Plymouth Arts Cinema - New Year, New Programme!
Plymouth Arts Cinema has announced its new programme for the New Year - with lots of hotly tipped new releases in the run-up to the awards season...
January February 2020
Film Programme
Where to find us
Our venue is located inside Plymouth College of Art’s main campus at Tavistock Place. Go through Plymouth College of Art’s main entrance and turn right, you will face our Box Office and Café-Bar. There are then a few steps down to the Box Office and Café-Bar, with disabled access via a wheelchair lift.
Opening hours:
Tuesday-Friday: 5-8.30pm (open from 1pm on Tuesday when a matinée screening is scheduled)
Saturday: 1-8.30pm
Sunday and Monday Closed
Special events: Box Office and Café/Bar open 1 hour before start time
How to book
Visit our website to book online or contact our Box Office on 01752 206 114 (Tue-Fri: 5-8.30pm, Sat: 1-8.30pm).
Cinema Tickets Standard £9.00 / Concessions, students, OAPs £7.75 / Matinees £7.00 / Bringing in Baby £8.50 / 25 & Under £4 (please bring ID) / PCA staff and students £4 (please show card) / Friends 75p discount. Online booking fee £1.50. Advance booking recommended. We have two wheelchair spaces in the cinema.
Contact us:
01752 206 114
info@plymouthartscentre.org
Special Offers
Discovery Screenings
Take a risk on a new independent film for only £4 per ticket. Early booking advised.
The Report, Wed 8 Jan, 8.30pm Greener Grass, Wed 12 Feb, 6pm
Programmer’s Pick
Get tickets for 3 different Programmer’s Pick films for £15.
Monos, Be Natural: The Alice Guy-Blanche Story, The Lighthouse, Parasite
F-Rated Offer (films that fairly represent women on screen and behind the camera.)
Get tickets for 3 F-Rated Films for £7 each.
(Tickets must be purchased under one transaction)Harriet, Shooting The Mafia, The Nightingale, Honey Boy, Little Women, Be Natural: The Alice Guy-Blanche Story
Bringing in Baby
Little Women
Wed 29 January, 11am
The Personal History of David Copperfield
Wed 4 March, 11am
All tickets £8.50, hot drink included
For parents, grandparents and carers of babies under 12 months. The lights are left on so that you and baby can move around if you need to, and don’t worry about baby making a noise!
January February 2020
Film Notes
Knives Out (12A)
Thu 2 – Thu 9 January
Thu 2, 5.40pmFri 3, 8.15pmTue 7, 8.15pmWed 8, 2.30pm & 5.45pmThu 9, 8.15pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGqiHJTsRkQ
Dir. Rian Johnson, US, 2019, 130 mins. Cast. Ana de Armas, Toni Collette, Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Christopher Plummer.
Murder mystery novelist Harlan Thrombey is a veritable one-man crime-fiction industry and his adult children have been living off him for years. When he turns up dead, the apparent victim of a murder, it seems that no-one has a motive for killing the golden goose. But Benoit Blanc (Craig), the debonair ‘Kentucky-fried’ private investigator mysteriously hired by an anonymous source, has other ideas. With a superb cast at their arch best this is impeccably written and designed, full of unexpected twists and turns from start to finish. Rian Johnson does for the murder caper what he did with Brick for noir and Looper for science fiction. He injects them with fresh magic and shows you whole new ways of looking at a beloved genre. Knives Out is a classic whodunit and as sharp as the blade that killed the patriarch at the heart of the film.
Marriage Story (15)
Thu 2 – Tue 7 January
Thu 2, 8.15pmSat 4, 5.30pmTue 7, 5.40pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHi-a1n8t7M
Dir. Noah Baumbach, US, 2019, 137 mins. Cast. Merritt Wever, Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver
Noah Baumbach returns with an incisive and compassionate portrait of a marriage breaking up and a family staying together, starring Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver. Delving into what he calls the "divorce-industrial complex" and all the emotional, legal, financial and parental issues that make people forget why they even loved each other in the first place, this is a beautiful and devastating look at a marriage's end. Driver and Johansson are exceptional - we wouldn't be surprised if Oscar® nods for them both.
The Report (15)
Fri 3 – Thu 9 January
Fri 3, 5.45pmSat 4, 8.15pmWed 8, 8.30pm (Discovery Screening)Thu 9, 5.45pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDNGDCWajbI
Dir. Scott Z. Burns, US, 2019, 119 mins. Cast. Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm.
