Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 75th Venice Film Festival, The Favourite is a lavish, hilarious period drama film from acclaimed director by Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster (2015), The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (2017)). With brilliant performances from Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman (who won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at Venice) the story focuses on the behind-the-scenes politics of the royal court during the reign of Queen Anne in the early 18th century. While England is at war with the French, the frail Queen’s closest friend and a new, extremely ambitious servant battle it out to be court favourites. (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

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›› ISSUE Feature: Interview with Yorgos Lanthimos on The Lobster

During his twenty-year stint as a photographer for the National Geographic Society, 300 of Nathan Benn’s photographs were published in National Geographic magazine and numerous books. His 2013 award-winning book, Kodachrome Memory: American Pictures 1972-1990, was published by Powerhouse Books and praised by The Wall St Journal as “timeless and particular.” Benn’s follow up,  A Peculiar Paradise: Florida Photographs, shows the photographer’s home state at the dawn of the 1980s, a time when Florida’s only true constant was change. Benn’s vibrant, idiosyncratic images reflect the charming—and sometimes dangerous— chaos of Florida at the time, a place that came to embody both the quintessence of suburban Americana and the depth of the melting pot, and the source of Benn’s own nostalgic longing. (PowerHouse Books)

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Winner of the People’s Choice Award at the 2018 Toronto Film Festival, Green Book documents the true story of a working-class Italian-American bouncer who becomes the driver of an African-American classical pianist on a tour of venues through the 1960s American South. Starring Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali, the film is racking up major award nominations, earning five for the 2019 Golden Globes. (Universal)

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Now That I Am Gone: A Memoir Beyond Recall takes morbid self-reflection to a strangely moving new level. The purported “posthumous memoir” details an everyman’s existence as it goes on without him: his wife, his friends, his dogs—they all navigate to fill in the empty spaces he has left behind, and old rivals swoop in to claim his spoils. The result is mordantly funny, bleakly beautiful, and warmer than you’d think.

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Based on the short story “Barn Burning” by Haruki Murakami, this tense mystery-thriller won the FIPRESCI prize for best director (South Korea’s Lee Chang-dong) at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, and is South Korea’s official Academy Award entry for Best Foreign Language Film. An acute observation of human paranoia, the film centres around Jong-su, a part-time worker, who rekindles a relationship with an old friend just before a mysterious—and dangerous— stranger enters their world. (Well Go)

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Loosely based on the infamous Argentinian serial killer dubbed “Death Angel,” this cautionary drama follows an innocuous-looking but deeply sinister thief whose lawlessness escalates exponentially when he takes up with a career criminal. Nominated for the Queer Palm at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, El Angel is splendidly paced and gorgeously photographed, a departure from the sparser nature of Argentinian director Luis Ortega’s previous films, and offers a meaningful reflection on how violence is glamourized on the screen. (The Orchard)

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Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Vera Sola’s timeless sound and enthralling stage presence draws an unlikely connection between British music hall and Depression-era spirituals. The LA-based artist, who played as a touring musician in others’ bands before finally releasing her own music, self-produced her debut album and recorded it using anything at hand. What emerged is a collection of ten finely-honed and carefully-rendered ballads. (Spectraphonic Records)

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›› ISSUE Feature: Interview and performance by Vera Sola.

Chicago-based synth-pop-punk-folk band Grapetooth are fast becoming known for the intensity of their live shows, and now they deliver their thrilling self-titled debut album. The duo behind Grapetooth, Chris Bailoni and Clay Frankel (the latter also plays in garage rock outfit Twin Peaks) create a refreshingly strange blend of doomy disco and woozy laments, writing songs about death, love, wine and even the movie Badlands. (Polyvinyl Record Co.)

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