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The Innocent
September 12 2024 7:30 pm | 2022 | France | 99m | Cert 15 | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Abel (Louis Garrel), a museum educator and widower is at his wits’ end when his mother Sylvie marries Michel, a convict she met while teaching drama at the local prison. Caught up with his suspicions of his new stepfather, he remains blissfully unaware of his developing feelings for Clémence, a vivacious Noémie Merlant (PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE).
Fizzing with a cracking chemistry, and a banter à la française, THE INNOCENT is part family farce, part heist thriller but above all a heart-warming romantic entertainer.
The Teachers’ Lounge
October 10 2024 7:30 pm | Germany | 2023 | 98m | Cert 12A | Drama
Oscar-nominated The Teachers’ Lounge is German writer-director İlker Çatak’s brilliantly observed drama. Playing out like a thriller, the film expertly explores the fault lines of contemporary society.
Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is a dedicated and idealistic new high-school teacher. A fresh face at the school, she seems to have connected with her Year 8 students, who are engaged and eager to learn in her maths class. But something is bubbling underneath the surface, and she’s quickly thrust into a delicate situation when a Turkish boy is suspected of theft. Not convinced of his guilt, Carla takes matters into her own hands and inadvertently starts down a path that soon begins to spiral out of control. As she tries to mediate between students, parents and opinionated colleagues, she is relentlessly confronted with the structures of the school system. Carla is pushed to her limits, and the school becomes a proxy for the cultural and ethical clashes of modern-day society.
Catak’s film is an incisive study in power dynamics that demonstrates how individuals are worn down by opposing beliefs, as the adage goes, ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’.
Monster
October 31 2024 7:30 pm | Japan | 2023 | 127m | Cert 12A | Drama, Thriller
Mysterious and deeply moving, MONSTER is a breathtaking piece of cinema from master
director Hirokazu Kore-eda (Broker, Shoplifters).
When her young son Minato starts to behave strangely, single mother Saori knows that there
is something wrong. Discovering that one of his teachers might be responsible, she storms
into the school demanding answers. But as the story unfolds through the eyes of mother,
teacher and child, shocking truths begin to emerge.
A timely tale of family, false impressions, and, ultimately, hope, Kore-eda’s typically sensitive
work features powerful performances by Ando Sakura, Tanaka Yuko and Nagayama Eita,
and a sublime score from the Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Joyland
November 14 2024 7:30 pm | Pakistan | 2022 | 126m | Cert 15 | Drama
In the heart of the metropolitan yet conservative city of Lahore lives the Rana family, a lower middle
class joint family comprising of the old patriarch, the elder son and pregnant wife with three daughters, and the youngest son Haider and his wife Mumtaz.
As the Rana’s eagerly anticipate the birth of a baby boy to continue their family line, Haider secretly
takes up a job as a background dancer at an erotic theatre where he is drawn to an ambitious trans
starlet, Biba. Slowly yet suddenly, Haider and Biba are engulfed in a secret summer romance which
surreptitiously takes over his home, unraveling the dichotomy between desire and morality for the entire Rana family.
The Eight Mountains
December 12 2024 7:30 pm | Italy | 2022 | 147m | Cert 12 | Drama
In a secluded village in the Italian Alps, an unlikely brotherhood forms between two young boys: Pietro, a boy from the city, and Bruno, who has only ever known life in the mountains. Over the years Bruno remains faithful to his home while Pietro aspires to greater heights, but as decades pass and lives unfold, their paths ultimately lead them back to where they first met–and back to each other. Set against a truly magnificent Italian landscape, THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS is a profoundly moving portrait of a lifelong friendship.
Name Me Lawand
January 9 2025 7:30 pm | UK | 2023 | 90m | Cert PG | Documentary
Five-year-old Lawand is on a quest to find a world where there are people like him – people who will understand him. Since birth, Lawand has been profoundly Deaf and unable to communicate with those around him. He undertakes a treacherous journey with his family from Iraq to Derby, home of the Royal School for the Deaf. But this new life soon comes under threat when the family face deportation. Along with members of the Derby community, they begin a new quest – a fight to stay in the place they now call home. Employing a striking visual style that frames Lawand’s development, from being voiceless to a voice representing others in the D/deaf community, Edward Lovelace’s (The Possibilities Are Endless) documentary is an inspirational and touching coming-of-age story.
Past Lives
January 30 2025 7:30 pm | US, South Korea | 2023 | 105m | Cert 12A | Drama, Romance
Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrested apart after Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. Twenty years later, they are reunited for one fateful week as they confront notions of love and destiny.
