This Week’s Pick

“★★★★ – deliciously bonkers” – Observer. British writer-director Peter Strickland (Duke of Burgundy, In Fabric) returns with a satirical black comedy set at an institute devoted to culinary and alimentary performance. Attending a creative retreat at the institute, a three-piece band find themselves embroiled in power struggles, artistic vendettas and gastrointestinal disorders.

This Oscar and BAFTA-winning 23-minute gem of a black comedy tells the tale of two estranged brothers who are forced to reunite following the untimely death of their mother. Turlough (Seamus O’Hara) plans to send his brother to live with an aunt, but Lorcan (James Martin) refuses to leave the family farm in Northern Ireland until the pair have completed all 100 items on their mother’s unfulfilled bucket list.  

★★★★ – Time Out. Feeling the full weight of patriarchal familial expectations, Haider cares for his wheelchair-bound father. When he takes a job at a Bollywood-style burlesque theatre, Haider meets and falls in love with a beautiful trans performer, leading to a rift with his family. Pakistan’s first official entry to Cannes (where it won the Queer Palm) is brave, boundary-breaking filmmaking. Part of our Pride collection.

★★★★ – Guardian. Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic in her 20s after being dumped at the altar, Jane (Sally Hawkins) now lives in a well-ordered flat, occasionally seeing her mostly horrible family. Attending a mental health clinic she meets Mike (David Thewlis), an aspiring musician who opens her eyes to a new world of opportunity. Bold, inventive, and heart-breaking.

Director Sara Driver’s illuminating portrait of influential artist, musician, and poet Jean-Michel Basquiat blends drawings, paintings, and writings with archival film and photographs to reveal Basquiat’s early life and the influences that set him on the path to becoming one of the biggest names in the 1980’s New York art scene.

★★★★★ – a stylistically daring, emotionally piercing and beautifully understated tale of love and loss” – Observer. Paul Mescal (God’s Creatures) picked up an Academy Award nomination for his remarkable performance in this deeply moving BAFTA-winning drama. Reminiscing about a holiday that she took with her dad in the 1990s, a young woman tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn’t. A spellbinding triumph. MyPhoenix Members get 90 days FREE access to MUBI.