2009/2010 Season Films

All shows start at 7:45PM unless otherwise stated

Conversations with my Gardener

11 September 2009

An intimate and revealing portrait of two men. An artist, played by Daniel Auteuil, discovers that his new gardener [Jean Pierre Darroussin] is an old childhood friend. The two men slip into easy conversation, as they share memories of childhood, marriage, children and careers.

Philosophical and melancholy, this is a beautiful film set in the verdant  and picturesque French countryside and in Paris.

Il Divo

25 September 2009

The perfidious nature of post-war Italian politics is uncovered in Paolo Sorrentino's portrait of Giulio Andreotti [Tony Servillo]. Andreotti, who dominated Italian politics for many decades, faced charges of conspiracy, collusion with the Mafia and even murder but he was never convicted and remains a Senator for Life.

A gripping docu-drama from a master stylist who combines fact with speculation.

California Dreamin'

16 October 2009

Winner of the prestigious Cannes award, 'Un Certain Regard', in 2007, Cristian Nemescu's film is based on a true story: a NATO train transporting military equipment is stopped in the middle of nowhere by an over-zealous chief of a Romanian train station. Set against the backdrop of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the film explores with humour and gritty realism the impact that the arrival of the American soldiers led by Captain Jones has on the small village community. A cinematic tour de force not to be missed.

The Terence Davies Trilogy

30 October 2009

Before Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and The Long Day Closes confirmed Terence Davies' status as one of the cinematic masters of our day, these three early shorts reveal a film-maker of great promise.

Restored by the BFI National Archive who worked closely with Terence himself, the films are preserved by the BFI.

Caramel

13 November 2009

A romantic comedy based on the daily lives of five Lebanese women living in Beirut. Each one has a problem, varying from lesbianism to late-flowering love, and each battles with her own dilemmas. The Director, Nadine Labaki, draws together a beguiling tapestry of life in modern-day Beirut, as Christian and Muslim, young and old, religious and secular, all live and work side by side.

As its name suggests, Caramel is a delightfully sweet confection

Welcome to the Sticks

27 November 2009

Although living a comfortable life in Salon-de-Provence, a charming town in the South of France, Julie has been feeling depressed for a while and, to please her, her husband, Philippe, tries to obtain a transfer to a seaside town, on the French Riviera.

The trouble is that he makes such a mess of his job in the post office that he is  banished to the distant northern town of Bergues. Leaving his child and wife behind, his frightening destination is a dreadfully cold place inhabited by hard-drinking, unemployed rednecks, speaking an incomprehensible dialect called Ch'ti. Philippe soon realizes that all these ideas were nothing but prejudices and that Bergues is not synonymous with hell.

Lemon Tree

8 January 2010

A drama based on the true story of a Palestinian widow who must defend her field of lemon trees, when a new Israeli Defense Minister moves next to her and threatens to have her lemon grove torn down.

A multi-faceted drama straddling the Palestinian-Israeli chasm that's marbled with irony, generosity, anger and pure crowd-pleasing optimism. Israeli director, Eran Riklis, takes a story of border sensitivities but reduces its political components to a simple human level.

Couscous (Le Grain et le Mulet)

19 February 2010

In his sixties, Monsieur Beiji is tired of a life of toil in a shipyard, and wants to realise his long-cherished dream, opening a floating restaurant specialising in fish-and-couscous dishes (hence the grain and the mullet of the French title).

A warm and engaging ensemble comedy-drama centred on a North African dockside community in a southern French port, Couscous has a keen eye for the cultural complexity of 21st Century France.

El Baño del Papa

19 March 2010

A small South American village is in a flurry over the Pope's 1988 visit as many wish to seize the opportunity to capitalise on this once in a lifetime opportunity. In the case of the hero, Beto, this takes the form of investing the family's savings in a toilet for the tourists.

From Oscar-nominated cinematographer, Cesar Charlone, and screenwriter, Enrique Fernandez, comes an engaging drama of human aspiration which takes its initial idea from the 1988 Papal visit to Melo in Uruguay

The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups)

16 April 2010

A young Parisian boy, Antoine Doinel, neglected by his parents, skips school, sneaks into movies, runs away from home, steals things, and tries (disastrously) to return them. He inhabits a Paris of dingy flats, seedy arcades, abandoned factories, and workaday streets, a city that seems big and full of possibilities only to a child's eye. Like most children, he gets into more trouble for things he thinks are right than for his actual trespasses.

This semi-autobiographical film is a landmark in modern cinema, launching the French New Wave and turning François Truffaut from a critic into one of the world's most distinguished film-makers.

Alexandra (Aleksandra)

21 May 2010

The opening minutes of Alexandra are unlike anything else in contemporary cinema. As if in a dream, an elderly lady is led towards an armoured train by soldiers. Is she being kidnapped, deported, sent to her death? No, this indomitable Russian matron is paying a sentimental visit to her grandson in the front line of Russia's Chechen war.

One of Russia's greatest singers, Galina Vishnevskaya, is surprisingly cast as the widowed babushka and as we follow her voyage of discovery into war-torn Grozny, the effect is as surreal and yet as powerful as anything previously attempted.

AGM (19.45) followed at approximately 20.45 by: -

Love Letters and Live Wires

25 June 2010

Following the popularity of Night Mail, a short film shown last season, this is a compilation of eight films made by the former GPO Film Unit between 1936 and 1939.

The subjects vary from the delivery of post to a flooded village and laying underground cable to the whimsy of a fairy teaching telephone etiquette.