The story of Daniel Jones, lead investigator for the US Senate's sweeping study into the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, which was found to be brutal, immoral and ineffective. With the truth at stake, Jones battled tirelessly to make public what many in power sought to keep hidden. Having worked on films such as An Inconvenient Truth and Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant! Scott Z. Burns’ directorial debut is a gripping political thriller about the post-9/11 world.
Harriet (12A)
F-Rated, Book Early
Fri 10 – Wed 15 January
Fri 10, 6pmSat 11, 8pmTue 14, 6pmWed 15, 2.30pm, 8.30pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etEPbQXrY3s
Dir. Kasi Lemmons, US, 2019, 126 mins. Cast. Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., Joe Alwyn.
Cynthia Erivo stars in this extraordinary biopic of Harriet Tubman, charting her escape from slavery and transformation into one of America’s greatest heroes, whose courage, ingenuity and tenacity freed hundreds of slaves and changed the course of history. In 1849, she travelled 100 miles on foot to evade her pursuers, arriving at the free state of Philadelphia and joined the Anti-Slavery Society. She embarked on a string of perilous journeys back to the South, rescuing more and more people with each expedition. Erivo’s tough-as-nails performance lies at the heart of this remarkable film – she captures Tubman’s shining spirit and courage with compassion, beautifully portraying an incredible life story that has waited long enough to be told.
The Two Popes (12A)
Fri 10 – Wed 15 January
Fri 10, 8.30pmSat 11, 2.30pm & 5.30pmTue 14, 8.30pmWed 15, 6pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5OhkFY1PQE
Dir. Fernando Meirelles, UK/Italy/Argentina, 2019, 125 mins, partially subtitled (main language: English). Cast. Jonathan Pryce, Anthony Hopkins, Juan Minujin.
Travelling from the streets of Buenos Aires to the hallowed halls of the Vatican, Jorge Bergoglio has become disillusioned with the direction of the Catholic Church, even though he’s a contender for the top job. So when it’s Joseph Ratzinger who gets the gig, becoming Pope Benedict XVI, Bergoglio is relieved. However, the two men are brought together for a few days over one summer. The chemistry between Hopkins and Pryce, who relish the rich dialogue that crackles with humour, is palpable. Director Fernando Mereilles’ technical bravura depicts compassion, self-doubt, shame and pride as the intimate debate between these two powerful men progresses. And whatever your stakes in religion, Pryce and Hopkins are a joy to watch together on screen.
Reclaim the Frame: Shooting the Mafia (15)
F-RatedThu 16 January, 7pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYoMqyOdR1g
Dir. Kim Longinotto, Ireland, 2019, 94 mins.
RTF event info
There was little to hint at Letizia Battaglia’s skill as a crime-scene photographer. In her 40s, stuck in a stuffy bourgeois household and battling with depression, she took a job as a photographer for a Palermo-based newspaper. Planning to document ordinary people’s lives, she soon found herself recording the reign of terror inflicted on the city’s inhabitants by the Mafia. Those photographs are, by turns, visually dazzling and shocking. Narrated by Battaglia, who is now in her 80s, Shooting the Mafia is a poignant and inspiring account of a free-spirited woman profoundly attached to her city and ready to fight for it regardless of the danger to her own life.
Monos (15)
Programmer’s PickFri 17 – Thu 23 January
Fri 17, 8.30pmSat 18, 2.30pmThu 23, 8.30pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3nJfr8GI_Q
Dir. Alejandro Landes, Colombia/Argentina, 2019, 102 mins, subtitled. Cast. Sofia Buenaventura, Julian Giraldo, Karen Quintero.
Deep in the remote mountains of somewhere that might be South America, a ragtag band of barely adolescent soldiers belonging to a shadowy guerrilla organisation are occupying a derelict ruin, guarding Doctora, an American engineer, hostage. While awaiting orders that may never come, a fracturing of power and a breakdown of loyalties in the group begins to take hold and an extraordinary descent into a form of unhinged and surreal savagery unfolds. Winner of the Special Jury Award at Sundance, Landes’ visionary third feature feels like a fever dream. With its striking baroque aesthetic, otherworldly setting, and a superb, otherworldly score by composer Mica Levi, this feral and furious drama is an astonishing piece of work.
