On The Adamant
The Adamant is the name of a barge in central Paris, a day care facility for neurodivergent adults—and the setting for veteran documentarian Nicolas Philibert’s latest feature, which was awarded the prestigious Berlinale Golden Bear and nominated for a César. In this characteristically humane examination of an institution and its deeply invested employees, Philibert trains his empathetic gaze on the facility, its dedicated caretakers, and their regular patients, who include musicians and other creative souls. Their day-to-day challenges and triumphs, mediated through artistic workshops that facilitate bracingly personal moments of vivid self-expression, are at the core of a film that finds profound beauty and inspiration in a vital, all-too-rare haven of community and caretaking.
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
United Nations, 1960: the Global South ignites a political earthquake, jazz musicians crash the Security Council, Nikita Khrushchev bangs his shoe, and the U.S. State Department swings into action, sending jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to Congo to deflect attention from the CIA-backed coup.
Director Johan Grimonprez captures the moment when African politics and American jazz collided in this revelatory documentary richly illustrated by eyewitness accounts, official government memos, testimonies from mercenaries and CIA operatives, speeches from Lumumba himself, and a veritable canon of jazz icons. Sundance award-winner Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat interrogates colonial history to tell an urgent and timely story of precedent that resonates more than ever in today’s geopolitical climate.
I’m Still Here
Brazil, 1971. As the nation faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship, the Paiva family lives surrounded by love in their Rio home. But when a violent and arbitrary act by the government throws them into disarray, Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres) – mother of five children, and wife to a husband she may never see again – is forced to reinvent her life.
Based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva's biographical book, I'm Still Here tells a powerful true story that helped reconstruct an important part of Brazil’s hidden history.
Driving Mum
Jon is a middle-aged man who lives with his elderly mother in rural Iceland. His overbearing mother always knows what’s best so it's only natural that when she dies, Jon fulfils her very specific wishes on how to be laid to rest. He dresses her dead body, does her make-up and puts her in the back seat of his car along with his loyal dog Bresnef to drive across the country.
Strange at times but at the heart a tender story of discovery. Beautifully filmed in crisp black and white, Driving Mum is a heartwarming, emotional film with a fantastic central performance from Gunnarsson.
Solo
Simon (Théodore Pellerin) is a rising star in Montreal’s drag scene performing lively disco pop numbers weekly at his local club. Friendly with his fellow drag queens and supported by his sister, who delights in designing increasingly elaborate and beautiful costumes for his act, Simon vibrates with the passion of his adopted artistic community. When he meets Oliver (Félix Maritaud), the alluring new recruit at the club, their irresistible chemistry sparks an electric romance and a fulfilling creative collaboration. Their dynamic is mesmerizing and tender until Oliver’s dominant instincts and destructive behavior jeopardize Simon’s space in the spotlight.
Witches
Following her acclaimed documentary Romantic Comedy (2019), Elizabeth Sankey turns her attention to society, and the film industry’s, fascination with witches. From the witch trials of the 1600s to the themes of Rosemary’s Baby, Sankey draws parallels between historical prejudice against women, motherhood and mental health, and contemporary screen representations of witches. Reflecting on her own experiences with postpartum depression and psychosis, Witches is simultaneously a visual ode to cinema, a deeply personal essay and a stark reminder of the lack of mental health support available to pregnant women in the UK.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Geneviève (Catherine Deneuve) is in love with car mechanic Guy (Nino Castelnuovo), but her mother (Anne Vernon) has other ideas. Her umbrella shop isn’t doing well; besides, there’s the war in Algeria… In Demy’s bittersweet classic Michel Legrand’s achingly lovely score, the vibrant colour-coding of Bernard Evein’s art direction, Jean Rabier’s elegant, fluid camerawork and the uniformly rhapsodic performances are brought together to turn an unusually sombre – even dark – storyline into an enchanting fairy tale that muses wisely, and very movingly, on the workings of chance and fate.
