Below are the films shown in 2022-2023, and a description of each film. 

Wednesday September 21st 2022
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Ukraine 2021 90mins
Director: Elie Grappe

Probably the most up-to-date film we have ever shown. Olga (Anastasia Budiashkina) is a 15 year old Ukrainian athlete anxious to compete in international events while her family and her home are under threat from the turbulent times that we are now all too aware of. No teenage girl should have to split her love and attention between passion for her sport and worrying about the safety of her mother (targeted by Russian allies) together with the fate of her country. In casting real gymnasts, director Grappe can film documentary style, exciting, physically demanding moves that few actors could fake.

Part of the cost of showing this film will go to the Ukrainian Relief Fund.

Wednesday October 12th 2022
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UK 2020 112mins
Director: Dominic Cooke

One way of learning history is to live it. A seemingly dull British businessman (Benedict Cumberbatch) gets to live his part of history which was very much not what he wanted. During the Cuban missile crisis he is cajoled into helping British Intelligence (“Am I to be a spy?”) on his previously safe routine business trips to Moscow. His bumbling Britishness puzzles the Russians. With no James Bond gadgets to help him he is about as far away from a James Bond character as it is possible to get. He seems the perfect ‘courier’– until it all goes wrong.

Wednesday November 9th 2022

Norway 2016 133mins
Director: Erik Poppe

It is April 1940 and all of Europe is falling to the Nazi war machine. Norway’s government is weak and divided, choosing to accept the Nazi offer to “help” Norway defeat the British Navy. A new collaboration government is formed (Quisling!) but the King (Jesper Christiansen) and his closest advisors refuse to give in and are forced to flee. Hounded by the Nazis they are eventually saved by the Royal Navy and welcomed to London. This film offers an extended essay on the moral responsibilities of leadership that are just as relevant today as ever.

Wednesday November 30th 2022

Denmark 2020 117mins
Director: Thomas Vinterberg

Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) is a high-school teacher. Old and tired, he discovers a biological theory that we are all born with a minor alcohol deficiency. Thinking that Churchill won World War Two supposedly with brandy, he wonders whether a little alcohol could help his failing history class. The results are positive at the start, but if alcohol can generate great results (Churchill!) it is also true that the film is not really about alcohol, it’s about life and how small changes cause great consequences. A fun, touching, drama of friendship, freedom - and a little alcohol.

Wednesday January 4th 2023 
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UK 2016 117mins
Director: Lone Scherfig

Catrin (Gemma Atherton) is a civil service secretary newly assigned to the wartime Ministry of Information.  Daring to comment on a script she is typing for a propaganda film, she is rudely told to “write it better then” by the crusty old film star Ambrose Hilliard (Bill Nighy) who said “casting for a chronically self-absorbed actor in his declining years they thought of me”. Catrin works on the script fighting sexism, jealous relatives, jealous co-workers, political interference and – oh yes – bombs. Eventually, working together, they share a hope to contribute something 
meaningful in this time of war and in their own lives.

Wednesday February 1st 2023​

UK  2020 90mins
Director: Aleem Khan

A Captain, deep down, is still just a sailor. And across the centuries, women have married sailors, and tried to anchor homes. And over these same centuries sailors have always strayed sometimes leaving pain in their wake. Now a newly widowed woman (Joanna Scanlon) discovers that her late husband had a secret second home across the sea. Deeply hurt, she sets out to discover who is this other woman, this other life, that her Captain had kept secret from her for all these years. This film follows her voyage that will lead her into deep, deep, waters.

Wednesday March 1st 2023
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Spain 2021 120mins
Director: Pedro Almodovar

A very unpredictable film that sets out on what seems a usual story and turns out to deliver something completely different. Director Almodovar uses his favourite star, Penelope Cruz, as Janis, a middle-aged single woman happy to discover that she is pregnant.
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In the hospital, by chance she meets a young, adolescent girl, Anna (Milena Smit) traumatised by her unwanted pregnancy. Their meeting changes both of their lives and leads us through the surprising echoes that still exist from the Spanish Civil War. Past and present have unbreakable links and as Amoldovar says in the film: “History refuses to shut its mouth”.

Wednesday March 29th 2023

USA 2002 120mins
Director Andrew Niccol

Hollywood Disaster! The Star walks off the set! What can the producer (Al Pacino) do to save the movie? Inspired, he sets out to create his ‘perfect’ star, a digital synthetic actress: “Simone” (played by the very real Rachael Roberts). In his very first movie with Simone, it is an international Box Office success and she becomes a star. As her fame skyrockets, the Press and TV media all demand access to this new talent. The producer succeeds in keeping her well out of sight and just can’t admit, even to himself, that his star is a computer invention.​​

Wednesday April 19th 2023
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UK 2008 164mins
Director: Stephen Daldry 

Hannah (Kate Winslet) loves being read to, and reading builds a bond in her new love affair with Michael (young – David Cross older - Ralph Fiennes) who loves reading to her. Suddenly, with no warning, Hannah disappears. For Hannah has a secret, and in post-war Germany that can be dangerous, as Michael will discover. Eight years later, Michael, back in Germany as a law-student, is observing the Nuremberg war crime trials where he is stunned to re-discover Hannah but in the witness box on trial. Together they must try to learn the old lessons of truth and reconciliation.