Sebastian review – journalist turned sex-worker aims to turn side-hustle into art

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Ruaridh Mollica is very good as Max, a freelance writer with a secret app life in prostitution, but Mikko Mäkelä’s film is not clear enough about his motivations Sex work as a window into human nature is a longstanding theme in cinema, from Kenji Mizoguchi’s Street of Shame to Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, and onwards. It is intensified here by the fact that the protagonist Max (Ruaridh Mollica), who mines his side-hustle escort work for material, is also a writer. But this uneasy, self-regarding sophomore effort by Finnish-British director Mikko Mäkelä, never fully distancing itself from the narcissistic prism of artistic creation, only fleetingly makes contact with flesh-and-blood human truths. By day, Max is a freelance hotshot for London’s trendy Wall magazine; he has just bagged himself a sweet assignment to interview Bret Easton Ellis. By night he is “Sebastian”, a hot commodity on an app called DreamyGuys. Typically servicing the older gentleman, he turns his experiences...
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Mami Wata review – arresting, stripped-down Nigerian parable of of water and power

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Discontent stirs in a village that has rejected modern life to follow a faith healer said to be the representative of the title’s water spirit

This visually beautiful and charismatically acted film is a fierce expressionist reverie or parable of power, shot in a lustrous, high-contrast black-and-white by cinematographer Lílis Soares. It is the work of Nigerian director CJ “Fiery” Obasi, whose nickname makes an interesting elemental contrast to his movie’s watery theme. His storytelling urgency and stripped-down minimalism reminded me at various stages of George Orwell and Julie Dash.

We are in a west African village called Iyi, which has ignored the modern world of science and technology in favour of worshipping the traditional water spirit Mami Wata, through her intermediary and representative on Earth, faith-healer Mama Efe (Rita Edochie), to whom tributes of food and money must be paid. But Efe’s daughter Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh) is furious with her when she appears unwilling or unable to cure a local child, and there are rumblings of dissatisfaction with her power. Mama Efe’s other daughter Prisca (Evelyne Ily Juhen) is less critical; she is adopted, and is grateful to Efe for saving her from penury and death.

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