Your Fat Friend
Acclaimed director Jeanie Finlay charts the rise of Aubrey Gordon. Shot over six years we see Aubrey go from anonymous blogger Yrfatfriend to NYTimes best seller and beloved podcaster with an audience of millions.
Her aim? A paradigm shift in the way that we view fat people and the fat on our own bodies. The world may be listening but her family have a way to go in understanding her work.
A film about fatness, family, the complexities of change and the messy feelings we hold about our bodies.
To A Land Unknown
Palestinian cousins Chatila and Reda have fled a Lebanese refugee camp for Athens. Their sights are set on Germany but, with no money or passports, they are stuck in an underground limbo living off scams and petty crime. For Chatila, who has discovered a ruthless streak, anything is justified – even ripping off their fellow refugees – but Reda hates what he has become, a shame he smothers with drugs, squandering the little money they have. Things look up, however, when they meet Malek: a young boy who says his aunt will send him money to bring him to Italy. Working in a style between documentary and fiction, director Mehdi Fleifel brings home the reality of desperation with poignancy and warmth.
My Favourite Cake
The film follows 70-year-old Mahin (Lily Farhadpour), who has been living alone in Tehran for decades since her husband died and her daughter left for Europe. One afternoon, tea with friends leads her to reassess her life and choices; she decides to break her solitary routine and revitalise her love life. On a chance outing, where she witnesses an encounter between a woman and the morality police and decides to intervene, she comes across a lonely taxi driver called Esmail (Esmail Mehrabi). A newfound determination and confidence propels her to approach him, and she invites him over to her house in a bid for connection. What follows is an unpredictable, unforgettable evening.
Crossing
In honour of her sister's dying wish, retired history teacher Lia has crossed the Black Sea from Batumi in Georgia to Istanbul in search of her trans niece Tekla who has disappeared. Chasing down a sketchy lead, she comes into the orbit of Achi, a feckless young man who squats with his loutish older brother.
Seizing an opportunity for escape, Achi persuades Lia to take him as companion and guide on her quest, proffering unconvincing intel about Tekla's whereabouts along the way. His youthful zeal and natural inquisitiveness prove a winning foil to the older woman's flinty, hard-drinking stoicism.
Levan Akins's quixotic film displays great empathy for the obstacles faced by LGBTQI communities where traditional value systems dominate.
Kneecap
When fate brings Belfast schoolteacher JJ into the orbit of self-confessed 'low life scum' Naoise & Liam Og, the needle drops on a hip hop act like no other. Rapping in their native Irish language, Kneecap fast become the unlikely figureheads of a Civil Rights movement to save their mother tongue. But the trio must first overcome police, paramilitaries & politicians trying to silence their defiant sound - whilst their anarchic approach to life often makes them their own worst enemies.
In this fiercely original sex, drugs and hip-hop biopic Kneecap play themselves, laying down a global rallying cry for the defense of native cultures.
The Holdovers
Nominated for five Oscars and seven BAFTAs, we're inviting you to get in the mood for Christmas with The Holdovers. A brilliant new holiday season classic.
As the students of New England prep school Barton Academy excitedly depart for the winter holidays, a ragtag bunch with nowhere to go are forced to stay behind. Making things worse, their appointed ‘babysitter’ is the cantankerous Professor Hunham (Paul Giamatti). Over the festive break, the grumpy professor forms an unexpected bond with smart-but-troubled student Angus (Dominic Sessa), and Mary (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), the school’s cook, who is grieving the loss of her son.
Alexander Payne reunites with his Sideways star Paul Giamatti in a film that strikes the perfect balance between pathos and playfulness. The Holdovers is just the kind of warm-hearted and thoughtful work we have come to expect from one of contemporary cinema’s great humanist filmmakers.
Elaha
A German-Kurdish woman has to decide whether to cover up the fact that she is no longer a virgin ahead of her wedding in this poignant exploration of cultural pressure and self-determination.
