We have started the process of choosing films for the 2020-21 season starting in September. 103 of you filled in questionnaires, and the results are here. As ever, these form a valuable guide to programme selection, but not a definitive conclusion!
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WELCOME TO our latest season of international films. Whilst we remain mindful of the fact that giving every member a good view of the subtitles is tricky, we have increased the number of foreign language films by one over last season. This is because quality sometimes goes in cycles and, this year, the best and most interesting films are subtitled; even so, and with great reluctance, we haven’t included The Guardians, arguably the best of the bunch. Changes in viewing habits continue to gather pace, so thank you for resisting the lure of a ‘binge watch and takeaway’ evening at home and joining your fellow enthusiasts here, to share the extra buzz that an appreciative audience can bring to the proceedings.
Please note, we have retained the 3F system as follows: F = female director; F = noteworthy female role(s); f = female editor. |
If you have a comment on one of our films, please leave it below
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Programme 2019-20
Date / Title / Approx. Audience / Reaction:
2019:
22 Sep The Wife 130 84%
6 Oct Cold War * 130 82%
20 Oct Leave No Trace 150 83%
3 Nov Shoplifters * 145 79%
17 Nov BlacKkKlansman 145 90%
8 Dec Woman at War * 145 90%
15 Dec The Bookshop 135 76%
2020:
5 Jan The 12th Man * 120 95%
19 Jan Old Boys 135 81%
2 Feb Can You Ever Forgive Me? 145 79%
16 Feb C'est la Vie * 130 85%
1 Mar A Private War 145 92%
15 Mar Wild Rose 95 85%
2019:
22 Sep The Wife 130 84%
6 Oct Cold War * 130 82%
20 Oct Leave No Trace 150 83%
3 Nov Shoplifters * 145 79%
17 Nov BlacKkKlansman 145 90%
8 Dec Woman at War * 145 90%
15 Dec The Bookshop 135 76%
2020:
5 Jan The 12th Man * 120 95%
19 Jan Old Boys 135 81%
2 Feb Can You Ever Forgive Me? 145 79%
16 Feb C'est la Vie * 130 85%
1 Mar A Private War 145 92%
15 Mar Wild Rose 95 85%
* subtitled films.
2019
22 September
THE WIFE
UK/Swe/US, 2017, 100m, colr, 15, F
Director: Björn Runge
With Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, Christian Slater, Annie Starke
NOVELIST JOE CASTLEMAN (Pryce) is in Stockholm to collect the Nobel Prize for Literature, accompanied by his wife Joan (Close). Initially willing to play the noble wife of a great writer in the expected style – shopping and visiting the beauty parlour – she begins to re-evaluate their long-standing, but fragile, relationship. Concurrent with this are the determined efforts of Joe’s biographer to uncover details of his subject’s marital infidelities – and whichever other secrets might be hiding in his closet. Close’s excellent performance won her a Golden Globe, although Olivia Colman pipped her to the Oscar.
6 October
COLD WAR
Pol/UK/Fr/Ind, 2018, 88m, b/w, 15, s/t, F
Director: Pavel Pawlikowski
With Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc
POLAND 1949; WARSAW 1951; PARIS 1954. Wiktor and Zula meet during a tour of war-ravaged Poland, the purpose of which is to gather folk songs – and musicians – for the Mazurek troupe. They fall madly in love, but the path to any potential happy ending is a tortuous one with spies, double-crosses and the dangers of trying to defect a constant menace. The director has made Cold War as a fictional tribute to his own parents who both died, not insignificantly, in 1989. It is film making of the highest order, a ‘musical-noir’ that really does rank with the best that cinema can offer – as attested to by its 18 minute standing ovation at Cannes.
20 October
LEAVE NO TRACE
US, 2018, 109m, colr, PG, FFf
Director: Debra Granik
With Ben Foster, Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, Dale Dickey
OREGON, PRESENT DAY. Tom and her father, ex-soldier Will, are camping out rough in the state park. Their difficult life is complicated further by the fact that Will suffers from PTSD – he sells some of his drugs to other veterans to help make ends meet – whilst, at the same time, social workers are trying to re-integrate them into a system that fails to meet their needs. A little more wistful in tone than Winter’s Bone, Harcourt McKenzie’s excellent performance has had critics declaring her a star-in-the making, echoing their reaction to Jennifer Lawrence in Granik’s breakthrough hit of 2010.
