We have now officially entered the holiday blockbuster season, which typically means the release of a giant movie will be paired with a lesser known film to give each other breathing room, and appeal to different cinema lovers. That’s certainly the case this week as a highly anticipated prequel comes to South African moviehouses alongside a much smaller biopic.
Your biggie for the week is The Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Based on the dystopian novel by Suzanne Collins, it rewinds the series action 64 years before Katniss Everdeen volunteered as tribute. Here, future president Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) is a young man assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), the defiant female tribute from impoverished District 12 in the 10th annual Hunger Games. Also with Peter Dinklage, Viola Davis, Hunter Schafer, and Jason Schwartzman.
Look out for our review of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes on Monday.
Joika is a biographical drama based on relatively recent real-life events. Joy Womack (Talia Ryder) is an aspiring American ballerina who leaves her Texas home and is thrust into the world of Russian ballet as one of the very few Americans to ever be accepted into the Moscow Bolshoi Academy. Rather unsurprisingly, the path to realising her dream is full of challenges.The real-life Womack is choreographer, consultant and body double on the film, with Diane Kruger playing our heroine’s ballet teacher.