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Cell 211 (18)

(Daniel Monzón, 2009, Spa/Fr) Luis Tosar, Alberto Ammann, Antonio Resines. 113 mins

Sometimes all you need is a great set-up: a prison guard, first day on the job, gets trapped in a cell just as a riot breaks out, and must therefore pose as an inmate to survive. It's better not to know where this tough Spanish thriller goes from there, but rest assured you're in very good hands. There's tightrope tension and breakneck pace, but wider questions of honour and justice unfold, too – everything you could ask for, in fact.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (12A)

(David Yates, 2011, UK/Us) Daniel Radcliffe, Ralph Fiennes, Emma Watson. 130 mins

Having sat through the deathly dullness of Part 1, here's our reward: a rousing finale that strikes all the right notes, ties up 10 years' worth of loose ends, plunges you into 3D battle, and perhaps even wrings the odd tear – all without inducing effects fatigue.

An engrossing, award-winning conclusion to the trilogy by Turkish film-maker Semih Kaplanoglu

Turkish film-maker Semih Kaplanoglu won the Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival for this calm, contemplative and compassionate movie, the third in his childhood trilogy – the first was Yumurta, or Egg; the second Süt, or Milk. In the densely forested region of north-eastern Turkey along the Black Sea coast, Yakup (Erdal Besikçioglu) makes a hand-to-mouth living harvesting wild honey, climbing trees to get at the hives. His disappearance one day exposes his already vulnerable family to yet more stoically borne agony: this is his wife Zehra (Tülin Özen) and six-year-old boy Yusuf (Bora Altas) through whose eyes we are invited to see the action. He is a lonely child, dealing with a stammer, desperate for attention, longing to get one of the red "reward" badges his strict schoolteacher gives out for reading aloud in class. The image...

In Semih Kaplanoglu’s Bal (“Honey”), Turkish beekeeper Yakup (Erdal Besikçioglu) risks his life scaling tall trees in search of elusive black honey, prized for its healing properties as well as its rich taste. The film, which details the childhood of the poet Yusuf (Bora Altas), portrayed in Kaplanoglu’s Yumurta (“Egg”) and Süt (“Milk”), is set in a rural village where sweetness is hard to come by, and its pursuit can be dangerous, even life-threatening. But its simple, unadulterated pleasures are matchless, and the same can be said for Bal’s best moments. The scenes of shy ...

This year’s Berlin Film Festival competition was very interesting indeed. Some directors got their chance to go home with a little gold-bear statue, while the other ones had to stand there and take not so good critics. Among all directors, from all over the world, one got pretty lucky, and for the second time in this festival history, Turkey celebrated.

The 60th Berlin Film Festival ended on Saturday with the prize ceremony, bringing to an end a 10-day cinema showcase where hundreds of movies were screened.

Golden Bear for Best Film won Semih Kaplanoglu’s new drama called Bal (Honey), which is actually the final installment of director’s trilogy that began with Milk and Egg.

In this movie we have an opportunity to see life of little Yusuf, and his tremendous love for his father.Yusuf’s father is a beekeeper, and when his bees suddenly disappear, he...