Black Family 

If you mix religious rituals with dark mythology, the result will be effective, and the story powerful in 90% of the cases. That is exactly what happens at the beginning of The Vigil.

It only seems to prove that when the company had their backs against the wall and needed an all pleasing, generic movie that had to make up for The Last Jedi, they chose to sacrifice almost everything that made their main protagonist interesting and that made her stand out as the strong female character that a generation of young movie goers was supposed to look up to. Instead, we were left with a Rey that was so much less than she could have been. And I guess that’s the real story of Rey and The Rise of Skywalker; they could have been so much more, but they were just more of the same.

I understand that this would have been consistent with the language used by that generation, due to its role in the medical profession, however as someone who has family members with Down Syndrome I took it very personally.

Cord Jefferson's hilarious and thought-provoking film continues a long-standing cinematic tradition, expanding the conversation around the impact of systemic racism in today's media.

From its visually stunning opening credits, which show women dancing through a forest to musical rhythms that sound almost primal, to its quiet, heartbreaking final frame, Mona Fastvold’s historical rendering of the Shaker religious movement is an experience that will stay with me for a long time.