Films we’re Hungry for this September

In Camera 

Marking the feature film debut of writer-director Naqqash Khalid, In Camera is a disorientating little satire of the film and TV industry. Following Aden (Industry and Station Eleven’s Nabhaan Rizwan), In Camera chronicles what happens when our lead decides to take things into his own hands after failing to secure acting job after acting job. While a showbiz satire could be pretty straight down the line, In Camera succeeds thanks to its razor-sharp skewering of what it means to be a British-Asian actor specifically — we get scenes of film industry big-wigs mispronouncing Aden’s name and painful renditions of auditions where our lead is (presumably again) going for the part of a Middle Eastern terrorist. Despite having its world premiere at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival back in July of 2023, In Camera has only made its way to UK big screens this September. We recommend popping out to see it at Homerton’s The Castle Cinema. 

My First Film

Genre-bending and very meta, American drama-slash-documentary My First Film had a hard time coming to fruition. Back in 2010, director Zia Anger’s first go at a feature (Always All Ways, Anne Marie) was rejected by multiple film festivals and dubbed as an “abandoned” project on IMDB. What Anger then made – an interactive film that incorporated clips from the ill-fated feature and invited viewers to participate via iMessage and AirDrop – was her way of venting about the industry. Fast forward to the COVID-19 pandemic and Anger is writing a feature version of the interactive film alongside Billy Feldman, with Odessa Young (Assassination Nation) and Devon Ross (Irma Vep) signing on to star in 2022. The end result? A very poignant exploration of creativity and yearning that began streaming on MUBI on the 6th of September. Also – and this is maybe the best bit – the score is by none other than Perfume Genius. You can watch My First Film here. 

The Hypnosis

Apparently, September is for satire. Our third rather sardonic offering comes in the form of Ernst De Geer’s The Hypnosis, which stars Asta Kamma August and Herbert Nordrum, who you’ll probably recognise from The Worst Person in the World. It’s hard to describe The Hypnosis, but in essence it follows an entrepreneurial couple whose upcoming business venture is jeopardised when Vera (August) has a hypnosis session that drastically alters her personality. The Hypnosis is squirm-worthy and cringe-inducing — the kind of thing you have to watch through your fingers. Fans of Ruben Östlund will likely get a good kick out of it and, again, you can watch it on MUBI here.

The Substance 

The Substance is squirm-worthy in the more typical sense: it’s textbook body horror. Marking Coralie Fargeat’s second feature – the French director received critical acclaim for her debut, Revenge – The Substance follows Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a fading celeb who’s fired on her 50th birthday and is then offered a black market drug which promises to transform her into a more youthful version of herself. That younger self is played by Margaret Qualley. The Substance has been divisive, opening at the Cannes Film Festival back in May to equal parts acclaim and criticism. Namely, people took issue with whether the film could really be called body horror. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian, however, called it a “grisly fantasy-parable of misogyny and body-objectification”, and that’s enough for us. The Substance hits UK cinemas this Friday. For this one, we reckon you should head on over to Islington’s Screen on the Green.