3 November
SHOPLIFTERS
Japan, 2018, 121m, colr, 15, s/t F
Director: Koreeda Hirokazu
With Lily Franky, Ando Sakura, Matsuoka Mayu, Jyo Kairi
TOKYO, PRESENT DAY. We meet a somewhat unusual ‘family’ headed by Osamu and Nobuyo, a childless couple acting as surrogate parents to a young boy and a college-age daughter, and a grandma whose source of income is her late husband’s pension. This is barely adequate, of course, so they supplement it with regular shoplifting activities that will soon include Juri, a new, very young, addition to the family who has run away from home. Shoplifters is a finely-crafted, compassionate drama that won the 2018 Palme d’Or at Cannes.
17 November
BLACKkKLANSMAN
US, 2018, 135m, colr & b/w, 15
Director: Spike Lee
With John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace
IT WAS LESS THAN 50 years ago (1973, to be precise) when Ron Stallworth became the first black officer in the Colorado Springs Police Department. In terms of racial equality, it was aeons ago, of course, and his first job was to go undercover at a Black Panther rally. Subsequently, events take an even more exciting turn when, over the phone, he convinces the KKK’s David Duke that he is white and keen to join. His main problem is immediate and obvious, but a little invention goes a long way and he persuades his Jewish colleague, Flip, to impersonate him at their meetings. By common consent, this is Spike Lee’s best film for some years.
8 December
WOMAN AT WAR
Fr/Ice/Ukr/Den, 2018, 101m, colr, 12A, s/t F
Director: Benedikt Erlingsson
With Halldóra Geirhardsdóttir, Jóhann Sigurdarson
ICELAND, PRESENT DAY. With some of the island’s most stunning scenery as a backdrop, a woman strides across the screen and attacks an electricity pylon – with a bow and arrow. This is our introduction to Halla – choir director, protector of the environment, one-woman activist and – dare we suggest – a true superhero. Woman at War has something for everyone – drama, comedy, a hugely inventive score, great cinematography and a topical message. We are proud to present to you, then, another gem of a film that didn’t get the wider audience it deserved!
15 December
THE BOOKSHOP
Sp/UK/Ger/Fr, 2017, 113m, colr, FF
Director: Isabel Coixet
With Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy, Patricia Clarkson
HARDBOROUGH, A SMALL SEASIDE TOWN in Suffolk, 1959. Despite some advice to the contrary Florence, a war widow, decides to open a bookshop. With an 11-year-old shop assistant, the remnants of post-war austerity and scheming locals, it will take something special for Florence to feel that she has “never had it so good.” Perhaps the delivery of the new publishing sensation ‘Lolita’ will give her business the timely boost it needs . . . An enjoyable, amusing film, but one that comes with both a darker edge and, as 2019 draws to a close, a rather recognisable subtext.
2020
5 January
THE 12th MAN
Norway, 2017, 136m, colr, 15, s/t F
Director: Harald Zwart
With Thomas Gullestad, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Marie Blokhus
TWELVE NORWEGIAN commandos, after completing their training in Scotland, return to their homeland to carry out acts of sabotage. The first raid goes badly wrong, only one escapes and the hunt, organised by an SS Obersturmbannführer, is well and truly on. The heroism, bravery and levels of endurance we witness thereafter, against the most stunning of backdrops, are mind-boggling; all the more so for being true. It is a pity that the 1957 original, Nine Lives, Norway’s entry for Best Foreign-Language Film at the 1958 Oscars, isn’t readily available to view and compare.
19 January
OLD BOYS
UK/Swe, 2017, 95m, colr, 12A, part-s/t, F
Directors: Toby MacDonald
With Alex Lawther, Jonah Hauer-King, Pauline Etienne
ONE OF OUR EARLIEST, and biggest, successes Cyrano de Bergerac is here relocated – quite delightfully – to a Sussex single-sex boarding school in the 1980s. The school sports hero (Hauer-King) falls for the daughter of the new French teacher. Clearly lacking the requisite skills in romance and poetry, he asks his polar opposite, the school’s “crippled minnow,” to help with the wooing. MacDonald, here directing his debut feature, elicits three very likeable performances from the young leads.
2 February
CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
US, 2018, 106m, colr, 15, FFf
Director: Marielle Heller
With Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Jane Curtin
LEE ISRAEL (McCarthy) was a biographer working in New York in the early 1990s. As the film begins, her success has dried up and she is struggling with her latest project, an unwanted biography (at least by her agent) of Fanny Brice. Unable, now, to even cover her living costs, she throws in her lot with Jack Hock (Grant), a British ne’er-do-well, and together they make a nice little earner out of forging letters purportedly written by literary luminaries such as Noel Coward. The director, Marielle Heller, whose debut feature in 2015 was the impressive The Diary of a Teenage Girl, is clearly a talent to watch.
16 February
C’EST LA VIE!
Fr/Bel/Can, 2016, 130m, colr, 15, s/t, F
Directors: Eric Toledano, Olivier Nakache
With Jean-Pierre Bacri, Jean-Paul Rouve, Gilles Lellouche
PRESENT-DAY FRANCE, somewhere south of Paris. Pierre and Hélèna are about to tie the knot; it is a most lavish affair - 17th-century chateaux don’t come cheap - and the events planner, Max, and his team are all hard at work. Unfortunately, his second-in-command has anger management issues, the entertainer fails to arrive and the photographer has designs on the groom’s mother. We’ve all almost been there, of course, so we are allowed to raise a smile – more likely a guffaw – as we watch the outrageous antics unfold. Made by the writer-director team of our hit film Untouchable (2011).
1 March
A PRIVATE WAR
UK/US, 2018, 110m, colr, 15, F
Director: Matthew Heineman
With Rosamund Pike, Jamie Dornan, Tom Hollander, Stanley Tucci
2001 WAS A KEY YEAR for correspondent Marie Colvin. She was Foreign Reporter of the Year at the British Press Awards, lost an eye in a RPG attack and was well on her way to becoming the pre-eminent witness – and world’s conscience – to crisis events around the globe. We are then with her every step of the way, during the next decade, as she heads out to Iraq, Libya and Syria whilst trying to deal with her own personal demons. Rosamund Pike, so good in Hostiles last year, has become an incredibly versatile and effective actor.
15 March
WILD ROSE
UK/Can, 2018, 101m, colr, 15, F
Director: Tom Harper
With Jessie Buckley, Julie Walters, Sophie Okonedo
WHAT DOES IT TAKE to pursue your dream and how will life be if you find it? Fresh from her release from prison, Rose-Lynn knows that she can sing up a storm – but is her self-belief strong enough to get her from Glasgow to Nashville, especially as she is the single mother of two young children? Despite being a relatively inexperienced actor, Jessie Buckley is superb in the leading role; in fact, all the cast and crew do first-rate jobs. This is the film that the over-praised – and over-rated – A Star is Born should have been.
22 September
THE WIFE
UK/Swe/US, 2017, 100m, colr, 15, F
Director: Björn Runge
With Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, Christian Slater, Annie Starke
NOVELIST JOE CASTLEMAN (Pryce) is in Stockholm to collect the Nobel Prize for Literature, accompanied by his wife Joan (Close). Initially willing to play the noble wife of a great writer in the expected style – shopping and visiting the beauty parlour – she begins to re-evaluate their long-standing, but fragile, relationship. Concurrent with this are the determined efforts of Joe’s biographer to uncover details of his subject’s marital infidelities – and whichever other secrets might be hiding in his closet. Close’s excellent performance won her a Golden Globe, although Olivia Colman pipped her to the Oscar.
