season 9.
September 2019 - July 2020
WEDNESDAY 11 SEPTEMBER 2019
Everybody Knows
Director: Asghar Farhadi, Spain 2018, 132 minutes, Cert 15
This absorbing, hugely watchable film opens with members of an extended family gathering in a Spanish village to celebrate a wedding. When a girl goes missing, celebration turns into desperate hunt, and a web of grievances and loyalties past and present are steadily exposed by the unfolding crisis. Iranian director Farhadi (A Separation, About Elly) directs a magnificent cast that includes heavyweights Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Ricardo Darín at their very best.
WEDNESDAY 9 October 2019
Voices of the Sea
Director: Kim Hopkins, UK 2018, 83 minutes, Cert 12
A documentary of enormous warmth that reveals the stark realities facing the poorest of rural Cubans. Mariela longs for a better life for her four children and is desperate enough to risk the dangerous crossing to the US, but her older husband Pita, a fisherman, cherishes his friendships and the camaraderie of their little town and wants to stay. An intelligent, sensitive portrait of tough living in a beautiful place, from a sympathetic filmmaker with unique access and insight.
WEDNESDAY 13 November 2019
Cold War
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski, Poland 2018, 88 minutes, Cert 15
In post-war Poland, musical director Wiktor travels the country holding auditions for a state-sponsored folkloric ensemble whose purpose is to extol the virtues of the motherland, when he falls for Zula, a damaged, ambitious and charismatic young woman on probation after a violent crime. Spanning two decades and four countries, this epic romance (from the director of Ida) of ill-fated and combustible love has magnetic and flawless central performances, stunning monochrome cinematography and an elegant soundtrack.
WEDNESDAY 8 January 2020
Skate Kitchen
Director: Crystal Moselle, USA 2018, 106 minutes, Cert 15
Shy, softly spoken Camille is a skateboard-obsessed tomboy who posts her boldest moves on social media. After she falls in with a New York-based, all-female, tight-knit skate collective, she must navigate the fragile social dynamics that govern adolescent self-defining tribes. With members of the real life Skate Kitchen crew playing themselves, this fictionalised portrait of a troubled outsider finding acceptance with a band of likeminded misfits is an exhilarating, lyrical exploration of female camaraderie and sisterhood.
WEDNESDAY 12 February 2020
Dogman
Director: Matteo Garrone, Italy 2018, 103 minutes, Cert 15
Big-hearted Marcello makes a living tending dogs in a decaying coastal southern Italian suburb, where he is popular locally in part thanks to his sideline in low-level drug dealing that funds scuba diving and holidays with his adored teenage daughter. But when the local thug implicates him in a crime, Marcello is forced to toughen up. A bleak, tender, funny, unflinching and violent morality tale about an essentially good man paying a heavy price for his weaknesses.
WEDNESDAY 11 March 2020
Capernaum
Director: Nadine Labaki, Lebanon 2018, 126 minutes, Cert 15
12-year-old Zain flees his negligent parents and survives through his wits on the streets of Beirut, befriending an Ethiopian migrant worker who provides him with shelter and food in return for looking after her son while she is at work. In this brutally honest, heartbreaking portrayal of child poverty and conditions in Beirut slums – with an extraordinary, charismatic lead performance – the angry, energetic momentum avoids sentimentality while keeping humanity at its heart.
Unfortunately the season was curtailed by Covid-19 restrictions and the remaining films we had scheduled could not be shown.
WEDNESDAY 8 April 2020 - Not SHown
Burning
Director: Lee Chang-dong, South Korea 2018, 148 minutes, Cert 15
Aspiring writer Jongsoo runs into Haemi, who claims to know him from their childhood. They strike up a relationship, and she asks him to feed her cat while she is on a trip to Africa. When she returns, it is to Jongsoo’s dismay, with the rich, charming playboy Gatsby figure Ben in tow. This beguiling and hypnotic unconventional thriller is infused with alienation, class envy and longing, the narrative shifting along with an unnerving, multi-layered ambiguity.
WEDNESDAY 13 May 2020 - Not Shown
3 Faces
Director: Jafar Panahi, Iran 2018, 100 minutes, Cert 15
The fourth film to be made by the prolific Iranian director (This is Not a Film, Taxi Tehran) while under house arrest and banned from filmmaking, here is a brave act of cinematic defiance. Exploring and interrogating Iran’s enduring patriarchal attitudes, it takes the form of a road trip to the northwest of country, with the delightful Panahi as the driver, playing himself. A quietly engaging, provocative film that never strays into hectoring or grandstanding.
wEDNESDAY 10 June 2020 - Not Shown
Shoplifters
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan 2018, 121 minutes, Cert 15
On the margins of Tokyo, a makeshift and dysfunctional family of outsiders supplement the meagre wages coming in with a practised routine of petty theft. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence, and we are forced to reassess the family’s motives. This complex and subtle film delivers a hard-hitting social comment on modern Japan, but with immense tenderness and gentle humour.
WEDNESDAY 8 July 2020 - Not Shown
Columbus
Director: Kogonada, USA 2018, 104 minutes, Cert 12
Casey, who lives with her recovering addict mother, is an architecture buff who loves the many modernist buildings that the Indiana town is celebrated for, but whose obligations to her recovering addict mother hold her back from college. She strikes up a friendship with Jin, a visitor from the other side of world who arrives to be at the hospital bedside of his famous architect father. A meticulously composed, poignant story about feelings and buildings.
