Phil on Film

After the commercial and critical disappointment of his 2011 mystery The Woman in the Fifth, Pawel Pawlikowski responded by going back to basics. Shooting for the first time in his native Poland, the director made Ida, an 80-minute film about a young...

The London Festival is almost upon us again, and the announcement of the full programme this week means I have spent the last few days with my nose buried in the catalogue, marking films to look out for amid the 248 features that the festival contains...

Victim begins as a mystery, and it takes a little while to reveal its hand. Jack Barrett is a young man working on a building site who freezes with fright when sees the police arriving and making enquiries, and flees from the scene. He has an anxious...

Although the large head worn by Michael Fassbender in Frank will look familiar to many viewers in the UK, Lenny Abrahamson's new film is far from the portrait of Frank Sidebottom that those viewers might expect it to be. Chris Sievey's comic creation...