Yet another astonishing Brazilian film. We’re in dystopian reality in which the elderly are taken away to ’the colony’ - from which they never return. But somehow this sidesteps all the familiar dystopian vibes and is just an incredible journey through a rural Brazil, full of interesting characters.

Just… don’t drop the goo from the blue drool snail in your eyes, okay?

The second part of the Grace Glowicki double bill is even weirder. Taking inspiration from Frankenstein and German Expressionist cinema, this is a bonkers little feature.

We join our lonely gravedigger - unable to find a lover because she just smells too much of death. The next hour and half is a bonkers journey involving fights with wolves, sea journeys, gossiping locals, growing roses, growing people (!) and, of course, some lightning-based reanimation.

It’s quite wonderful.

The first part of a Halloween Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie double bill, Honey Bunch is one of those tense horror-thrillers that does a lot with a little. A cast of barely more than 6 people. A single location (creepy old house, now eccentric rehabilitation centre, natch). Bonus points for actors playing more than one role.

The experimental-cure that’s a-bit-more-creepy-than-you-first-expect is well trodden ground, and I don’t think I’d claim Honey Bunch does anything terribly unexpected: we’ve seen most of these characters and locations before, but it does its thing with conviction and is a fun watch. Always at risk of veering into being a little campy horror (the dour nurse, the intense husband - there are touches of League of Gentlemen) but they manage to keep it surprisingly straight-faced, even as the plot gets weirder.

Bechdel pass too!

My first film of LIFF2025 is an interesting one. I don’t know director Paolo Sorrentino particularly well but this is a slow paced study of an unusual life. We join the president of Italy, still mourning the death of his wife, and muddling through the last days of his administration. He’s much respected. He’s made it to where he is by being slow, methodical and precise. Or, less favourably, by avoiding taking any difficult decisions. He’s earned his nickname of “reinforced concrete”.

What follows is a character study of the president. We see him bickering with old friends and his daughter, chatting with the pope, nodding away furtively to hip-hop (despite protesting how much he detests modern music) and furtively smoking endless cigarettes on the roof.

It’s thought provoking and very human. Much of the time, I think I’d find it too slow and open-ended but settled into the cinema for the start of the festival, it felt like a good way to start.

It’s that time again! Armed with 30+ tickets (ok, we’ve scaled back a bit in recent years) and a pencil-marked festival programme, I’m about to take a week off work to do very little except sit in a dark room and watch films. I can’t wait.

I’ve already forgotten what I’ve got picked out but that shouldn’t matter. There’s a big and varied list of stuff - from horror to animation to classic to downright weird. Let’s go!