2019 - 2020 SEASON
​Click to access the voting results for each film of the season.
9 Sept 2019
The guilty
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Denmark 2018, 85 mins, Crime, Drama
Colour, digital, Cert 15, Official trailer here
Director: Gustav Möller
Leading actors: Jakob Cedergen, Jessica Dinnage, Omar Shargawi
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Police officer Asger Holm is demoted to desk work and expects a sleepy beat as an emergency dispatcher. That all changes when he answers a panicked phone call from a kidnapped woman who disconnects abruptly. Asger, confined to the police station, is forced to use others as his eyes and ears as the severity of the crime slowly becomes more clear. The search to find the missing woman and her assailant will take every bit of his intuition and skill.
​“This innovative and unrelenting Danish thriller uses a single location to great effect, ratcheting up the tension as twists pile up and secrets are revealed”.
“The Guilty is so taut, you almost forget to breathe”.
The Danish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 2019 Academy Awards.
14 Oct 2019
Happy as Lazzaro
Lazarro felice (Original Title)
Italy 2018, 125 mins, Drama
Colour, digital, Cert 12A - Official trailer here
Director: Alice Rohrwacher
Leading actors: Adriano Tardiolo, Agnese Graziani, Luca Chikovani
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The tale of a meeting between Lazzaro, a young peasant so good that he is often mistaken for simple-minded, and Tancredi, a young nobleman cursed by his imagination. Life in their isolated pastoral village Inviolata is dominated by the terrible Marchesa Alfonsina de Luna, the queen of cigarettes. A loyal bond, and precious friendship, is sealed when Tancredi asks Lazzaro to help him orchestrate his own kidnapping. This strange and improbable alliance is a revelation for Lazzaro. His first time in the big city, Lazzaro is like a fragment of the past lost in the modern world.
“One of the most gorgeous and beguiling films on the festival circuit. Director, Rohrwacher, has crafted a magic-realist fable that doubles as an origin myth for a modern Italy subsumed by corruption and decline.” (Guardian)
Won Best Screenplay Award, Cannes 2018.
11 Nov 2019
Cold war
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Poland 2018, 89 mins, Romance, Drama, Music
B&W, digital, Cert 15 - Official trailer here
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Leading actors: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc
A passionate love story between two people of diverse backgrounds and temperaments, who are fatefully mismatched and yet condemned to be with each other. Set against the background of the Cold War in the 1950s in Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia and Paris, the film depicts an impossible love story in impossible times
"Cold War captivates and transcends barriers of language and culture. It’s a gorgeous tale as rocky as it is romantic”. “It may be a ‘Cold War’, but the actors’ chemistry burns through the screen”.
Winner Best director Cannes 2018.
24 Nov 2019
Grave of the Fireflies
Hotaru no haka (Original Title)
Additional film
Japan 1988, 89 mins, Animation, Drama, War
Colour, digital, Cert 12A - Official trailer here
Director: Isao Takahata
Leading actors: Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, Akemi Yamaguchi
The story of Seita and Satsuko, two young Japanese siblings, living in the declining days of World War II. When an American firebombing separates the two children from their parents, the two siblings must rely completely on one another while they struggle to fight for their survival.
"One of the most startling and moving animated films ever.”
9 Dec 2019
Dogman
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Italy 2018, 103 mins, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Colour, digital, Cert 15 - Official trailer here
Director: Matteo Garrone
Leading actors: Marcello Fonte, Edoardo Pesce, Nunzia Schiano
Marcello is a small and gentle dog groomer who wants two things, to look after his dogs and take his daughter on exotic holidays. To fund this lifestyle he runs a side business which has an unsavoury clientele and he soon finds himself involved in a dangerous relationship of subjugation with Simone, a former violent boxer who terrorises the entire neighbourhood. When Simone exploits him too much Marcello must make a crucial and potentially dangerous decision in order to regain his dignity.
“Dogman is one of the best Italian films of recent times. Its main character, the dog groomer Marcello is a wonderful creation: loveable, vulnerable, seedy and comic all at the same time.” (The Independent)
Won Best Actor, Cannes 2018: EFA Best Actor 2018.
13 Jan 2020
Never look away
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Germany 2018, 188 mins, Drama, History, Thriller
Colour, digital, Cert 15 - Official trailer here
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Leading actors: Tom Schilling, Sebastian Koch, Paula Beer
Young artist Kurt Barnert has fled to West-Germany, but he continues to be tormented by the experiences he had in his childhood and youth in the Nazi years and during the GDR-regime. When he meets the student Ellie he is convinced that he has met the love of his life and begins to create paintings that mirror not only his own fate, but also the traumas of an entire generation. A film inspired by the life of German artist Gerhard Richter.
“Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, whose Stasi drama “The Lives of Others” won an Oscar in 2016, dives further back into German history with “Never Look Away”, which offers a stark history lesson refracted through its story of romance and artistry.”
Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at 2018 Oscars.
10 Feb 2020
Saturday night & Sunday morning
Our Classic presentation; A tribute to the great Albert Finney.
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UK 1960, 89 mins, Drama, Romance
B&W, Cert PG - Official trailer here
Director: Karel Reisz
Leading actors: Albert Finney, Shirley Anne Field, Rachel Roberts
Arthur Seaton is a young machinist at the Raleigh bicycle factory in Nottingham. He is determined not to be tied down to living a life of domestic drudgery like the people around him, including his parents, whom he describes as “dead from the neck up”. He spends his wages at weekends on drinking and having a good time. He has an affair with Brenda, the wife of an older colleague whilst also seeing Doreen, a beautiful single woman closer to his age. Brenda becomes pregnant by Arthur and decides to keep the child but Arthur realises his affair with her is finished after he is beaten up by brother-in-law and her husband tells him to stay away. Arthur spends a week recovering and is visited by Doreen, whom he decides to marry, and reluctantly settle down into domestic life.
9 Awards including British Film Academy Award for Best British Film.
9 Mar 2020
Burning
Beoning (Original Title)
South Korea 2018, 126 mins, Drama, Mystery
Colour, digital, Cert 15 - Official trailer here
Director: Chang-dong Lee
Leading actors: Ah-in Yoo, Steven Yeun, Jong-seo Jun
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Jong-su runs into Hae-mi, a girl who once lived in his neighbourhood, and she asks him to look after her cat while she’s on a trip to Africa. When she returns, she introduces him to Ben, a mysterious guy she met on the trip, who then proceeds to tell Jong-su about his secret hobby.
A bone-dry comedy of class warfare. A perplexing missing-person mystery worthy of Hitchcock or Antonioni.
“Absolutely breathtaking. Brilliantly mystifying in a way that is completely mesmerising.” (Mark Kermode).
Won International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) Prize, Cannes 2018.
20 Apr 2020 - CANCELLED
3 Faces
Se Rokh (Original Title)
Iran 2019, 100 mins, Drama
Colour, digital, Cert 15 - Official trailer here
Director: Jafar Panahi
Leading actors: Behnaz Jafari, Jafar Panahi, Marziyeh Rezaei
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Well-known actress Behnaz Jafari is distraught by a provincial girl’s video plea for help. She is pressured by her family to not pursue her studies at the Tehran drama conservatory. Behnaz abandons her shoot and turns to filmmaker Jafar Panahi to help solve the mystery of the young girl’s troubles. They travel by car to the rural northwest where they have amusing encounters with the charming folk of the girl’s mountain village, but the city visitors soon discover that the protection of age-old traditions is as generous as local hospitality....
“Jafar Panahi has created a quietly engaging quasi-realist parable, part of his ongoing and unique creative cine-autobiography, full of intelligence and humility and a real respect for women and for female actors.”
(The Guardian).
11 May 2020 - CANCELLED
Shoplifters
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Japan 2018, 121 mins, Crime, Drama
Colour, digital, Cert 15 - Official trailer here
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Leading actors: Lily Franky, Sakura Andô, Kirin Kiki
A Japanese couple stuck with part-time jobs and hence inadequate incomes avail themselves of the fruits of shoplifting to make ends meet. They are not alone in this behaviour. The younger and the older of the household are in on the act. The unusual routine is about to change from care-free and matter-of-fact to something more dramatic, however, as the couple open their doors to a beleaguered young girl. The reasons for the family’s habit and their motivations come under the microscope.
“Outstanding domestic drama, crafted by Koreeda with crystalline insight and an unsparing emotional acuity”. Robbie Collins DT
Won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, 2018 .
Japanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 2019 Academy Awards.
15 June 2020 - CANCELLED
Woman at war
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Iceland 2018, 101 mins, Action, Drama, Thriller
Colour, digital, Cert 12A - Official trailer here
Director: Benedikt Erlingsson
Leading actors: Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, Jóhann Sigurðarson, Juan Camillo Roman Estrada
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Halla, a woman in her forties, declares war on the local aluminum industry to prevent it from disfiguring her country. She risks all she has to protect the highlands of Iceland-but the situation could change with the unexpected arrival of a small orphan in her life.
“An attractive and sympathetic performance from Geirharðsdóttir as Halla: a woman with a fierce and focused energy who has mysteriously concentrated all her efforts on an environmental campaign, but comes, perhaps, to see that there is no contradiction between pursuing that and wanting to be a mother.”
The Icelandic entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 2019 Academy Awards.