Plymouth Arts Cinema - December 2023 programme

Plymouth Arts Cinema at Arts University Plymouth, Tavistock Place, Plymouth, PL4 8AT

www.plymouthartscinema.org | 01752 206114 | info@plymouthartscinema.org

December 2023

Where to find us

Our venue is located inside Arts University Plymouth’s main campus at Tavistock Place. Go through Arts University Plymouth’s main entrance and turn right; you will face our Box Office and Café-Bar.

Opening Times and How to Book

The Box Office and Café-bar are open Tuesday, Thursday and Friday: 5-8.30pm; Wednesday: 1-8.30pm; Saturday: 1-8pm. You can call the Box Office during these times on 01752 206114.

Christmas and New Year

The cinema, Box Office and Café will be closed from Friday 22 December and will reopen on Tuesday 2 January at 5pm.

Prices

Standard £9.00 | Matinees £7.00 | Bringing in Baby £4 | Over 60s £7.75 | 25 & Under, Students, AUP Staff, Budget - Unwaged and low income £4 | Friends 10% discount and £6 on Tuesdays.

Please bring relevant ID if you are eligible for a discount.

December 2023

May December (15)

Friday 1 – Thursday 7 December

Fri 1, 8.30pm; Sat 2, 5.30pm; Tue 5, 8.30pm; Wed 6, 2.30pm & 6pm; Thu 7, 8.30pm

Dir. Todd Haynes, US, 2023, 113 mins. Cast. Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton.

From the outside, Gracie and Joe are the perfect suburban couple. That is, if you don’t take into account the fact that their relationship was a tabloid sensation 20 years ago. When Elizabeth, an actor, arrives at their home to research for a role in a film based on Gracie, it becomes clear that the couple’s relationship isn’t as strong as they’d like to believe. As the truth begins to unspool, and Elizabeth immerses herself in her role, it becomes clear that she’s not the only one acting. What is the truth to Gracie and Joe’s relationship? And is Elizabeth’s presence complicating things even further? Todd Haynes effortlessly combines classical melodrama with contemporary preoccupations of celebrity and scandal.

Dream Scenario (15)

Friday 1 – Thursday 7 December

Fri 1, 6pm; Sat 2, 2.30pm & 8pm; Wed 6, 8.30pm; Thu 7, 11am (Bringing in Baby – with a free mince pie!)

Dir. Kristoffer Borgli, US, 2023, 100 mins. Cast. Nicolas Cage, Lily Bird, Julianne Nicholson, Michael Cera.

Dream Scenario is the wickedly entertaining comedy from writer-director Kristoffer Borgli (Sick of Myself) and producer Ari Aster (Beau Is Afraid). Hapless family man Paul Matthews finds his life turned upside down when millions of strangers suddenly start seeing him in their dreams. But when his nighttime appearances take a nightmarish turn, Paul is forced to navigate the trials and tribulations of his newfound stardom. Expect an inky black and witty critique of celebrity culture in this darkly comic satire that also stars Julianne Nicholson and Michael Cera.

"In a career chock-a-block with weirdoes, volatile inscrutables, cracked-mirror self-parodies, and other assorted voyagers along the far reaches of human behaviour, the surrealist black comedy Dream Scenario deals Nicolas Cage the last challenge he has yet to conquer: portraying the most normal man in the world." Charles Bramesco

Powell and Pressburger: I Know Where I’m Going + intro by Judith Noble

Programmer’s Pick

Thursday 7 December, 6pm

Dir. Michael Powell, UK, 1945, 93 mins. Cast. Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey, Pamela Brown.Headstrong Joan Webster (a wondrous Wendy Hiller) sets off, wedding dress in tow, to marry a rich older man on a remote Hebridean island. Stranded on Mull thanks to the weather, Joan finds herself struggling to cope with the unplanned turn of events. Powell and Pressburger weave their course of true love through flashes of surrealism, a life-threatening whirlpool and an ancient curse, disarming and enchanting in equal measure. But this is a film where small moments count the most – a cigarette passed between two windows or a slip on a ladder – as they build by stealth into something overwhelming. By the end we are left breathless and desperate to book the next night train and ferry to Mull.Restored by the BFI National Archive and The Film Foundation in association with ITV.

System Update + Filmmaker’s Q&A

Tuesday 5th December, 6pm

Tickets £5 Full Price / £4 Concession

Dir. Paul Maple, UK, 2023, 55 mins. Narrated by James Dyke. Suitable for all ages.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Paul Maple.

New documentary System Update is a call to action to face the stark reality of climate change and find a path towards hope. This is a story told through leading experts, including younger changemakers bravely facing the risks and exposing how governments are relying on untested technologies to avert disaster. This film shows how we must change our systems, how we can win, and how it needs to happen, right now. Filmmaker Paul Maple and Climate Scientist Professor James Dyke highlight how current and future generations need to urgently face up and stand up, offering us understanding, hope and inspiration for action.

This event is co-hosted by Climate Action Plymouth and is part of a series of events taking place in Plymouth to mark the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (commonly referred to as COP28), which will be held from November 30th until December 12th in Dubai.

Visit the event page on our website for more information https://plymouthartscinema.org/whats-on/system-update-filmmakers-qa/

Fallen Leaves (12A)

MUBI GO

Friday 8 – Thursday 14 December

Fri 8, 6pm; Sat 9, 8pm; Tue 12, 6pm; Wed 13, 8.30pm; Thu 14, 8.45pm

Dir. Aki Kaurismaki, Finland, 2023, 81 mins, subtitled. Cast. Alma Pöysti, Jussi Vatanen.