Cats (tbc)
Fri 17 – Thu 23 January
Fri 17, 6pmSat 18, 5.30pmTue 21, 8.30pmWed 22, 2.30pm & 6pmThu 23, 6pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtSd844cI7U
Dir. Tom Hooper, UK, 2019, 116 mins. Cast. Francesca Hayward, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Idris Elba, Judi Dench, James Corden.
From Academy Award winner Tom Hooper, director of Les Misérables and The King's Speech and based on the legendary Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, we couldn’t leave this out of our January programme! Love it or hate it, you won’t be able to get the songs out of your head and to see the pedigree of the cast list alone is enough to ensure this is going to be the cat’s whiskers (sorry, couldn’t resist!).
The Nightingale (18)
F-Rated Sat 18 – Wed 22 January
Sat 18, 8pmTue 21, 5,45pmWed 22, 8.15pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuP8g_GQIgI
Dir. Jennifer Kent, Australia/Canada, 2018, 136 mins. Cast. Aisling Franciosi, Sam Clafin, Boykali Ganambarr.
Jennifer Kent's follow-up to her smash hit The Babadook is an urgent period thriller, winner of the Special Jury Prize at Venice. Set at the turn of the 19th century, Clare is an indentured convict held by British lieutenant Hawkins. Overdue her release, his abuse of power eventually culminates in a horrifically violent attack. Hiring an Aboriginal tracker, Billy, they stalk Hawkins, with Clare desperate to wreak her revenge. A harrowing and uncompromising look at the horrific reality of early British rule in Australia, Kent uses narrative and superb cinematic craft to explore the terrible savagery with which British colonisers took Australian land from its native Aboriginal people and violently exploited prisoners.
Honey Boy (15)
F-Rated
Fri 24 – Thu 30 January
Fri 24, 6pmSat 25, 2.30pm & 8.15pmTue 28, 6pmWed 29, 8.30pmThu 30, 6pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RR8WTQzwSk
Dir. Alma Har’el, US. 2019, 95 mins. Cast. Shia LaBeouf, Lucas Hedges, Noah Jupe.
Shia LaBeouf gives an astonishing performance as a version of his own father in his original autobiographical screenplay, directed by award-winning filmmaker Alma Har’el. Otis Lori, a young actor making a living in action films, is struggling with alcoholism and a habit for self-destructive behaviour. When an accident lands him in rehab, he begins to examine what led him there: in particular his childhood self, living out of motels and trying desperately to please his emotionally unstable, by turns abusive and loving father. Potent and darkly beautiful, it is bolstered by searchingly honest and non-judgemental writing from LaBeouf.
Little Women (U)
F-Rated, Book Early
Fri 24 – Thu 30 January
Fri 24, 8.15pmSat 25, 5.30pmTue 28, 8.15pmWed 29, 11am (BIB) 2.30pm & 5.45pmThu 30, 8.15pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AST2-4db4ic
Dir. Greta Gerwig, US, 2019, 135 mins. Cast. Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Laura Dern, Timothy Chalamet.
In Little Women, Greta Gerwig couldn't have chosen a more beloved classic to adapt for her second feature as director, matched only by the strength of cast she's corralled. Playing the four leads on the verge of womanhood are Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson and Sharp Objects' Eliza Scanlen. Telling the tale of four daughters of a preacher in post-Civil War Massachusetts as they learn to love and live their own lives, this adaptation emphasises the novel's feminist message of self-determination. With Laura Dern and Meryl Streep as the matriarchs of the March family, and Timothée Chalamet and Louis Garrel playing love interests, this is a beautiful (yet unfussy), poignant reimagining that will enchant a new generation.
Jojo Rabbit (12A)
Book Early
Fri 31 January – Thu 6 February
Fri 31, 6pmSat 1, 2.30pm & 8pmTue 4, 6pm & 8.30pm (both Members events)Wed 5, 8.30pmThu 6, 6pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL4McUzXfFI
Dir. Taika Waititi, Czech Republic/New Zealand, 2019, 108 minutes. Cast. Griffin Davies, Thomasin McKenzie, Scarlett Johansson.
Taika Waititi channels Mel Brooks in this highly anticipated comedic satire. Jojo is a game if somewhat inept member of the Hitler Youth; his closest friend an imaginary Adolf Hitler (Waititi, on hilarious form). When he discovers his mother has been hiding a young Jewish girl in their house, Jojo must go to war with his own conscience. Tackling the ludicrousness of racism and nationalism, Waititi has also crafted a film of great emotional charge and tenderness. Riotously funny, moving and relevant, Jojo Rabbit is an absolute gem of a film.
