Festival Reviews
Top Picks From The Sydney Film Festival 2019 (Days 1-7)
Here are my favourites at the Sydney Film Festival so far. Watch out for them when they get a mainstream release.
Rolmar Baldonado
June 12, 2019
The recent Spanish Film Festival had a hefty 32 films as their offering. From this, I am picking 16 of them as my personal best of the lot. These films got my five-star approval rating so catch them when you can when they get a cinema release.
The following are the films ranked in order of preference.
THE SAME BLOOD (Drama/Thriller) – Takes the top spot. Really well-structured, sleek, unpredictable, dark family murder with a violent jaw-dropping ending.
THE GOOD GIRLS (Drama) – My second top favourite is a period piece from Argentina that is quite timely and classic. A well-explored downfall of its high society set.
BREAK (Drama) – Third spot goes to another Argentinian film on friendships, infidelity and examining the approaching midlife crises.
PETRA (Drama) – Stylish, great cinematography and an unpredictable storyline of a woman in search of her father.
VIRGIN AND EXTRA: JAÉN, THE LAND OF THE OLIVE OIL (Documentary) – Everything you wanted to know about Spain’s olive farming industry.
THE DAYS TO COME (Drama) – A riveting drama of a young mother’s actual pregnancy and birth.
TREMORS (Drama) – Explores Guatemala’s bleak, repressive culture against homosexuals and their own religious style of conversion therapy.
CHAMPIONS (Comedy) – Really funny take on disability within a basketball team competition.
BETWEEN TWO WATERS (Drama) – Languid, slow burn piece of the trying relationship between two brothers.
CARMEN AND LOLA (Drama) – A hidden lesbian love affair among Spain’s gypsy community.
THE QUIETUDE (Drama) – Dysfunctional family relationships tear apart a well-to-do Argentinian family.
HOPELESSLY DEVOUT (Comedy) – A dark comedy on Catholic devotion.
70 BIG ONES (Thriller) – Highly riveting bank robbery thriller that will keep you at the edge of your seat.
THE LONGEST NIGHT (Drama/Thriller) – A call girl gets involved with the bad elements.
MY MASTERPIECE (Drama) – This is for art lovers and those who create art.
CRIME WAVE (Comedy/Thriller) – A riotous sex comedy in this mother and son murder cover-up.
Hope you get to see all these diamantes preciosos. Viva las peliculas de España!!!
Here are my favourites at the Sydney Film Festival so far. Watch out for them when they get a mainstream release.
Nope, this is not a Magnolia ice cream flavour of the month. UNBREAKABLE is an epic-length Filipino-style melodrama about female bonding and friendship as it stands the test of time. The plotline is engulfed in tragedies and plot twists that encapture you as an audience despite the uneven subtlety at some points of the story. Nevertheless, there are enough dramatic moments and conflicts peppered throughout the film to keep you involved through its climactic end.