My Everything (Anne-Sophie Bailly, 2024)

Anne-Sophie Bailly's assured feature debut My Everything examines the difficulties faced by a fortysomething single mother, who sets about supporting her adult son as he embarks on the byzantine journey that is parenthood.  Written and directed by Bailly (En travail, Acte cent: la relève), the film presents a narrative that deftly intertwines gentleness with resilience, reflecting both the harsh realities of caregiving and the intricacies of a life-changing challenge.  At the centre of My Everything is Mona, portrayed by the superb Laure Calamy, best known for Call My Agent! and her César-nominated turn in Her Way.

The film follows Calamy's Mona, a woman working as an aesthetician, as she attempts to get to grips with the news that her son Joël (Charles Peccia) is to become a parent with his girlfriend Océane (Julie Froger).  The story unfolds with an apt sense of realism, as Mona struggles with the implications of both her own motherhood and Joël's impending fatherhood.  Joël and Océane, both living with intellectual disabilities, do their best to prepare themselves for the joys and worries of raising a baby, while Mona confronts her own fears regarding the complexities of parental love and responsibility.

The film sensitively explores the difficult issues connected with such a scenario, and Peccia, whose only other feature film credit is a bit part in Galatéa Bellugi-starrer Her & Him & the Rest of the World, gives a wonderful, nuanced performance alongside seasoned pro Calamy.  Belgian actor Geert van Rampelberg's role as Mona's love interest Frank adds another layer to the film, providing a perspective on the external influences that affect the family dynamic.  Filmed entirely in and around Dunkerque, My Everything sees Bailly fully exploit the Nord-Pas-de-Calaisian landscape's ability to convey various states of emotion.

Bailly's film also emphasises the importance of an inclusive narrative that acknowledges the experiences of all characters, especially those with disabilities, and it stands as a compelling examination of the human condition, familial bonds, and maternal love.  In other hands, My Everything could easily have been reduced to a rote melodrama, but Bailly's control and sureness of touch—along with the performances of Calamy, Peccia, Froger and Van Rampelberg—ensure that the film is never anything less than an absorbing, compassionate and plausible work, one that belies its director's relative inexperience.

Darren Arnold

Images: Les Films du Losange

BFI Flare 2026: The Stats

The 40th edition of BFI Flare, the UK’s leading LGBTQIA+ film event, closed on 29th March seeing a continued growth in audiences attending in-person events at the festival’s home, BFI Southbank. The 40th anniversary edition of BFI Flare attracted audiences of 39,405. This included 8,087 attendances for two special anniversary exhibitions and a documentary marking BFI Flare at 40. Over 12 days between 18–29 March, audiences enjoyed 65 features and 63 shorts from 48 countries at screenings at BFI Southbank. The festival hosted 31 World Premieres, 9 International Premieres, 11 European Premieres and 33 UK Premieres.

Over 250 filmmakers and their teams attended with guests including Pamela Adie, Celyn Jones, Callum Scott-Howells, Ruby Stokes, Louis Hynes, Tom Rhys-Harries, Hiroaki Matsuoka, Alex Burunova, Fionn Whitehead, Helen Walsh, Lorne MacFayden, Xiaodan He, A.P. Pickle, Richard Bernstein, Nick Butler, Noah Parker, Liza Weil, Kaden Connors, Douglas Smith, James Lewis, Lexi Powner, Friedel Dausab, Rosana Flamer-Caldera, Isabel Daly, D’Arcy Drollinger, Ethan Fuirst, Julian Lautenbacher, Daniel Ribeiro, Brydie O'Connor, Fabian Suarez, Juan Ramos, Todd Wiener, Ramiel Petros, Nicholas Freeman and Xinyi Cao.

World Premieres presented at the festival include Madfabulous, Celyn Jones’ quirky period drama based on the life of Henry Cyril Paget, the dancing Marquess of Anglesey, starring Callum Scott Howells, Ruby Stokes and Rupert Everett. Directed by Hiroaki Matsuoka, Beyond the Fire: The Life of Japan’s First Pride Parade Pioneer dives deep into Japan’s queer history, highlighting the incredible life of Teishiro Minami who pioneered the country’s first Pride march. Two queer best friends are forced to confront the gradual dissolution of their friendship when they go on an annual hiking trip in Ethan Fuirst’s Can’t Go Over It. 

The awe-inspiring 4K restoration of Pink Narcissus (1971) was also presented in the programme. Directed by James Bidgood, this milestone of experimental cinema and a landmark of queer representation, presenting the erotically charged dreamscape of a young hustler, is a celebration of the male body and has gone on to influence artists such as John Waters, Pierre et Gilles and Charli XCX. Once shrouded in mystery, this canonical work of queer cinema has been restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive. The Flare UK Premiere of the 4K restoration of Pink Narcissus coincided with UK-wide screenings of the film.

Source/images: BFI

Rose of Nevada (Mark Jenkin, 2025)

Mark Jenkin's new film Rose of Nevada is a haunting and atmospheric time-loop drama set in a struggling Cornish fishing village.  The narrative centres on the eponymous boat, lost with all hands 30 years prior, which mysteriously reappears, offering two young unemployed men—rootless drifter Liam (Callum Turner) and family man Nick (George MacKay)—the opportunity to crew the vessel.  Following their first fishing expedition, they return to shore only to discover that they have been transported back in time to 1993, when the seaside town was still thriving, and the pair are mistaken for the boat’s original crew.

This time-shift brings about a reversal of fortunes for the two men, at least during the periods when they are on dry land (though, in truth, there is little dry land in this rain-lashed coastal village).  In effect, Nick has lost his family, while Liam has suddenly acquired one.  This dynamic becomes a source of mounting tension between the pair, each of whom has a very different approach to the situation: as the brooding Nick squats in the empty house he will one day own, the blithely opportunistic Liam assumes the identity of one of the drowned fishermen and settles into his new domestic role alongside the dead man’s partner and child.

But their days at sea prove to be a great leveller, and the two men—freed from the complications of life in the village—form a capable team as they labour in perilous conditions to bring in the daily catch, urged on by a ghostly captain (Francis Magee) who reminds them how much those at home depend on their success.  Liam and Nick have been given real purpose, yet they cannot escape the awareness that a watery grave awaits them if events unfold as they did for the ship’s original crew.  The time-slip conceit recalls that of Jenkin’s excellent previous film, Enys Men, which similarly nagged and needled the viewer.

Rose of Nevada is certainly starrier than Enys Men, with MacKay and Turner both fully committed to this very singular vision, and it feels curiously enmeshed with its predecessor (the eerie mayday call heard in Enys Men hints at a link to the ghost ship at the heart of Jenkin's latest feature).  Set in a Cornwall where cream teas and second homes have been supplanted by food banks and leaking roofs, Rose of Nevada offers a commentary on the present from which its two protagonists are ripped—but it is at its most powerful when it unfolds as a Resnaisian meditation in which memory and the past are the prime movers.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI