2016 - 2017 SEASON
Click to access the voting results for each film of the season.
12 Sept 2016
La Famille Bélier
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France 2014, 106 mins, Comedy, Drama, Music
Colour, digital, Cert 12 - Official trailer here
Director: Eric Lartigau
Leading actors: Karine Viard, François Damiens, Eric Elmosnino
Farm girl Paula defies her parents in pursuit of the one thing in life she really wants to do, singing. Both her parents are deaf and Paula provides a way for them to communicate with the wider world. How will they and their dairy farm survive without her if she gets the chance to study music in Paris?
An amusing and moving film
10 Oct 2016
Tangerines
"Mandarijnid" (Original Title)
Estonia, Georgia 2013, 90 mins, Drama
Colour, digital, Cert 15 - Official trailer here
Director: Zaza Urushadze
Leading actors: Lembit Ulfsak, Elmo Nüganen, Giogi Nakashidze
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The film is set in 1992, in the post-Soviet Caucasus, where Georgians are fighting a war with secessionist Abkhazians, backed by Russia. Ivo is an elderly ethnic Estonian who, with his friend Margus is a tangerine farmer. They fear the fighting will destroy their entire crop. Disaster strikes, and Ivo finds himself having to offer tense hospitality to one wounded fighter from each side: Georgian Niko and Chechen mercenary Ahmed, who has no great love for his Russian paymasters. Ivo’s house becomes their demilitarised zone, and Niko and Ahmed must suppress their hatred of each other while Ivo suppresses panic about all his unpicked tangerines going to waste.
‘"Oscar nominated in 2015 for best foreign film, a tremendous, old-fashioned anti-war film, touching, moving and suspenseful."
14 Nov 2016
Omar
Palestine 2013, 98 mins, Drama
Colour, digital, Cert 15 - Official trailer here
Director: Hany Abu-Assad
Leading actors: Adam Bakri, Leem Lubany, Eyad Hourani, Samer Bisharat
Omar is a Palestinian baker who routinely climbs over the separation wall to meet up with his girl Nadja. By night, he's either a freedom fighter or a terrorist ready to risk his life to strike at the Israeli military with his childhood friends. Arrested after the killing of an Israeli soldier and tricked into an admission of guilt by association, he agrees to work as an informant. So begins a dangerous game: who can he trust on either side?
A tense, gripping thriller about betrayal, suspected and real, in the Occupied Territories. Winner of 11 awards, nominated for Oscar 2016.
12 Dec 2016
Gloria
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Chile 2014, 108 mins, Drama
Colour, digital, Cert 15 - Official trailer here
Director: Sebestián Lelio
Leading actors: Paulina Garcia, Sergio Hernández, Coca Guazzine, Pablo Krögh
Gloria is a "woman of a certain age" but still feels young. Though lonely, she makes the best of her situation and fills her nights seeking love at social dance clubs for single adults. Her fragile happiness changes the day she meets Rodolfo. Their intense passion, to which Gloria gives her all, leaves her vacillating between hope and despair until she uncovers a new strength and realises that, in her golden years, she can shine brighter than ever.
9 Jan 2017
The Two Faces Of January
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USA 2014, 96 mins, Romance, Thriller
Colour, digital, Cert 12A - Official trailer here
Director: Hossein Amini
Leading actors: Viggo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst, Oscar Isaac
Chester MacFarland and his wife Colette are in Greece on vacation in 1962 when they run into Rydal. He is a displaced American who speaks fluent Greek and who acts as a guide to the sun-kissed ruins of Athens while fleecing his clueless female customers out of their money. Rydal is drawn to the well-heeled Chester and his alluring wife and offers them a tour, and they reciprocate by inviting him to dinner. In fact Chester is on the run for swindling lots of investors out of money and when his past catches up with him, via a detective who visits his hotel, Chester’s actions have dire consequences for him and a clueless Rydal.
A sophisticated ‘Hitchcock style’ melodramatic thriller which elegantly blends Sixties flair with murder and deceit.
