Annette
All cinemas, 3rd September. Written by Ron and Russell Mael of the band Sparks and directed by Leos Carax (Holy Motors), Annette is a musical fantasy about the collision between romance and ambition, passion and betrayal which is as flamboyantly operatic as it is eccentric. Adam Driver gives the performance of his career as Henry, a savage comedian with a cult following; Marion Cotillard is a celebrated opera singer. Their incendiary romance fuels numerous column inches on gossip sites. Their child, Annette, is a winsome creature with an angelic voice. Odd, beautiful, enraging, this is a true one off.
Wildfire
All cinemas, 3rd September. A pair of sisters in Northern Ireland’s border country are reunited after one disappeared into mental illness a few years before. Their reignited relationship is as close as ever, but some of the blood that links them is blood which was shed during the years of conflict in the country. It’s a bracing, unpredictable and satisfyingly layered drama, driven by the two extraordinary central performances from Nora Jane Noone and the late Nika McGuigan (in her final role).
Gagarine
All cinemas, 24th September. The (night) sky is the limit for this beguiling first feature, which starts out following teenager Youri’s crusade to prevent his home—Cité Gagarine, the Ivry-sur-Seine housing estate—from being demolished, but spirals into fantasy in the second half. Youri (impressive newcomer Alséni Bathily) shares a namesake with the housing complex: the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who is shown in archive footage visiting the estate, which really was demolished during filming. A fascinating, idiosyncratic charmer of a movie.