2040 (PG)
Fri 31 January – Thu 6 February
Fri 31, 8.30pmSat 1, 5.30pmWed 5, 2.30pm & 6pmThu 6, 8.30pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-rTQ443akE
Dir. Damon Gameau, Australia, 2019, 92 mins.
Award-winning director Damon Gameau (That Sugar Film) embarks on journey to explore what the future could look like by the year 2040 if we simply embraced the best solutions already available to us to improve our planet and shifted them rapidly into the mainstream. Structured as a visual letter to his 4-year-old daughter, Damon blends traditional documentary with dramatised sequences and high-end visual effects to create a vision board of how these solutions could regenerate the world for future generations.
La Belle Epoque (15)
Fri 7 – Thu 13 February
Fri 7, 6pmSat 8, 8pmTue 11, 6pmWed 12, 2.30pm & 8.30pmThu 13, 6pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tukMRXkjhlM
Dir. Nicolas Bedos, France, 2019, 115 mins, subtitled. Cast. Daniel Auteuil, Fanny Ardant, Guillaume Canet. Main language: French.
What if you had the chance to re-enact any period? Would you travel to Marie Antoinette’s court or William Shakespeare’s Globe? For Victor, given the choice by an immersive re-enactment company, he wants to go back to the night in 1974 when he met his wife. Fleeing from current drama, he has the chance to trip the light nostalgic, even if the artifice is paper-thin. Director Nicolas Bedos wrings a great deal of humour and pathos from keeping the fantasy alive, with prompts whispered in the actors’ ears and the antics of philandering behind-the-scenes director Antoine a witty counterpoint to the tender recreation. Sweet yet honest about the nature of memory and nostalgia, La Belle Époque will take you back to the good old days.
Greener Grass (12A)
F-Rated
Fri 7 – Thu 13 February
Fri 7, 8.30pmSat 8, 5.30pmTue 11, 8.30pmWed 12, 6pm (Discovery Screening)Thu 13, 8.30pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyOvQfgQhKQ
Dir. Jocelyn DeBoer, Dawn Luebbe, US, 2019, 94 mins. Cast. D’Arcy Carden, Mary Holland, Dot-MarieJones, Jim Cummings.
It's a day-glo-colored, bizarro version of suburbia where adults wear braces on their already-straight teeth, everyone drives golf carts, and children magically turn into golden retrievers. Soccer moms and best friends Jill and Lisa are locked in a passive aggressive battle-of-the-wills that turns sinister when Lisa begins systematically taking over every aspect of Jill's life - starting with her newborn daughter. Meanwhile, a psycho yoga teacher killer is on the loose, Jill's husband has developed a curious taste for pool water, and Lisa is pregnant with a soccer ball. And that's just the beginning. Greener Grass is far from the first comedy to skewer suburbia, but it might be among the most bizarre and surreally distinctive.
Iris on the Move: Plymouth
Monday 10 February, 7pm
Iris Prize LGBT+ Film Festival bring their travelling celebration of film to Plymouth. See diverse short films from around the world, learn how to get your work into festivals and hear from Iris Prize winning filmmaker Mikael Bundsen, recipient of the festival’s £30,000 award to make another LGBT+ film. For full programme, see irisprize.org
And Then We Danced there will be a special preview screening of the much-anticipated And Then We Danced. A powerful tale of sexual awakening in the conservative world of traditional Georgian dance, the film has been wowing audiences at festivals around the world and won Best Feature at the 2019 Iris Prize festival.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmjDLJ7dkHg
Merab and his dance partner Mary have been training together since a young age at the National Georgian Ensemble in Tblisi. But everything changes with the arrival of the carefree Irakli, and an intense professional rivalry soon gives way to desire. Professional dancer Levan Gelbakhiani delivers a standout performance in his film debut, while director Akin delicately balances the romance of sexual awakening with the restrictive confines of cultural tradition.
1917 (15)
Fri 14 – Thu 20 February
Fri 14, 8.30pmSat 15, 5.30pmTue 18, 8.30pmWed 19, 2.30pm & 6pmThu 20, 8.30pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqNYrYUiMfg
Dir. Sam Mendes, UK, 2019, 117 mins. Cast. Dean Charles Chapman, Benedict Cumberbatch, George MacKay, Andrew Scott.