Elaha (Bayan Layla) faces a dilemma just weeks away from her wedding to Nasim (Armin Wahedi) in Milena Aboyan's tense and poignant drama. Elaha has to decide whether to try to cover up the fact that she is no longer a virgin – a state of 'honour' considered essential by her German-Kurdish community and, more specifically, by her strict mother (Derya Durmaz). Aboyan carefully explores the cultural ties that bind Elaha, as the young woman embarks on a journey of self-discovery.
It’s Only Life After All
With forty years of making music as the iconic folk-rock band Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have made their mark as musicians, songwriters, and dedicated activists. They have represented radical self-acceptance to many, leading multiple generations of fans to say, "the Indigo Girls saved my life." Still, Amy and Emily battled misogyny, homophobia, and a harsh cultural climate chastising them for not fitting into a female pop star mold. With joy, humor, and heart-warming earnestness, Sundance award-winning director Alexandria Bombach brings us into a contemporary conversation with Amy and Emily—alongside decades of the band's home movies and intimate present-day verité.
That They May Face The Rising Sun
Capturing a year in the life of a rural, lakeside community in late 1970s Ireland, That They May Face The Rising Sun is a sensitive and beautifully realised adaptation of the last novel by John McGahern.
Joe (Barry Ward) and Kate (Anna Bederke) have returned from London to live and work in a small, close-knit community in rural Ireland, close to where Joe grew up. He's a writer, she's an artist who retains part ownership of a London gallery. Now embedded in a remote lakeside setting, the drama of a year in their lives and those of their neighbours unfolds through the rituals of work, play and the passing seasons.
A delicate, meditative exploration of ritual, community bonds, and the question of how best to live.
The Taste of Things
Peerless cook Eugenie (Juliette Binoche) has worked for the famous gourmet Dodin (Benoît Magimel) for the last 20 years. Bonding over a passion for gastronomy and mutual admiration, their relationship develops into romance and gives rise to delicious dishes that impress even the world's most illustrious chefs. But Eugenie is fond of her freedom and has never wanted to marry Dodin. So, he decides to do something he has never done before: cook for her.
A delectable feast for the senses, The Taste of Things is a stunningly beautiful romance that simmers with emotion. The new film from acclaimed director Trần Anh Hùng, it will be an unmissable cinematic treat.
Rose
Set over the course of one week, Rose is the story of two sisters, Inger and Ellen, and how their relationship is challenged on a highly anticipated coach trip to Paris. When Inger announces her struggles with mental health to the group, the sisters are faced with pity from some and downright discrimination from others.
On arrival in Paris, it soon becomes clear that Inger has a hidden agenda concerning a figure from her past, ultimately involving the entire group in her hunt for answers. Rose is a film about love and care for each other, in spite of our differences, as much as it is a film about not judging a book by its cover.
La Chimera
Everyone has their own Chimera, something they try to achieve but never manage to find. For the band of tombaroli, thieves of ancient grave goods and archaeological wonders, the Chimera means redemption from work and the dream of easy wealth. For Arthur, the Chimera looks like the woman he lost, Beniamina. To find her, Arthur challenges the invisible, searches everywhere, goes inside the earth – in search of the door to the afterlife of which myths speak. In an adventurous journey between the living and the dead, between forests and cities, between celebrations and solitudes, the intertwined destinies of these characters unfold, all in search of the Chimera.
Fallen Leaves
Hailed as the best-reviewed film of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival - where it topped Screen International's prestigious critics' poll - the beguiling new comedic romance from celebrated auteur Aki Kaurismäki (Le Havre, Drifting Clouds, The Other Side Of Hope) follows two lost souls who meet by chance in the Helsinki night and then try, in turbulent times, to find companionship.
Ansa (Alma Pöysti) works at a supermarket, where the job is so badly paid that she takes home expired sandwiches for dinner. Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) is a metalworker, labouring in a job so hazardous he's sure it will kill him, so he drinks through the day, and then again at night. Meanwhile, the radio constantly carries news about the nearby war in Ukraine.
