Film round-up: October 1, 2026

MARIA DUARTE, JAMES WALSH and ANGUS REID review Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, The Weight, The Portuguese House, and Child

Book Review / 29 September 2026 The Long Version: the superb portrait of a middle-aged feminist 29 September 2026 HELEN VASSALLO explores a brilliant and anarchic novel that situates its gutsy protagonist between tradition and radicalism

TONY BURKE speaks to Clotilde Rullard Nacoulma and Achille Nacoulma of the band Kananaye from Burkina Faso

MARK TURNER points to the paradoxical pleasures and glaring omissions provided by contemporary ‘tribute’ jazz performances

DAVID NICHOLSON enjoys a tragic view of the artist’s life by a company hit by redundancies, industrial action and public protests

PETER MASON is impressed by the political charge of Sting’s musical tale of shipyard closure

IN August 2022, 33 years after Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses, the writer was brutally stabbed by a 24-year-old man just as he was about to deliver a lecture.

This powerful and intimate documentary by Alex Gibney is an extremely hard watch as it features Rushdie’s recovery in hospital in the aftermath of his attack. The never-before-seen footage was shot by Rushdie’s wife, the US poet, novelist and visual artist Rachel Eliza Griffiths, who documented his rehabilitation in graphic detail. It pulls no punches showing all his injuries up close, including his damaged right eye.  

The film, written and narrated by Rushdie, is based on his memoir, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder. It starts with a re-enactment of his assault in which he was stabbed 15 times in 27 seconds.

It examines his life and career as well as the furore caused by the publication of The Satanic Verses, and the global protests that called for his immediate demise. The archival footage is interwoven with video of his stay in hospital, depicting his remarkable recovery.

It is an extraordinary story of survival. As the actual stabbing is shown from numerous angles it does beg the question where the security was, and how Rushdie is very lucky to be alive.

But be warned: contains graphic footage.MDIn cinemas now.

SET in 1933, in Oregon during the Great Depression, this intense and gripping thriller follows a desperate father who is torn from his young daughter and is sent to a brutal work camp.

It stars Ethan Hawke as the single dad who is jailed and is offered the chance of early release by the camp’s Warden Clancy (Russell Crowe) if he smuggles gold through a deadly wilderness with the aid of three other inmates.

It is a gruelling journey, with Bavaria doubling up for Oregon, in this solid drama elevated by Hawke’s electrifying performance and Padraic McKinley’s assured direction in this his debut feature.  

Beautifully acted and stunningly shot I found it worthy but very predictable. MDIn cinemas October 2.

“ALL the good houses have their ghost.” The Secret Garden meets The Talented Mr Ripley in this gentle if slightly preposterous drama about identity, the concept of home, and how easy it is to disappear.

It stars Manolo Solo, who truly is a man alone as Fernando, a disaffected geography professor lost in the city. His wife returns to Serbia without a word, and his new friend dies of heart failure soon after telling of his plan to work as a gardener at an old Portuguese quinta.

First, Fernando drinks the dead man’s coffee, and then he takes on his job and his planned-for life in the Portuguese countryside, where the estate’s owner, the beautiful Amalia, has secrets of her own.

Solo, who sadly died earlier this year, is compellingly inscrutable as the lead, but this is no tense thriller. It’s more a meandering contemplation of the concept of belonging, with some beautiful scenery to offset the occasionally unconvincing narrative and character choices.JWIn cinemas October 2.

WITH a child in hospital, two guilt-stricken parents (Malik Zidi and Brigitte Urhausen) make the dash, with a bootful of petrol and cash, from the sterile grey-blue of a hospital in Luxemburg to the muddy hues of Albania — all abandoned industries and woody ravines — to buy their kid a harvested organ.

How do we even know it is Albania? Simply from the language on the fading posters: “Femijet E Humbur,” “Lost Children.”

The tightly wound outrage that propels Cyrus Neshvad’s debut feature takes aim at the callous disregard for life of capitalism — if there is a market, then unscrupulous criminality will fulfil its demands — and the film plays brilliantly on the notion of the Balkans as Europe’s dark twin, a civilisation gone to ruin and populated with a monstrous, supernatural irrationality.

The suspense and the shocks are genuinely gripping and the outcome is bleak, but the sense of a genuine social context maintains the moral compass and delivers an intensely memorable film.ARIn cinemas October 2.

Cinema / 24 September 2026 Film round-up: September 24, 2026 24 September 2026 MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Heart of the Beast, Sense and Sensibility, Babystar, and Boorman and the Devil

Cinema / 2 April 2026 Film round-up: April 2, 2026 2 April 2026 LEO BOIX, ANGUS REID and MARIA DUARTE review Night Stage, Two Women, Kim Novak’s Vertigo, and Fuze

Cinema / 19 December 2025 Film round-up: December 19, 2025 19 December 2025 ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review The Six Billion Dollar Man, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Goodbye June, and Super Elfkins

Cinema / 4 December 2025 Film round-up: December 4, 2025 4 December 2025 LEO BOIX, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review Dreamers, It Was Just An Accident, Folktales, and Eternity