“Oh brilliant”, you’re thinking, “another addition to the already crowded sub-genre of Welsh films set in South America”. But hush your cynicism a while, because this one’s really good. In fact, it deserves to be one of your top 10 Welsh/South American films of all time. Though a little meandering, its grip on the hardships of human relationships and jaw-droppingly beautiful cinematography make Patagonia a cut above your average Duffy video. Duffy’s in it, is the point.

Sharktopus, yet another mindless and tacky film from B movie re-enactors the SyFy channel, is completely dreadful. No, really. Completely dreadful. You might be one of the people who likes watching shit films and laughing at how shit they are, but even so the antics of this absurd hybrid may leave you struggling to crack a smile.

Hats off to the ambitious Ink team for creating a gloriously immersive fantasy world on a micro-budget: no mean feat for even the most skilled of film-makers. Definitely at the upper end of the indie-spectrum, there is much originality and innovation to admire this surreal tale of one man’s redemption. It’s just a shame the dialogue never quite reaches the same heights as the rest of the production values.

Award-winning creative German genius Werner Herzog invites us to enjoy an exclusive look at the Paleolithic cave paintings of the Chauvet Cave in modern France. The only director who has been granted access to one of the most significant sites of prehistoric art in the world, Cave of Forgotten Dreams literally goes where film has never gone before. Perhaps even more excitingly, Herzog and his team seem to have finally found a justifiable reason for 3D cameras; the documentary film allows us to experience these 35,000 year old paintings in their full, contoured glory.

Fresh from the Tricycle Theatre’s superb season of Oscar-shortlisted foreign language films comes Outside the Law, an extraordinary portrait of one of the most significant conflicts in recent European history. If you think you’ve made up your mind about terrorists, watch it.

Unpredictable, unsettling and sometimes excruciating viewing, Tirza is nevertheless a deeply affecting account of one man’s descent into despair. Seeming at first to be a simple tale of a father’s search for his lost daughter, Tirza quickly becomes an uncomfortably dark exploration of parenthood, sexuality and the need to feel wanted. Director Rudolf van den Berg’s confident handle on the many layered plot means that we never lose faith in the story, however much we begin to question our increasingly unreliable narrator…

A touching tale about a man navigating his way through conflicting relationships, He’s My Girl is an unexpected, quietly charming and exceedingly Parisian love story. There are perhaps a few too many loose ends left hanging for it to be a truly satisfying watch, but there’s no question that this is an extremely classy alternative to your Nora Ephron-type fodder.

Direct from Geneva’s Black Movie Festival comes our review of The Tiger Factory, a triumph of Malaysian neo-realism (nope, we didn’t either) which will make you question the limits of your self-reliance and the exact situation in which you could be persuaded to milk a pig of its semen.

“A city in conflict” reads the tag line, but that doesn’t even begin to cover the violent nature of Jaffa’s Ajami neighbour hood. Ajami attempts to capture the lives of various families caught up in this lethal religious boiling pot.

From Wendy and Lucy director Kelly Reichardt comes a stripped down, neorealist anti-Western with plans to change our fundamentally childish conceptions of the gun-totin’, Injun-lynchin’ Old West. I miss my comfy stereotypes.