Hard-hitting, immersive, and an impressive technical achievement, 1917 captures the trench warfare of World War I with raw, startling immediacy. At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers, Schofield and Blake are given a seemingly impossible mission. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers, Blake's own brother among them. Playing out in (seemingly) one long take, 1917 is Mendes’s most purely ambitious and passionate picture. It’s bold, thrilling film-making.
Ordinary Love (12A)
F-Rated
Fri 14 – Wed 19 February
Fri 14, 6pmSat 15, 2.30pm & 8pmTue 18, 6pmWed 19, 8.30pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9F8xTrx6fw
Dir. Lisa Barros D’Sa, Glenn Leyburn, UK, 2019, 92 mins. Cast. Lesley Manville, Liam Neeson David Wilmott.
Joan and Tom are a long-married couple, with their set habits, cozy bickering, and assumption of a long walk together into the sunset. When Joan discovers a lump in her breast, it soon becomes clear that cancer will radically change everything. As she enters the cold, uncertain process of medical treatment, their habits are ruptured, and that cozy bickering explodes to reveal the long-buried truths of their marriage. Manville's Joan is a mature woman who has made her accommodations with life, but is unprepared to face this potentially terminal illness. Neeson plays Tom as a man more comfortable showing rather than speaking his love. Their big date during her treatment, and one simple scene where Tom cuts Joan's hair, illuminate the depth of love that unites this couple, even as they face the ultimate test.
Directions Screening #3: Utopian Landscapes
Thu 20 February, 6pm
Short Films and videos by Tomasz Gwincinski (UK), Paulina Majda (Poland), Nathanael Marklew (UK), Kaz Rahman (Canada/UK), Andres Tapia-Urzua (USA), Gautam Valluri (India/France)
Programmer: Kaz Rahman
RT: approx. 85 min.
A mix of short films that both embody ideas of Utopia and sometimes descend into strange dystopian shadow plays. The selected films use a multitude of formats such as 16mm, animation and video-esque techniques that mirror the narratives. Both Tomasz Gwincinski’s surreal film The Shout (2018) and Nathanael Marklew’s existential film Apesh*t (2018) use the hidden, banal and mossy veneer of Plymouth as a backdrop to the inability and exasperation of moving place. In Andres Tapia-Urzua’s early work Mirror Man (1992) the viewer follows the freak/superhero/alien through interior and exterior, urban and rural from day to night. Paulina Majda’s animated film Two Steps Behind (2010) poetically summarizes the question- Why did I decide to leave my home, my street, my place, my country?
Supported by the Mayflower 400 Culture Fund and Arts Council England
https://directionsplymouth.org/
The Personal History of David Copperfield (PG)
Book Early
Fri 21 – Thu 27 February
Fri 21, 8.30pmSat 22, 8pmTue 25, 6pmWed 26, 2.30pm & 8.30pmThu 27, 6pmWed 4 March, 11am, Bringing in Baby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHG7FnBDY0Q
Dir. Armando Iannucci, UK, 2019, 120 mins. Cast. Dev Patel, Ben Whishaw, Hugh Laurie, Tilda Swinton, Peter Capaldi.
Adapting one of Charles Dickens’ most beloved characters, this Victorian-set epic feels very modern, fresh and, quite frankly, hilarious. Following Copperfield from early youth through to middle age, the story traces his social awakening, charting huge personal ups and downs as he witnesses the best and worst of humanity. Dickens’ ‘favourite child’ amongst his works, the plot also tackles social injustice in many forms – a lack of protection for children, poor industrial conditions for the working class, and wealth inequality. So, who better to tackle this tale than Iannucci, the genius behind The Thick of It, In the Loop and The Death of Stalin. Humorous, busy, bustling and bursting with colour and energy, this is a Dickens reworking unlike any you’ve seen on the screen.
Be Natural: The Alice Guy-Blaché Story (tbc)
F-Rated, Programmer’s Pick
Fri 21 – Wed 26 February
Fri 21, 6pmSat 22, 2.30pmWed 26, 6pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iH1sKdwi9k
Dir. Pamela B. Green, US, 2018, ? mins.
Alice Guy-Blaché was a true pioneer who got into the movie business at the very beginning, in 1894, at the age of 21. Two years later, she was made head of production at Gaumont and started directing films. She and her husband moved to the United States, and she founded her own company, Solax, in 1910, but by 1919, her career came to an abrupt end, and she and the 1000 films that bore her name were largely forgotten. Pamela B. Green’s energetic film is both a tribute and a detective story, tracing the circumstances by which this extraordinary artist faded from memory and the path toward her reclamation. Be Natural is an exploration of who tells our histories and why some stories are lost. It is a must-see for every filmmaker, artist, and storyteller out there.
