There are three reviews for films shown at the 34th edition of the Raindance Film Festival, held in London between 17th-26th June: Silent Struggle (2025), Walls (2025) and Seahorse (2026).
Raindance Film Festival is the largest independent film festival in the UK and it has been recognised by Variety as “one of the world’s top 50 unmissable film festivals”. Raindance showcases the boldest, freshest content from British and international filmmakers. Industry and the public attend cutting-edge panels, talks and workshops. Raindance is a qualifying festival for Oscars®, BAFTA and BIFA
Films from all over the world appear some obtaining world premiere others dipping their toes in foreign markets. Ranging from shorts to horror. I took a view over a sports documentary, a Greenland doc and an original Canadian drama.
Silent Struggle (Sara Salamo, Spain, 2025)
Documentary about highly respected Spanish midfielder, Isco, who has to return from a serious fractured ankle injury after a recent move to Real Betis. The injury was sustained in a normal tackle and unfortunately, injury was far more serious.
The loss of a year of a career for any footballer is a terrible tragedy in a career that lasts mostly 10-15 years, however, for someone like Isco to experience this after his 30th birthday is a huge worry. Can he reach the high levels of a distinguished career – four Champions League with Real Madrid and multiple caps for Spain?
The documentary is a good watch but is restricted to fans of football mostly, shot and produced by his wife this could easily be construed as a vanity project and it did strike me as similar to the YouTube or Instagram stories posted by Tottenham Hotspur’s James Maddison during his year long journey back to the first team.
Whereas Maddison is a photogenic and has a personality, Isco while a very handsome man, does not hold our attention. Returning to the pitch is all that matters to him, his personality revolves around the playing of the sport that has given him a career. The vitality and passion that football holds in Spanish culture comes across as well as a vital reminder of the human ability to overcome adversity and crippling setbacks.
Salamo does obtain some good photography of the grand arenas in La Liga. One for football fans, but should obtain an audience on a streaming platform nonetheless.
Walls – Akinni Inuk (Nina Paninnguaq Skydsbjerg/Sofie Rordam, Greenland, 2025)
Two Greenlandic women share a traumatic past and both deal with it differently or have to to due to the circumstances – one is imprisoned for a custodial sentence, the other behind a cool facade. One comes to visit the other in prison and through therapy they form a unique bond to help each other overcome the difficulty and pain they live with everyday.
A short and yet vital document about women and how talking can lead to victories and glory for people, the goal of Rita is to return to the real world. When in jail, she feels like she cannot exist at this moment. The culmination of the film is a parole hearing, where she asks for her release.
This is the second Greenland set film I have watched this year, and it is again not about climate change or the environment. Truly stories are universal and the world is getting smaller as technologies are making films more easy to create and share with the world.
Seahorse (Aisha Evelyna, Canada, 2026)
The best film of the bunch viewed over the weekend was Seahorse; a European Premiere about a sous chef who is barely keeping herself together. Evelyna directs herself in the lead and this personal story that she wrote herself; a sous chef in a friend’s restaurant who after a particularly brutal shift when she is threatened by her friend’s husband amongst other things. As she leaves the restaurant for home, she encounters a homeless man who may or may not be her absent father.
The father is played by Joseph Marcell (Jefferey from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), yet this is a straight drama in the same vein of other recent culinary crisis dramas – The Bear and Breaking Point. This coupled with a storyline of Evelyna recovering from trauma makes for a very adult and dramatic story about relationships and reaching out.
The film’s conclusion is a gut punch of an ending beholden to the work of Barry Jenkins and yet with some very good editing choices by Craig Scoogie, the film is a level above normal run of the mill dramas.
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