THE SOUVENIR
It’s quite the month for auteur self- portraits. British filmmaker Joanna Hogg ( Archipelago) may not have quite as much history behind her as Almodóvar, but this exquisite, lightly fictionalised telling of her formative film- school days — and the toxic romance that offered her another kind of education — in Eighties London will resonate with many a creative person who has struggled to find their voice, or the heartbreak from which great art is supposed to spring. It’s a whopper of a breakout role for Honor Swinton Byrne, the daughter of co- star Tilda, who plays Hogg’s alter ego with anxious, willowy delicacy, while Tom Burke is quite stunning as the seductive posh- boy train wreck who threatens to derail her, too. This is brilliant, wise, intricately layered filmmaking, as elegant and romantic as it is thorny with feminist questions and class politics. Don’t miss it. 30 August