13 Feb 2017
Rams
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Iceland 2015, 93 mins, Drama
Colour, digital, Cert 15 - Official trailer here
Director: Grimur Hákonarson
Leading actors: Sigurour Sigurjónsson, Theodór Júliusson
Although they have not spoken to one another for 40 years, Gummi and older brother Kiddi live on neighbouring farms against a harsh and majestic northern landscape. Both men breed sheep from the same ancient pedigree, and each year they are rivals in a valley-wide competition for best ram. When Kiddi’s flock shows signs of scrapie, an incurable and highly contagious virus, the veterinary authorities decree that all the sheep in the valley must be destroyed. It’s a devastating blow for the local farmers, but it hits hard-drinking, unruly Kiddi and quiet, thoughtful Gummi particularly hard, and they rebel against the rules in their own distinct ways.
13 Mar 2017
The Cranes Are Flying
"Letyat Zhuravli" (Original title)
USSR 1957, 97 mins, Drama, Romance
B&W, digital, Cert U - Official trailer here
Director: Mikhail Kalatozov
Leading actors: Tatyana Samoylova, Aleksey Batalov, Vasiliy Merkurev, Aleksandr Shvorin
Veronika and Boris come together in Moscow shortly before World War II. Walking along the river, they watch cranes fly overhead, and promise to rendezvous before Boris leaves to fight. Boris misses the meeting and is off to the front lines, while Veronika waits patiently, sending letters faithfully. After her house is bombed, Veronika moves in with Boris' family, into the company of a cousin with his own intentions.
One of the only Soviet films to win the prestigious Palme d’Or at Cannes, Kalatozov’s World War II-era tale shows the effects of the country’s upheaval on an idealistic young couple who are torn apart.
10 Apr 2017
The Assassin
"Nie yin niang" (Original title)
Taiwan, China, Hong-Kong 2015, 105 mins, Drama
Colour, digital, Cert 12A - Official trailer here
Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou
Leading actors: Qi Shu, Chen Chang, Satoshi Tsumabuki
Set in 8th century China during the Tang Dynasty, Nie Yinniang is a killer appointed to slay corrupt government officials by her master, Jiaxin, a nun who raised her from the age of ten. When Yinniang displays mercy by failing to kill during her duties Jiaxin punishes her with a ruthless assignment designed to test her resolve. She is sent to the distant province/circuit of Weibo in northern China to kill its military governor Tian Ji'an, her cousin to whom she had once been betrothed.
‘Perhaps the most ravishingly beautiful film Hou has ever made, and certainly one of his most deeply transporting’.
8 May 2017
The Fencer
"Miekkailija" (Original title)
Finland 2015, 93 mins, Drama, History, Sport
Colour, digital - Official trailer here
Director: Klaus Härö
Leading actors: Märt Avandi, Kirill Käro, Lembit Ulfsak
In the early 1950s, a young man, Endel Nelis, flees from Leningrad to escape the secret police and arrives in Haapsalu, Estonia. He finds work as a teacher and forms a sports club, where he starts teaching fencing to his students. When the children want to participate in a national fencing tournament in Leningrad, Endel must make a choice; risk everything to take the children to Leningrad or put his safety first and disappoint them.
12 June 2017
Timbuktu
Mauretania 2014, 97 mins, Drama
Colour, digital, Cert 12 - Official trailer here
Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
Leading actors: Ibrahim Ahmed, Abel Jafri, Toulou Kiki
In a small village in the dunes, not far from the ancient city of Timbuktu in Mali, Kidane lives peacefully with his wife, his daughter and their twelve-year-old shepherd. In Timbuktu, where religious fundamentalists now rule, people suffer, powerless against the regime of terror imposed by the Jihadists, who are determined to control every aspect of life. Music, laughter, cigarettes, and even soccer, have been banned. Every day, the new improvised court issues tragic and absurd sentences, but it all seems very far away. Kidane and his family’s destiny suddenly changes for the worse when he accidentally kills the fisherman who slaughtered “GPS,” his beloved cow. He now has to face the new laws of the fundamentalists.
Timbuktu is a cri de coeur against violence and intolerance. It’s also a richly poetic work of cinema – witty, beautiful and sobering yet highly entertaining. Winner of 7 2015 César Awards, including Best Film, Best Director & Best Writing. Oscar & BAFTA nominations.