Below are the films shown in 2019-2020, and a description of each film. 

Wednesday September 25th 2019
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Germany  2008   107 minutes
Director: Dennis Gansel
Starring: Jurgen Vogel, Frederick Lau, Max Reimelt

A high-school class is learning about different forms of government. Their teacher decides to illustrate the essentials of autocratic dictatorship by playing the role of dictator himself, with the pupils as his ‘subjects’. Most of them soon adapt to their parts with enthusiasm, even wearing a simple uniform and using an invented form of salute- the ‘Wave’ of the film’s title. But in the space of a week events threaten to spiral out of control, and the teacher is faced with calling the experiment to a halt. An engrossing film with a disquieting message, it had particular resonance in its country of origin when it was released some ten years ago.

Wednesday October 23rd 2019
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UK   2014    109 minutes
Director: Ken Loach
Starring: Barry Ward, Francis Magee, Aileen Henry

In 1932 Jimmy Gralton returns to his native Irish village after ten years in exile in New York. In stark contrast to the young energy and enthusiasm he has enjoyed in America, he finds the people dispirited by the behaviour of the local ‘establishment’, in particular the local killjoy priest and the land-owning village squire (it is also the time of the Depression, when many families emigrated}. Jimmy reopens the village hall, creating a social centre where the villagers can sing, paint, study and (worst of all) dance together. For this exercise in practical socialism he is once more forced out of the village, never to return. A thought-provoking film from the creator of ‘I, Daniel Blake’.

Wednesday November 20th 2019

Japan   2018     123 minutes
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Starring: Lily Franky, Kriin Kiki, Sosuke Ikematsu, Mayo Matsuoka

Director Hirokazu Kore-eda won the Cannes 2018 Palme d’Or with this complex and thoughtful film about the true meaning of ‘family’. The Shibatas are a disparate group, living in a poor neighbourhood of Tokyo. They make ends meet by regular shoplifting expeditions, and it is when returning from one of these that father Osamo and son Shota discover a seemingly abandoned little girl. They take her under their wing and soon train her in the art of thieving. As we follow the mixed fortunes of the rest of the group, we come to realise that this family is not all that it initially seems. Like much Japanese cinema it moves at a relaxed but insightful pace.

Wednesday December 11th 2019

USA   2018   130 minutes
Director: Peter Farrelly
Starring: Mahershala Ali, Viggo Mortensen

The film takes its title from ‘The Negro Motorist Green Book’, an annual publication which as late as 1966 acted as a guide for safe travel and lodging in the segregated states of the American South. The elegant and urbane Dr Don Shirley is an African-American musician: out-of-work Tony Vallelonga is an Italian-American night-club bouncer. Dr Shirley is about to embark on a concert tour which will take him to the Deep South, and he hires Tony to be his chauffeur and guardian. As the tour progresses, the ill-matched couple come to respect each other’s strengths and weaknesses, but it is a steep learning curve for both men- and one which it is intriguing and enjoyable to watch.

Wednesday January 8th 2020
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Iceland  2018   101 minutes
Director: Benedikt Erlingsson
Starring: Halldora Geirhardhsdottir, Johann Sigurdharson

Haila is leading a double life. To her friends and neighbours she is simply the pleasant-natured director of the local choir, delighting in the folk songs of her native Iceland. In her other guise she is the hunted ‘mountain woman’ who is fighting a crusade against the local aluminium plant by ingeniously sabotaging its electricity supply. When her personal life becomes unexpectedly complicated, can she combine saving the planet with her new circumstances? This is a charming and captivating film, with touches of the almost surreal which only the medium of film is truly capable of expressing.

Wednesday February 5th 2020

UK   2018  105 minutes
Director: Richard Eyre
Starring: Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci, Fionn Whitehead

Emma Thompson is outstanding as High Court judge Fiona Maye, having to deal with a difficult case in which 17-year old Adam will die in hospital unless his parents, both devout Jehovah’s Witnesses, give their consent to his receiving a life-saving blood transfusion. In an unorthodox and unprecedented move she decides to visit Adam in the hospital, feeling the need to find out for herself what is motivating the young man. Are his religious convictions his own or simply a mirror of those of his parents? Adapted by Ian McEwan from his novel of the same name, it has been described as a ‘meticulously crafted drama’.

Wednesday March 4th 2020
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Montenegro  2016  100 minutes
Director: Ivan Marinovic
Starring: Nikola Ristanovski, Bogdan Dildic

Peter is a disillusioned orthodox priest who has returned to his home village on the beautiful, but remote, Lustica peninsular in Montenegro. The locals get little spiritual comfort from their new priest, and their animosity grows into outright hostility, particularly when his refusal to sell his family land threatens to derail a lucrative plan to develop the peninsular as a holiday resort. The villagers even turn to witchcraft in their efforts to drive him away. The first film to come out of Montenegro since the destructive breakup of the former Yugoslavia, it has been described as a ‘bittersweet comic drama’. 

Wednesday March 25th 2020 - CANCELLED

The Lebanon  2017  113 minutes
Director: Ziad  Doueiri
Starring: Adel Karam, Kamel El Basha, Rita Hayek

‘Wajib’ is an Arabic word expressing the feeling of duty and ‘obligation’. In this story we follow a father (Abu) and his estranged son (Shadi) as they drive around the city of Nazareth in the ancient family Volvo. They are fulfilling an old Muslim tradition of personally distributing invitations to the forthcoming wedding of Abu’s daughter. Shadi has briefly returned from Italy to help his father in this task, as Abu’s wife left him some time ago for a new life in America. As they call on relatives and old friends, and argue about politics, life and emigration, we get fascinating and subtle glimpses of what it means to live in a predominantly Muslim town ruled by the Israeli state.

Wednesday April 15th 2020 - CANCELLED
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Poland  2018     88 minutes
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Starring: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot

Pawel Pawlikowski dedicated this film to his parents, and although a work of fiction he has apparently captured much of their troubled relationship. Wiktor is a professional musician, touring villages in post-war Poland seeking out talent for a newly formed centre of socialist folk art. He meets Zula, an attractive and strong-willed singer, and the two fall hopelessly in love, despite their wildly different temperaments. The story of their turbulent love affair is told in episodes in several different countries, all also facing rapid change after the chaos of the war. The film gains much from the beautiful black-and-white photography which distinguished Ida, Pawlikowski.s first film.