, this playful gesture is linked to death—one that strikes a nearby victim, sparing only the person who activated the toy.
The Monkey is split between two narrative worlds. The first half-hour is Stephen King territory, with its familiar motifs, like the fragile, bullied child named Hal, who unwittingly awakens malevolent forces beyond his control. Yet the film soon becomes Osgood Perkins’. Cue buried family secrets and Faustian bargains, as characters seek to deflect misfortune by inflicting it on others.
Bill, Hal’s twin brother (both roles portrayed by Theo James), eventually turns to the toy as a vehicle for vengeance against the life that robbed them of their mother, carrying out a string of macabre killings through the cursed monkey.
In Longlegs, Nicolas Cage delivered a chilling performance as a disturbing hybrid of man and demon. Here, however, there are few standout performances, perhaps save for the toy monkey itself, whose curse remains mysterious to the end.
Perkins has staked this film on a stylistic gamble: a horror film that satirises horror. The result is a series of blood-soaked, fantastical deaths that mock not only violence but also the boundary between the living and the dead.
The film feels caught between two creative visions, never quite settling on King’s vision or Perkins’. The result feels rushed, one produced with the box office prioritised over artistic cohesion. It could have achieved far more had the screenplay been afforded the attention it needed.
Sugarcane
Directed by: Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie
Produced in: Canada, United States
In 1894, the Canadian government began forcing Indigenous children into segregated boarding schools operated by the Catholic Church to address what colonial authorities termed “the Indian problem”.
One such school, St. Joseph’s Mission, located within the Sugarcane reserve (after which this documentary is named), was later found to harbour more than 200 unmarked graves of Indigenous children.
Today, a group of Indigenous Canadians, themselves survivors of abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy, are reopening the investigations into what happened, citing a lack of outrage or appetite to pursue justice at the time these graves were discovered, when “just another dead Indian kid” would have been a familiar refrain.
In making this film, Julian Brave NoiseCat—a young Indigenous Canadian and one of the directors—takes part in the state-led investigations in an effort to reconcile with a brutal past. He never attended these schools, but his grandmother did. It was there that she gave birth to Julian’s father, Ed.
Some members of the clergy sexually abused schoolgirls and boys. Children born as a result of these abuses were often discarded like rubbish. Abandoned, Ed miraculously survived, growing up knowing only that he was “a trash-bin baby”. Survivors now in their 70s and 80s still cannot recount their experiences without crying.
Yet the trauma did not end with them. It ripples through the generations, affecting even those who never set foot inside these schools. Julian wants to break this cycle and protect his own children from inherited pain. This means confronting the past: his fractured relationship with his father and his father’s even more troubled relationship with his mother.
Sugarcane communicates inherited grief without extinguishing the hope for healing. The camera stays intimately tied to the land, capturing its delicate beauty, whether in the quiet presence of two gentle dogs or in the joyous re-enactment of a sacred Indigenous ritual. Julian’s life, and that of his children, offers reason for hope.
Teta (Grandmother)
Written and directed by: Ahmed Samir
Produced in: Egypt
‘Teta’ is an affectionate term for ‘grandmother’ in many Arabic dialects, yet this film’s central theme is, in fact, motherhood in both its dark and light shades, covering tenderness to tragedy.
The story takes place entirely in a cramped apartment, where a pregnant single mother (played by Mona Hala) lives with her abandoned son (Shams Hijab). Struggling with pregnancy-related depression and recurring nightmares, she teeters on the edge, her waking moments increasingly blurred with dreams.
Her son, who at times is an added burden, is immersed in mourning following the death of his kind and affectionate grandmother, Teta, who had showered him with unconditional love. It is a mourning that he cannot fully comprehend.
Confined and psychologically detached from the outside world, both mother and son are ensnared in a state of emotional volatility that alters their grasp of reality, making their worldview appear uncertain through the eyes of the viewer.
To make sense of what he cannot understand, the son refuses to believe that his grandmother is dead but now lives inside his mother’s womb. When his mother scolds him or responds harshly, he surmises that she has swallowed his grandmother. In his child’s mind, the kind, nurturing mother has been consumed by the cruel one or entirely taken over by her.