No Bears
February 13 2025 7:30 pm | Iran | 2022 | 106m | Cert 12 | Drama
NO BEARS is the outstanding new film from acclaimed Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi. In the film Panahi plays himself, a filmmaker trying to direct a cast and crew in Turkey, who is forced to remain in an Iranian village close to the border. As his actors perform their own story of attempted escape to Europe, Panahi finds himself coming up against suspicion and local traditions in the village where he is staying. Panahi’s latest film is a testimony to how artistry and protest can find inspiration in the very restrictions that he and other creative voices face.
Perfect Days
March 13 2025 7:30 pm | Japan | 2023 | 124m | Cert PG | Drama
The highly anticipated return to fiction feature filmmaking from Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas, Wings of Desire), PERFECT DAYS takes the seasoned writer-director to Tokyo to tell a story celebrating the hidden joys and minutiae of Japanese culture.
In a deeply moving performance that won the Best Actor award at Cannes 2023, Koji Yakusho (Babel, 13 Assassins) stars as Hirayama, a contemplative middle-aged man who lives a life of modesty and serenity, spending his days balancing his job as a dutiful caretaker of Tokyo’s numerous public toilets with his passion for music, literature and photography. As we join him on his structured daily routine, a series of unexpected encounters gradually begin to reveal a hidden past that lies behind his otherwise content and harmonious life.
Channeling Wenders’ affection for the work of Yasujiro Ozu, and combining a refreshingly unstereotypical depiction of the Japanese capital – particularly the experience of typically unappreciated service work – with a soundtrack of iconic hits from the 60s and 80s, this is a subtle, shimmering and ultimately life-affirming marvel that champions the meditative beauty of the everyday world around us.
The Promised Land
April 10 2025 7:30 pm | Denmark | 2023 | 122m | Cert 15 | Drama
From BAFTA nominated writer and director, Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), comes a powerful Nordic epic starring Mads Mikkelsen (The Hunt, Another Round).
In 1755, the impoverished Captain Ludvig Kahlen sets out to conquer the uninhabitable Danish heath in the name of the King. But the sole ruler of the area, the merciless Frederik de Schinkel, who believes the land belongs to him, swears revenge when the maid Ann Barbara and her serf husband escape for refuge with Kahlen.
Fallen Leaves
May 8 2025 7:30 pm | Finland | 2023 | 81m | Cert 12A | Drama, Romance
Award-winning filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki (Le Havre, The Other Side of Hope) makes a masterful return with FALLEN LEAVES, a timeless, hopeful and satisfying love story that won the Jury Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
Set in modern day Helsinki, the film tells the story of Ansa (Alma Pöysti) and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), two lonely souls whose chance meeting at a local karaoke bar is beset by numerous hurdles. From lost phone numbers to mistaken addresses, alcoholism and a charming stray dog, the pair’s path to happiness is as bittersweet as it is ultimately delightful.
Shot through with Kaurismäki’s typically playful, idiosyncratic style and deadpan sense of humor, this tender romantic tragicomedy is both a loving tribute to the filmmaker’s beloved contemporaries and a timely reminder of the potency of movie-going from one of cinema’s living legends.
Broker
June 12 2025 7:30 pm | South Korea | 2022 | 129m | Cert 12A | Comedy, Crime, Drama
On a rainy night in Busan, So-young (Lee ‘IU’ Ji-eun) leaves her baby Woo-sung
outside a ‘baby box’, a safe place set up in Korean churches for new mothers to
leave unwanted infants. Instead, he’s picked up by Sang-hyun (Parasite’s Song
Kang-ho) who runs an unofficial adoption brokerage and plans to find him a new
home.
So-young tracks down both Sang-hyun and his business partner Dong-soo (Gang
Dong-won) and decides to join their pursuit (alongside a seven-year-old stowaway
from a nearby orphanage), but as they search for Woo-sung’s new family, the
unlikely group evolves into something of a family themselves – unaware they’re
being tailed by two detectives (Doona Bae, Lee Joo-young) who are determined to
stop them.
Heartwarming, funny and moving, BROKER is the outstanding new film from
Hirokazu Kore-eda, the acclaimed director of Shoplifters
Alcarràs
July 10 2025 7:30 pm | Spain | 2022 | 120m | Cert 15 | Drama
In the small village of Alcarràs in Catalonia, the peach farmers of the Solé family spend every summer together picking fruit from their orchard. But when new plans arise to install solar panels and cut down trees, the members of this tight-knit group suddenly face eviction – and the loss of far more than their home.
Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlinale, the sophomore film from Carla Simón (Summer 1993) is a sun-dappled, deeply moving ensemble portrait of the countryside and a community’s unbreakable bonds.