MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Cinelatino Festival
New films from Latin America pack a sharp political punch
AUTHENTIC: La Chica Nueva (The New Girl)
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
LA CHICA NUEVA (The New Girl) by Argentinian film-maker Micaela Gonzalo is a splendid debut film, which tells the story of the homeless and broke Jimena who goes to meet her half-brother in Rio Grande.
Seeking to change her life in the midst of a financial crisis, the young Jimena finds a job in a factory there and, with it, a community to belong to.
The director intermingles the personal transformation of the young protagonist with a critique of working life in a film tackling the injustices of an uncaring capitalism. As it does so, it invokes an authentic socialist alternative in an innovative and vigorous way.
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RITA DI SANTO assesses the political reaction to Francis Coppola’s epic, self-funded depiction of the decline of the US empire