He pleads with his mother to bring his grandmother back, insisting that her spirit still inhabits the apartment, yet she also has her own profound need for a mother figure, someone to accompany her through life and grief.
Was the grandmother as tender with her daughter as she was with her grandson? The film offers no answer, yet the young woman’s constant agitation hints at a more complicated, perhaps painful, relationship.
Teta is a film rich in symbols, details, and memories that combine to craft a haunting, contemplative viewing experience, one that lingers long after the credits roll.
Hard Truths
Written and directed by: Mike Leigh
Produced in: UK, Spain
Around 70 minutes into Hard Truths, its protagonist, Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), smiles for the first time; a brief laugh drawn out by her sister Chantal (Michelle Austin).
Pansy simmers with resentment towards the world, perpetually exasperated by young doctors, shopkeepers, and virtually anyone she encounters. She finds fault in others’ words or behaviour and can neither escape her own misery nor attain the happy life her sister speaks of, one reflected in Chantal’s affectionate bond with her daughters and the lively conversations she has at the local hair salon.
Pansy’s discontent seeps into her home life. Her son, Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), bears the brunt of her criticism. Unemployed, he withdraws from society. Her husband, Curtley (David Webber), who silently endures the manual labour that strains his ageing body, is resigned to his cold and tense marriage.
That late smile from Pansy therefore offers a quiet sense of comfort, as Hard Truths ultimately presents an intimate portrait of family relationships, anxiety, anger, and depression, not as isolated personal struggles, but as manifestations of a wider societal anguish reflected in its most fragile individuals.
The film is not without its lighter moments. Even Pansy’s daily outbursts draw laughter because they are predictable and free of genuine malice.
Director Mike Leigh chooses Mother's Day to offer a glimpse into Pansy’s relationship with her late mother, one marked by cruelty and relentless criticism that ultimately shaped her personality, yet all family members are shown as troubled in some way. As a result, we come to accept them as they are, accepting their imperfections, much like we do with our own family members.
A beautiful and intimate film, Hard Truths is noteworthy in part for the deeply nuanced performance by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, one fully deserving of recognition.
The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting (1983)
Screenplay: Assia Djebar, Malek Alloula
Directed by: Assia Djebar
Produced in: Algeria
From the archives, this black-and-white avant-garde documentary sets out to reconstruct the French colonialist narrative in North Africa in the early 20th century, using various photographs and footage of the Zerda ceremony from colonial archives.
From the earliest days of photography and videography, French colonial authorities captured the images and rituals of Indigenous Algerians to create their “propaganda,” to use the words of some. Yet this was a people and a land that the colonisers did not really understand.
Weaving together archival footage, Assia Djebar gives it a new perspective and a new narrative, poetically voiced, from the perspective of those being colonised, in both Arabic and French. At just under an hour in length, the film experiments with the constant interplay of images and the deliberate absence of a traditional storyline or plot.
It moves freely between Arab and foreign cities, repeatedly returning to linger on the faces of people, both young and old. One of the film’s most memorable and frequently repeated lines is: “Memory is the body of a veiled woman; only her unbound eye fixes its gaze on our present.”
The narration, paired with the high-calibre theatrical performances of a group of male and female performers, brings vitality to the film and helps shape its anti-colonial narrative through an aesthetic, subtly poetic language. Written words, whether in Arabic or French, become cinematic instruments of expression.
The scenes are from various Arab cities breaking free of colonialism, including Fez (1911), Tunis, and Cairo (1912). At intervals, the lens turns to Paris (the colonial power), offering another dimension of Algerian-French relations: the Algerian crops exported to France and consumed by the French and the French reliance on Algerian soldiers during the two World Wars.
Among the film’s striking visual juxtapositions is the inauguration of a mosque in Paris, the French voiceover asking: “What are they inaugurating, if not more misery?”
The documentary also features images of resistance leaders such as Libyan resistance leader Omar Mukhtar on the gallows, finally captured after fighting the Italian colonialists for 20 years. Whenever the emotional weight becomes too heavy to bear, the film returns to the faces of women in traditional dress.
Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting shows cinema’s power to serve as a contemplative experience—not only of history but also of the self—enriched by its distinctive and evocative soundtrack.
