Film
The Ugly Stepsister: It's all rotten
At the heart of female fantasy lies the painful, drastic, desperate core.
Umnia El-Neil
Umnia El-Neil is a British-Sudanese culture opinion writer and Shonda Rhimes TGIT Graduate.
Film
Freaky Tales will blow your mind.
An immediate cult hit that's about to take over and revive local storytelling as global conversation -- gorey, funky and satisfying from start to finish.
Video
The Case for Unlikeable Women
Watch the Paid Aficionados Extended Version Here Written and Recorded by Umnia El-Neil, Edited by Valeria Schumann.
Video
The Case for Unlikeable Women (Paid Aficionados Extended Version)
BFI Flare (All Years)
Best of BFI Flare 2025
The results are in, and they are HOT! We've travelled far and wide to bring you some brilliant gems from the festival.
Fashion
Pedro Politics: Julie Vision
In a tenuous era of cultural history, some divas just can't be silenced.
Film
Sebastian: It’s all filth underneath
A Sundance 2024 Official Selection and a Peccadillo Pictures release—I am absolutely, unadulteratedly in love with this film.
BFI Flare (All Years)
Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr
You're always a little bit scared, but you're never deterred.
Film
Four Mothers
Adapted from "Mid-August Lunch by Gianni Di Gregorio", James McArdle shines in the role of Edward, a man who struggles to find his voice or backbone, weighed down by fear and unable to assert his own agency.
BFI Flare (All Years)
New Wave (Onda Nova)
Take a trip to 1980's Brazil, where the kids of São Paolo get it in. and by 'it', I mean the ball into the net, of course. What else could I possibly be referring to?
BFI Flare (All Years)
Memorabilia
Part hardcore porno, part confessional, weaving Super 8 footage with deathbed diaries into a tapestry of a life well lived.
BFI Flare 2025
'The Wedding Banquet': an unlikely pair
Umnia dissects the 90's remake, and how it isn't just the couples that may at times be mismatched within it.