Aquarela (12A)
Sat 22 – Thu 27 February
Sat 22, 5.30pmTue 25, 8.30pmThu 27, 8.30pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xAIuDF25kE
Dir. Victor Kossakovsky, UK/Russia, 2019, 89 mins.
For its first 15 minutes, documentary Aquarela plays like a combination of sobering ethnography, silent comedy, and Hitchcock thriller. On Siberia’s semi-frozen Lake Baikal, a group of men are seen walking across the ice in long takes, in search of something unknown, submerged below. Eventually, in a striking overhead shot, we see a car has fallen through the fragile surface into the water, and they are intending to haul it out. But they keep breaking the ice themselves, and slipping below, laughing at their own folly. The film takes audiences on a deeply cinematic journey through the transformative beauty and raw power of water and is a visceral wake-up call that humans are no match for the sheer force and capricious will of Earth's most precious element. From the precarious frozen waters of Russia's Lake Baikal to Miami in the throes of Hurricane Irma to Venezuela's mighty Angels Falls, water is Aquarela’s main character.
Seberg (tbc)
Sat 29 February – Thu 5 March
Sat 29, 5.30pmTue 3, 6pmWed 4 , 2.30pm & 8.30pmThu 5, 6pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tck5EBUTeoc
Dir. Benedict Andrews, US, 2019, 103 mins. Cast. Kristen Stewart, Jack O’Connell, Anthony Mackie.
Returning to the US as Europe’s ‘It’ girl after her breakout success in Godard’s Breathless – Seberg becomes a target of J Edgar Hoover’s FBI when she becomes romantically involved with Black Panther Hakim Jamal and flaunts her disregard for America’s misogynistic and racist institutions. Silkily photographed by Mudbound cinematographer Rachel Morrison, this stylish drama packs a punch. Stewart dazzles as the starlet who was all-but-destroyed by an archly conservative FBI, then a nefarious organisation with virtually unchecked power and dismayed as she unwittingly took others down with her.
The Lighthouse (15)
Programmer’s Pick
Fri 28 February – Wed 4 March
Fri 28, 6pmSat 29, 8pmWed 4, 6pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyag7lR8CPA
Dir. Robert Eggers, US, 2019, 110 mins. Cast. Willem Dafoe, Robert Pattinson, Valeriia Karoman.
Leaving Canada behind for the unforgiving terrains of the New England coast, Ephraim Winslow reluctantly arrives at the begrimed lighthouse where he will work for the next four weeks. Greeted with gruff hostility by Tom Wake, a veteran seafarer with whom he is obliged to share these uncomfortably close quarters, the pair quickly establish a volatile dynamic and with the slow passing of each punishing day, Ephraim’s resentment grows. But when he learns of the mysterious fate which befell his master’s former assistant, a creeping sense of fear and paranoia also begins to stir. Once seen, never forgotten, this hypnotic fusion of beauty and brutality is truly the stuff of nightmares. Following his remarkable debut The Witch, Eggers continues to prove himself one of contemporary cinema’s most audacious and innovative filmmakers – finding ways entirely of his own of terrifying his audiences.
Parasite (15)
Programmer’s Pick
Fri 28 February – Thu 5 March
Fri 28, 8.15pmSat 29, 2.30pmTue 3, 8.15pmThu 5, 8.15pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEUXfv87Wpk
Dir. Bong Joon-ho, South Korea, 2019, 132 mins, subtitled. Cast. Song Kang-ho, Jo Yeo-Jeong, Park So-dam.
One of the most talked-about films of the Indy cinema circuit, Parasite finds a family of grifters worming their way into an upper-class family’s perfect world. The Kims are living a marginal life when their son fakes his way into becoming the English tutor for the ultra-wealthy Park family. Soon all four of the family members have roles in their hyper-stylish modern home, having used every dirty trick in the book. But the house hides secrets that are way outside the Kim’s scheme. Already the most successful Palme d’Or winner ever, Parasite is what happens when the have-nots have their day. A deliciously fun poisoned cocktail of dark humour, social satire and perfect set pieces, this gripping thriller is a sensational experience that keeps surprising to its last drop.