6 October
COLD WAR
Pol/UK/Fr/Ind, 2018, 88m, b/w, 15, s/t, F
Director: Pavel Pawlikowski
With Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc
POLAND 1949; WARSAW 1951; PARIS 1954. Wiktor and Zula meet during a tour of war-ravaged Poland, the purpose of which is to gather folk songs – and musicians – for the Mazurek troupe. They fall madly in love, but the path to any potential happy ending is a tortuous one with spies, double-crosses and the dangers of trying to defect a constant menace. The director has made Cold War as a fictional tribute to his own parents who both died, not insignificantly, in 1989. It is film making of the highest order, a ‘musical-noir’ that really does rank with the best that cinema can offer – as attested to by its 18 minute standing ovation at Cannes.
20 October
LEAVE NO TRACE
US, 2018, 109m, colr, PG, FFf
Director: Debra Granik
With Ben Foster, Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, Dale Dickey
OREGON, PRESENT DAY. Tom and her father, ex-soldier Will, are camping out rough in the state park. Their difficult life is complicated further by the fact that Will suffers from PTSD – he sells some of his drugs to other veterans to help make ends meet – whilst, at the same time, social workers are trying to re-integrate them into a system that fails to meet their needs. A little more wistful in tone than Winter’s Bone, Harcourt McKenzie’s excellent performance has had critics declaring her a star-in-the making, echoing their reaction to Jennifer Lawrence in Granik’s breakthrough hit of 2010.
3 November
SHOPLIFTERS
Japan, 2018, 121m, colr, 15, s/t F
Director: Koreeda Hirokazu
With Lily Franky, Ando Sakura, Matsuoka Mayu, Jyo Kairi
TOKYO, PRESENT DAY. We meet a somewhat unusual ‘family’ headed by Osamu and Nobuyo, a childless couple acting as surrogate parents to a young boy and a college-age daughter, and a grandma whose source of income is her late husband’s pension. This is barely adequate, of course, so they supplement it with regular shoplifting activities that will soon include Juri, a new, very young, addition to the family who has run away from home. Shoplifters is a finely-crafted, compassionate drama that won the 2018 Palme d’Or at Cannes.
17 November
BLACKkKLANSMAN
US, 2018, 135m, colr & b/w, 15
Director: Spike Lee
With John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace
IT WAS LESS THAN 50 years ago (1973, to be precise) when Ron Stallworth became the first black officer in the Colorado Springs Police Department. In terms of racial equality, it was aeons ago, of course, and his first job was to go undercover at a Black Panther rally. Subsequently, events take an even more exciting turn when, over the phone, he convinces the KKK’s David Duke that he is white and keen to join. His main problem is immediate and obvious, but a little invention goes a long way and he persuades his Jewish colleague, Flip, to impersonate him at their meetings. By common consent, this is Spike Lee’s best film for some years.
8 December
WOMAN AT WAR
Fr/Ice/Ukr/Den, 2018, 101m, colr, 12A, s/t F
Director: Benedikt Erlingsson
With Halldóra Geirhardsdóttir, Jóhann Sigurdarson
ICELAND, PRESENT DAY. With some of the island’s most stunning scenery as a backdrop, a woman strides across the screen and attacks an electricity pylon – with a bow and arrow. This is our introduction to Halla – choir director, protector of the environment, one-woman activist and – dare we suggest – a true superhero. Woman at War has something for everyone – drama, comedy, a hugely inventive score, great cinematography and a topical message. We are proud to present to you, then, another gem of a film that didn’t get the wider audience it deserved!
15 December
THE BOOKSHOP
Sp/UK/Ger/Fr, 2017, 113m, colr, FF
Director: Isabel Coixet
With Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy, Patricia Clarkson
HARDBOROUGH, A SMALL SEASIDE TOWN in Suffolk, 1959. Despite some advice to the contrary Florence, a war widow, decides to open a bookshop. With an 11-year-old shop assistant, the remnants of post-war austerity and scheming locals, it will take something special for Florence to feel that she has “never had it so good.” Perhaps the delivery of the new publishing sensation ‘Lolita’ will give her business the timely boost it needs . . . An enjoyable, amusing film, but one that comes with both a darker edge and, as 2019 draws to a close, a rather recognisable subtext.
