Following her win at South London Film Festival (Best Narrative Feature), we sat down with Writer and Director Julie Pacino to discuss her debut feature I Live Here Now. WARNING: this interview contains spoilers for I Live Here Now. Julie, thank you so much for joining us at Close-Up Culture. Did you just want to…

Some films ask to be understood, and some films demand to be felt. Julie Pacino’s I Live Here Now is firmly the latter. Pacino’s debut feature explores trauma, womanhood, and fractured identity through a blend of psychological horror and surrealism, combined with stunning visuals and stellar acting. At the film’s centre is Rose (Lucy Fry),…

Well, there certainly is a lot going on in the South Korean DMZ. After a decade away from feature filmmaking, Na Hong-jinhas returned with Hope, a film that asks a simple question: what if Jaws, The Wailing, a UFO conspiracy podcast, and a particularly aggressive Korean village council meeting all happened at the same time? The answer is 156 minutes…

It is a journey that thousands make each year, but it is rarely told with such humanity and vulnerability. Trapped inside the suffocating confines of a lorry container alongside dozens of refugees, Olly Ginelli’s The Long Spring follows siblings Arron (Warren Mendy) and Kika (Assiba Blejah) as they embark on a journey that promises safety…

We had the chance to sit down this week with writer and director Joscha Bongard to discuss his latest film Babystar, AI, family influencers and late-stage capitalism. WARNING: this interview contains spoilers for Babystar. CUC: Joscha, thanks so much for chatting with us at Close-Up Culture. Could you start by telling me a bit about the inspiration for the film?  JB: The initial idea came to me…

What if the answer to the climate crisis isn’t getting rid of cows, but learning to live with them differently? It is the provocative question at the heart of World Without Cows, a new documentary from journalist-filmmakers Michelle Michael and Brandon Whitworth. Filmed over 5 years and across 22 countries, the documentary journeys through cattle-producing…

The South London Film Festival opened its sixth edition this weekend at The Ritzy, bringing two very different programmes of short filmmaking to the screen. Across Saturday’s Official Awards Showcase and Sunday’s Behind the Smile Vol 1 programme, the festival presented an impressive breadth of work from horror to social satire, animation, documentary and more. South London Film Festival does not impose a single identity…

Everybody Digs Bill Evans may be one of the most surprising films of 2026. In this unusual and moving biopic, Grant Gee transforms Owen Martell’s 2013 novel Intermission into a nuanced film which avoids many of the clichés found in stories about troubled artistic geniuses. Rather than chronicling the entirety of Bill Evans’ life and…

We all have a film that we watched as kids and now can never watch again. There is a particular kind of childhood trauma reserved for films that were supposed to be fun. You sit down expecting talking animals, magical adventures and family-friendly entertainment, only to be confronted with volcanoes, demonic-looking witches, existential crises and…