One evening, against his will, Holappa is dragged to a karaoke bar by a friend. "Tough guys don’t sing", he says. But karaoke night is also a night for romance, and when Holappa meets the shy Ansa, there's an immediate spark. But life being what it is, a variety of obstacles conspire to get in the way…
With his trademark deadpan humour, minimalist dialogue and retro aesthetic, Kaurismäki's latest delight showcases his unrivalled mastery for depicting down-on-their-luck characters in all their complexity, and finding humour and optimism in the unlikeliest of circumstances. In a time of economic disparity, war and uncertainty, Fallen Leaves is a valuable reminder of the importance of love and connection; once again Finland's most-beloved director has delivered, in spades.
How To Have Sex
Three teenage girlfriends navigate sex, consent, and friendships old and new on a euphoric post-
exams vacation on a Greek party island.
It’s supposed to be the best summer ever. Tara, Skye and Em touch down on the Greek party
resort of Malia for the vacation to end all vacations, the girls trip every British teenager ticks off at
the cusp of adulthood. Tara, the last remaining virgin, is on a mission to change that: and her best
friends are causing chaos right alongside her. The 16-year-old drinks and dances her way
through the strip – with all its messy bars and grimy nightclubs – until she meets a couple of boys
on the neighboring hotel balcony who she hopes might give her a summer to remember.
Making her debut feature with a vibrant, compassionate look at sex, friendship, consent and the
sweet smell of a boozy sunburned summer holiday, director and cinematographer Molly Manning
Walker (Scrapper, Good Thanks, You?) paints an exhilarating, moving, and painfully familiar
portrait of young adulthood.
With post-film panel discussion on the issues of consent raised in the film
Tarrac
Tarrac is a drama set at the edge of the world, the coastlines and sea of the Dingle peninsula. A place of wild geography, where the weather and the people have a mind of their own. Tarrac has warmth and a sense of place. An intimate character study of a woman who through a sporting passion finally manages acceptance and love. Laced with humour, heart break and exciting action set against the stunning landscapes and seas of the Kerry Gaeltacht, Tarrac is about daring to care again and learning the power of forgiveness.
Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn
Take a celebrated musical genius, sibling rivalry, an unknown manuscript, some very persistent research and one sensational revelation, and what have you got? Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn – the documentary from BAFTA-winning director Sheila Hayman that features global Decca star, Isata Kanneh-Mason.
Les Enfants du Paradis
Made during the Nazi occupation of France, Marcel Carné’s romantic epic of the 19th-century theatre world is a life-affirming tribute to love, Paris and the stage. Based on a highly literate script by poet and screenwriter Jacques Prévert, which draws on real-life figures of the 1820s and 1830s, Marcel Carné’s film is a lavish Dickensian drama set among the actors, criminals and aristocrats that orbit around a theatre on Paris’s so-called ‘Boulevard du Crime’.
The Nettle Dress
Textile artist Allan Brown spends seven years making a dress by hand entirely from locally foraged stinging nettles. This is his medicine. It’s how he survives the passing of his wife, leaving him and their four children bereft, and how he finds a beautiful way to honour her.
The Mauritanian
Directed by Kevin Macdonald and based on the bestselling memoir “Guantánamo Diary” by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, this is the story of Slahi’s fight for freedom after being detained and imprisoned without charge by the U.S. Government. Alone and afraid, Slahi (Tahar Rahim) finds allies in defence attorney Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) and her associate Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley) who battle the U.S. government in a fight for justice that tests their commitment to the law and their client at every turn. Their controversial advocacy, along with evidence uncovered by military prosecutor, Lt. Colonel Stuart Couch (Benedict Cumberbatch), reveals shocking truths and ultimately proves that the human spirit cannot be suppressed.
Wet Sand
A small seaside village in the former Soviet republic of Georgia is rocked after Eliko, an ostracized village elder, dies by suicide. When Moe his long-absent granddaughter arrives to take care of his affairs, she is confronted with a web of lies and the tragic consequences of Eliko’s hidden love life.