2020
5 January
THE 12th MAN
Norway, 2017, 136m, colr, 15, s/t F
Director: Harald Zwart
With Thomas Gullestad, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Marie Blokhus
TWELVE NORWEGIAN commandos, after completing their training in Scotland, return to their homeland to carry out acts of sabotage. The first raid goes badly wrong, only one escapes and the hunt, organised by an SS Obersturmbannführer, is well and truly on. The heroism, bravery and levels of endurance we witness thereafter, against the most stunning of backdrops, are mind-boggling; all the more so for being true. It is a pity that the 1957 original, Nine Lives, Norway’s entry for Best Foreign-Language Film at the 1958 Oscars, isn’t readily available to view and compare.
19 January
OLD BOYS
UK/Swe, 2017, 95m, colr, 12A, part-s/t, F
Directors: Toby MacDonald
With Alex Lawther, Jonah Hauer-King, Pauline Etienne
ONE OF OUR EARLIEST, and biggest, successes Cyrano de Bergerac is here relocated – quite delightfully – to a Sussex single-sex boarding school in the 1980s. The school sports hero (Hauer-King) falls for the daughter of the new French teacher. Clearly lacking the requisite skills in romance and poetry, he asks his polar opposite, the school’s “crippled minnow,” to help with the wooing. MacDonald, here directing his debut feature, elicits three very likeable performances from the young leads.
2 February
CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
US, 2018, 106m, colr, 15, FFf
Director: Marielle Heller
With Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Jane Curtin
LEE ISRAEL (McCarthy) was a biographer working in New York in the early 1990s. As the film begins, her success has dried up and she is struggling with her latest project, an unwanted biography (at least by her agent) of Fanny Brice. Unable, now, to even cover her living costs, she throws in her lot with Jack Hock (Grant), a British ne’er-do-well, and together they make a nice little earner out of forging letters purportedly written by literary luminaries such as Noel Coward. The director, Marielle Heller, whose debut feature in 2015 was the impressive The Diary of a Teenage Girl, is clearly a talent to watch.
16 February
C’EST LA VIE!
Fr/Bel/Can, 2016, 130m, colr, 15, s/t, F
Directors: Eric Toledano, Olivier Nakache
With Jean-Pierre Bacri, Jean-Paul Rouve, Gilles Lellouche
PRESENT-DAY FRANCE, somewhere south of Paris. Pierre and Hélèna are about to tie the knot; it is a most lavish affair - 17th-century chateaux don’t come cheap - and the events planner, Max, and his team are all hard at work. Unfortunately, his second-in-command has anger management issues, the entertainer fails to arrive and the photographer has designs on the groom’s mother. We’ve all almost been there, of course, so we are allowed to raise a smile – more likely a guffaw – as we watch the outrageous antics unfold. Made by the writer-director team of our hit film Untouchable (2011).
1 March
A PRIVATE WAR
UK/US, 2018, 110m, colr, 15, F
Director: Matthew Heineman
With Rosamund Pike, Jamie Dornan, Tom Hollander, Stanley Tucci
2001 WAS A KEY YEAR for correspondent Marie Colvin. She was Foreign Reporter of the Year at the British Press Awards, lost an eye in a RPG attack and was well on her way to becoming the pre-eminent witness – and world’s conscience – to crisis events around the globe. We are then with her every step of the way, during the next decade, as she heads out to Iraq, Libya and Syria whilst trying to deal with her own personal demons. Rosamund Pike, so good in Hostiles last year, has become an incredibly versatile and effective actor.
15 March
WILD ROSE
UK/Can, 2018, 101m, colr, 15, F
Director: Tom Harper
With Jessie Buckley, Julie Walters, Sophie Okonedo
WHAT DOES IT TAKE to pursue your dream and how will life be if you find it? Fresh from her release from prison, Rose-Lynn knows that she can sing up a storm – but is her self-belief strong enough to get her from Glasgow to Nashville, especially as she is the single mother of two young children? Despite being a relatively inexperienced actor, Jessie Buckley is superb in the leading role; in fact, all the cast and crew do first-rate jobs. This is the film that the over-praised – and over-rated – A Star is Born should have been.
Tea and cakes downstairs each Sunday from 4:45pm
Film on-screen 5:30pm
Film on-screen 5:30pm