ROCKS ****

 The surprise recipient of seven BAFTA nominations, "Rocks" is the kind of low-budget, highly imaginative and beautifully made movie that should be winning awards and drawing audiences from all over the globe but which so often slip through the net and, on hindsight, its seven nominations should come as no surprise at all. Sarah Gavron's terrific film is about a teenage schoolgirl, Shola or 'Rocks' to her friends, (an excellent Bukky Bakray), suddenly forced to take care of herself and her younger brother, (D'angelou Osei Kissiedu, wonderful), after their single mother abandons them. Gavron's film is fiction and is scripted, (beautifully by Theresa Ikoko and Claire Wilson), but it could be a fly-on-the-wall documentary. There isn't a false note in any of the performances and Gavron never puts a foot wrong in her observation of life in Britain today and although set largely in an ethnic community the scope of this extraordinary film stretches much wider.

This is a truly multi-cultural movie, a film about race, family, identity and a state-of-the-nation movie to rank with the best of them. Never does it pander to the cliches of movies about abandoned children or go for the easy option. It's certainly never sentimental and while dealing with material that's undoubtedly downbeat is never in itself depressing. This is an optimistic film, thanks in large part to the wonderful performances of Bakray and Kosan Ali as her best friend and I have no doubt it will be considered a classic of realist British cinema in years to come.