Cinerama Capsule is a live blog featuring quick-read film reviews of new and classic releases in theatres and on digital.
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The Activist ‘Aktyvistas’ (2026)
Director: Romas Zabarauskas
Writer and director Romas Zabarauskas has offered us some truly engaging and fascinating movies exploring the gay experience over the years, from an exploration of immigration and identity in The Writer, to the knotty drama The Lawyer, where sex, power and position took centre stage. The Activist is another knotty and at times thrilling tale of the rise of far-right extremism in Europe, and an LGBTQ+ community pushed further and further toward the edges of society.
Set in Lithuania, a country where LGBTQ+ rights are often stuck between the conservatism and suppression of the past and its relatively new European identity, Zabarauskas introduces us to Deividas (Elvinas Juodkazis), who leads Rainbow Kaunas, an LGBT+ rights organisation looking to organise the first pride march in the city and his boyfriend Andrius (Robertas Petraitis), a man who prefers to stay out of the limelight. As Deividas attends a government event celebrating Pride Month, it’s clear that Kaunus is a city divided. And as right-wing protestors mingle with extreme right activists, events soon turn nasty. But that protest is just the beginning of the horrific events about to unfold; events that will see Deividas killed in their apartment and Andrius determined to find his killer, even if that means infiltrating the far right.
Romas Zabarauskas’ classic noir thriller holds moments of brilliance as Andrius navigates a web of intrigue, lies and political manoeuvres that extends not only into the dark corners of far-right groups springing up across the city, but also into Rainbow Kaunas itself. There is a series of fascinating discussions that lay bare how political extremism has engulfed our society, on both the left and the right, and how polarisation has increased the risks we all face in navigating a divided world. However, the runtime never truly allows all these discussions to reach their full potential, leaving us with a story that feels underbaked as we near the knotty conclusion. The Activist often feels like it would have been better suited to an episodic drama, where themes had the space to breathe, and characters had time to develop fully.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to love in Zabarauskas’ film, or that the bravery of his choice of subject matter doesn’t deserve praise. But as the credits roll, many of you, like me, will no doubt feel this noir thriller, led by the brilliant Robertas Petraitis, rushes toward a conclusion rather than taking its time to unpack the urgent discussions at its core fully.
Brave the Dark (2025)
Director: Damian Harris
The scars and trauma of domestic abuse run deep in Damian Harris’s (brother of Jared) Brave the Dark. Based on the true story of Nathan Cole (now Deen), played by Nicholas Hamilton, and his Pennsylvanian high school teacher, Stan Deen, played by Jared Harris, Brave the Dark is reminiscent of a slew of ’90s matinee flicks that explore the ‘Good Samaritan’ story in small-town America.
Hailing from Angel Studios, which brought the world the highly evangelical Sound of Freedom, Brave the Dark is a welcome shift in focus, as religious ideology takes a backseat to the power of the individual to create hope and change.
In recounting the story of Nate (Nathan), his troubled adolescence following years in care, his traumatic childhood and the loving teacher Stan Deen who takes him under his wing, Brave the Dark offers us all the ingredients found in the classic Hallmark movie. It’s predictable, comforting, simple, and built on emotion; were it not for Jared Harris and Nicholas Hamilton, it would be forgettable.
Due to their performances and a screenplay that isn’t afraid to explore, if gently, the deep scars domestic violence leaves on children who witness such hate and horror, Brave the Dark does precisely what it aims to do in celebrating a real-life good Samaritan and a young life transformed through hope, trust and healing.
Dirty Boy (2025)
Director: Doug Rao
As writer and director Doug Rao wraps up his puzzle box movie Dirty Boy, his main protagonist, twenty-year-old Isaac, says, “What’s the difference between a church and an insane asylum? A church is where you go to talk to God, and an insane asylum is where you go if he replies.”
For years, Isaac, played by the brilliant Stan Steinbichler, has struggled with his mental health and the divided personality that has led his ‘flock’ to lock him up and feed him drugs in their closed religious community deep in the Austrian Alps. All that time, he thought he was the problem. But, his closed and insular cult, where women are trafficked in for ‘breeding,’ and the outside world is kept firmly at a distance, holds far more horrors than Isaac can imagine, and he is about to blow the doors off their horrific commune in spectacular style!
Rao’s slow-burning horror may not appeal to everyone, as it gradually reveals the secrets of the ‘flock’ in a dystopian landscape where the modern technology of the outside world contrasts with the 1930s clothing of the ‘cult.’ But for those willing to stick by Isaac’s side, Rao’s movie offers a bold, intelligent, at times daring, and always intriguing dissection of the horrors that so often hide behind a prayer book and cross.