Award-winning filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki makes a masterful return with FALLEN LEAVES, a timeless, hopeful and ultimately satisfying love story about two lonely souls’ path to happiness – and the numerous hurdles they encounter along the way. Set in contemporary Helsinki, and shot through with Kaurismäki’s typically playful, idiosyncratic style and deadpan humour, this tender romantic tragicomedy is a timely reminder of the potency of movie-going from one of cinema’s living legends. 

Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

The Eternal Daughter (12A)

F-Rated

Friday 8 – Wednesday 13 December

Fri 8, 8.30pm; Sat 9, 5.30pm; Tue 12, 8.30pm; Wed 13, 2.30pm & 6pm

Dir. Joanna Hogg, UK, 2023, 96 mins. Cast. Tilda Swinton, August Joshi.

An artist and her elderly mother confront long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home, now a hotel haunted by its mysterious past. Starring Tilda Swinton in a dual role that transcends gimmickry and achieves powerful resonance, this spectral Gothic tale is a blackly funny exploration of identity. Featuring a towering, deeply moving performance by Swinton, acclaimed filmmaker Joanna Hogg’s beguiling latest film is a brilliant and captivating exploration of parental relationships and the things we leave behind.  

Powell and Pressburger: The Red Shoes + dance performance

Programmer’s Pick

Saturday 9 – Thursday 14 December

Sat 9, 1.45pm; Thu 14, 6pm

Dir. Michael Powell, UK, 1948, 135 mins. Cast. Anton Walbrook, Moira Shearer, Marius Goring.Saturday 9 December's screening: Celebrating the intoxication of dancing feet, Barbican Theatre presents a new dance performance featuring Tap, Flamenco and Street dance - the footwork will lead you toward the brilliance of Powell and Pressburgers' Red Shoes.Dance performance from 1.45pm (outside the front entrance and into the cinema).Film starts at 2.30pm.

In a blazing manifesto for The Archers production company, dance, music, design and ‘high style’ combine in ‘total cinema’. In Powell and Pressburger’s visually ravishing masterpiece, a young ballerina is torn between the demands of love and art. Like the heroine of Hans Christian Andersen’s source fairytale, whose magic shoes compel her to dance, Victoria Page – played by real-life ballerina Moira Shearer – finds herself driven to breaking point by obsessive Russian impresario Lermontov when she’s cast in his ballet The Red Shoes. With its captivating behind-the-scenes insight into the creative process, and characters for whom art is more important than life itself, the film has proved an inspiration to filmmakers and dancers alike. The feverish Technicolor and astonishing ballet sequences for which this film is so renowned are as spellbinding as they are disturbing.

A Year in a Field (12A)

Programmer’s Pick

Friday 15 – Thursday 21 December

Fri 15, 6pm; Sat 16, 2.30pm; Wed 20, 8.30pm; Thu 21, 6pm

Dir. Christopher Morris, UK, 2023, 86 mins, some subtitles.

BAFTA-winning documentarian Christopher Morris invites us to slow down, as he films an ancient stone monolith for a year in a West Cornwall field. Filmed from Winter Solstice 2020 to Winter Solstice 2021, in which a string of unprecedented worldwide climate disasters occurred, (and were met by weak global political resolve), are simply revealed as just fleeting moments, under the ever-present unflinching granite gaze of the Longstone. Morris’s film immerses us in this quiet, direct-action of stillness, allowing us to take a breath and reflect on the planetary impacts of our brief human existence.

Maestro (15)

Friday 15 – Thursday 21 December

Fri 15, 8.15pm; Sat 16, 5.15pm; Tue 19, 8.15pm; Wed 20, 2.30pm; Thu 21, 8.15pm

Dir. Bradley Cooper, US, 2023, 129 mins. Cast. Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Maya Hawke, Matt Bomer, Sarah Silverman.

Bradley Cooper proves that his directorial debut (A Star is Born) was no fluke with this glorious symphony of a film that focuses on iconic American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein (West Side Story, On The Town). The film charts his life from his famous last-minute debut with the New York Philharmonic aged 25 through his relationship with actress Felicia Montealegre who he would go on to marry. It is the story of a marriage and life between two people, one of whom is a devoted family man but still energised by his attraction to men during a period when it would have destroyed his career.

Switching between monochrome and colour, it is a rousing, complex and heartbreaking rhapsody to life and art.

The Peasants (15)

Saturday 16 – Wednesday 20 December

Sat 16, 8pm; Tue 19, 6pm; Wed 20, 6pm

Dir. DK Welchman, Hugh Welchman, Poland, 2023, 114 mins, subtitled. Cast. Kamila Urzedowska, Robert Gulaczyk, Miroslaw Baka.

From the creators of the Oscar®-nominated Loving Vincent comes an animated rendering of Władysław Reymont’s Nobel Prize-winning tale. Crops, relationships and dowries preoccupy the wagging tongues of the villagers of Lipke. Jagna is wedded off to a rich widower, but her love for the widower's son threatens to tear all their lives apart. DK and Hugh Welchman’s latest film evokes a world of breathtaking beauty and brutality. It exposes the underbelly of a patriarchal 19th-century rural community using an advanced oil painting animation technique.

January 2024

Coming up in the new year

• Priscilla
• One Life
• The Boy and the Heron
• Poor Things
• The Holdovers
• All of Us Strangers