50/50 by Jonathan Levine

This is a Christmas tale.

Some called the film pretentious, I would call it hopeful.

It depicts a painful and long way of a 27-year old journalist who finds out he has a 50/50 chance of survival and suffers from a rare type of cancer located near his spine. The story seems very true and is marvellously balanced between bitter and sweet aspects of everyday life, relationships, friendship, parent-child dependency as well as doctor-patient rules.

A beautiful tale of reaching the stages of denial, shock, acceptance of asking the questions – what if today was your last day? How would you live it, what would you do? Whom would you call?

Evenly paced, the film grasps the attention and emotions, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character is magnetic and the supporting roles fall into his shadow not too far, just the right amount of distance to show his loneliness and their efforts to support him.

Great cinema touching upon important matters such as cancer, death, human relationships.

A Separation by Asghar Farhadi

Brilliant. Important. Well filmed. Fantastically directed, with impeccable acting. Convincing, touching, real.

One of those films that show us how little we know about other countries, other cultures, how different and yet how similar their every day lives are.

The kind of cinema that grabs you by the throat and will not let go for a long time.