Cinerama Capsule: Quick Read Film Reviews
Blood Oranges (Short Film)
Fantasia International Film Festival
Director: Steve Flavin
Who doesn’t love the humble blood orange, with its juicy, sweet flesh and crimson orange juice that dribbles down your chin? Many think it’s called a ‘blood’ orange due to its colour, but the truth is far more horrific as one unsuspecting shopper is about to discover as he settles in for a night in front of the TV. A rustling in the kitchen alerts said man to something very strange. Is it a rat? A mouse? A weirdo in a ghost mask with a carving knife? No, it’s much, much worse. The blood oranges are alive and seeking human plasma to add to their well of bloody juice. As they knash their sharp little teeth and scurry across the worktops and floors, it’s clear that dinner time involves human wedges, not fruity ones. Steve Flavin’s delightful horror short is a genuinely sweet treat as our juicy citrus friends stage a coup in the suburbs.
The Mannequin (2025)
Fantasia International Film Festival
Director: John Berardo
Mannequins are creepy, right? Even those who come to life, such as the beautiful Kim Cattrall, carry an air of terror. Writer and director John Berardo understands this all too well in crafting his serial-killer/ghost story, The Mannequin, and some aspects of this chiller work exceptionally well. A classic ’50s horror opens proceedings, then we jump forward in time to a fashion designer (Gabriella Rivera) signing a rental agreement for a ‘historic’ Los Angeles building with a dark past. Her new studio appears to be perfect on first inspection, and someone’s even left a 1950s mannequin in the corner of the vast space. How nice. Not! It’s fucking possessed, and it’s about to claim another victim.
There’s a lot of fun to be had in The Mannequin, yet it struggles to keep its pace as we near the third act, and by the fourth act, it’s become rather tedious. More’s the pity because there are nuggets of brilliance in this movie.
Cinerama Capsule: Quick Read Film Reviews
Le Tour De Canada (Short Film)
Fantasia International Film Festival
Director: John Hollands
Imagine, for a moment, if you will, a Terry Gilliam animated film concerning the famous Tour de France. It likely involves every possible monument, flying water bottles, a crowd of rabbits and a huge boot squashing cyclists who fall behind. Writer/director John Hollands’ extremely short film Le Tour De Canada takes Gilliam’s flair for the surreal, the genuine absurdity of the Tour de France, and a whole host of Canadian stereotypes to fire the starting gun. And if you thought the Tour de France was gruelling, wait till you get a load of this nightmarish, absurd and utterly joyous journey from St John’s to Vancouver!
Cinerama Capsule: Quick Read Film Reviews
Companion (2025)
Director: Drew Hancock
Iris (Sophie Thatcher) met the man of her dreams, Josh (Jack Quaid), in an empty supermarket, their eyes meeting over the baskets of peaches and oranges. Ever since that day, Iris has devoted herself and everything she is to Josh; he is her world, her everything.
Companion opens with that meeting as Iris talks us through the event, explaining how her life found meaning and purpose that day. However, Iris then throws us a curveball, as she says she also felt that feeling of purpose the day she killed Josh! Is Iris a psychopath dressed in pink? Or is Josh a smiling devil whose gentle eyes hide a dark secret? Drew Hancock doesn’t keep you guessing for long as the couple head to a secluded house in the woods to meet Josh’s friends, Kat (Megan Suri), Eli (Harvey Guillén), his boyfriend Patrick (Lukas Gage) and the mysterious Sergey (Rupert Friend). Without giving away any spoilers, Companion is a story of love, lies, logins, liberation and lucidity that proves love sucks in our digital world.
Cage of Gold (1950)
Director: Basil Dearden
“Be careful who you give your heart to” has never been more apt than in Basil Dearden’s 1950 tale of love, lies, secrets and blackmail, Cage of Gold. Hailing from the famous Ealing Studios in the final five years of Michael Balcon’s ownership, Dearden’s cautionary love triangle thriller carries all the hallmarks of classic crime noir in a knotty tale of deceit, love and tangled choices. Judith (Jean Simmons) is torn between her doctor boyfriend, Alan (James Donald), and a former boyfriend, Bill (David Farrar), who mistreated her but whose unexpected reappearance rekindles her unresolved feelings of attraction.
Also starring Herbert Lom, Madeleine Lebeau, Bernard Lee, and Harcourt Williams, Dearden’s atmospheric mix of the classic love triangle and crime noir has long been relegated to the sidelines of Ealing Studio’s history and Dearden’s catalogue of work, but if there’s one movie that proves love can suck based on the choices we make, it’s this one.
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