Moe is confronted by a tight-knit, tight-lipped community of villagers closing ranks, determined to defend their hardened moral and religious codes at all costs. It sets her on a pitched battle to challenge the bigoted culture that led to her grandfather’s despair, and on a path to discovering more about herself.
Angelheaded Hipster
AngelHeaded Hipster is the first documentary to explore the complex and revolutionary music and lyrics of Marc Bolan and T. Rex. Using archival performances, interviews with Bolan, Elton John and Ringo Starr, plus filmed musical interpretations by artists such as Nick Cave, John Cameron Mitchell, Joan Jett, Macy Gray, U2, Lucinda Williams, Father John Misty, and son Rolan Bolan among others.
Denial
This powerful and bitingly relevant courtroom drama recounts historian Deborah Lipstadt’s (Rachel Weisz) legal battle for historical truth against David Irving (Timothy Spall), who accused her of libel when she declared him a Holocaust denier. With the burden of proof on the accused, it was up to Lipstadt and her legal team to prove the essential truth that the Holocaust occurred.
This dramatic, impactful and intellectually nourishing courtroom battle is brought to the screen magnificently by screenwriter David Hare and director Mick Jackson, who are indebted to thee brilliant lead performances from Weisz, Spall and Tom Wilkinson as Lipstadt’s barrister Richard Rampton. With the startling rise of contemporary phenomena like ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’, Denial is an urgent reminder of the primacy of truth and justice
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Fremont
Donya, a young Afghan who moved to Fremont, California after serving as a translator for the American army, spends her days working at a fortune cookie factory and her nights wide awake battling between her desire to rebuild her life and the overbearing guilt she carries within. In a bid to connect with the world, she sends an unconventional message through a fortune cookie. A sensitive immigrant tale tinged with Jarmuschian deadpan humour.
All That Breathes
Against the darkening backdrop of New Delhi's apocalyptic air and escalating violence, two brothers devote their lives to protecting one casualty of the turbulent times: the bird known as the black kite.
In one of the world's most populated cities, cows, rats, monkeys, frogs, and hogs jostle cheek-by-jowl with people. Here, two brothers fall in love with a bird – the black kite. From their makeshift bird hospital in their tiny basement, the "kite brothers" care for thousands of these mesmeric creatures that drop daily from New Delhi's smog-choked skies. As environmental toxicity and civil unrest escalate, the relationship between this Muslim family and the neglected kite forms a poetic chronicle of the city’s collapsing ecology and rising social tensions.
The Night of the 12th
In the corridors of the criminal police, it is said that all the investigators have a crime that haunts them. One day or another, they come across a case hurting them more than the others, without always knowing why. It starts spinning in their heads to the point of obsession.
Young and ambitious Captain Vivés has just been appointed group leader at the Grenoble Criminal Squad when Clara’s murder case lands on his desk. Vivés and his team investigate Clara’s complex life and relations, but what starts as a professional and methodical immersion into the victim’s life soon turns into a haunting obsession.
Winner of the prestigious Lumière award for Best Film as well as six César awards, The Night of the 12th is a deeply arresting and powerful crime thriller which questions how the criminal police and society at large handle the recurring murders of women.
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Close
A loving friendship between two young boys is irrevocably disrupted in Close (2022) director Lukas Dhont's heart-breaking coming-of-age drama, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes.
13-year-old best friends Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav De Waele) are inseparable. Making first steps towards adulthood, they enjoy a tender and intense bond; so close that their parents treat them almost like brothers. But when they start high school and become newly self-conscious around their peers, needing to evince greater sophistication and independence, their relationship deteriorates, tearing them suddenly and tragically apart.
Evocative and sensitive, Dhont's direction captures the indelibly painful moment when childhood friendships become contingent, when the outside world and its judgements begin to intrude in previously exquisitely trusting relationships. Beautifully performed by newcomers Dambrine and De Waele, brilliantly supported by Léa Drucker and Émilie Dequenne as the boys' mothers, Close registers the profound shock and grief afforded by the loss of teen friendships, plus the immense vulnerability of boys who fall foul of codes of youthful masculinity.
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