Idealistic young lawyer Arthur Kirkland (Al Pacino) is determined to bypass the topsy-turvy madness of the US legal system and do his best for his clients. However, Arthur's idealism takes a battering when he is pressured to defend a judge (John Forsythe) he knows to be guilty of raping a young girl. Arthur now has to make the most important choice of his life - the choice between his career and his conscience. Directed by Norman Jewison, with a screenplay by husband-and-wife writing team Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin.

Aspiring actor Edward (Sebastian Stan) undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare, as he loses out on the role he was born to play and becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost, in filmmaker Aaron Schimberg’s darkly funny New York noir.

The Garden Cinema View:

This month we are screening two films that explore the self-destructive pursuit of beauty and challenge societal notions of perfection and authenticity. Both Coralie Fargeat’s body horror, The Substance, and Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man are boldly conceived, cautionary tales of flying too close to the sun. The latter is part psychological thriller, part biting satire, part absurdist morality tale. It expertly blends dark humour with a surreal atmosphere that constantly challenges the viewers’ perceptions and expectations.

Whilst it’s best to not read too much about the plot, the film is steered by three fantastic performances. Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice) takes centre stage as the anxiety-riddled Edward, a struggling actor with neurofibromatosis; a condition that causes facial tumours that severely distort his features. Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World) makes her English language debut as Edward’s neighbour Ingrid, an aspiring playwright and the object of his affection. But it’s the British actor Adam Pearson (Under The Skin), who has neurofibromatosis in real life, that gives a career-best performance as the witty, exuberantly charming Oswald. His unexpected appearance sends the film into a riveting and farcical new direction, leading many critics to compare A Different Man to the films of Charlie Kaufman.

While the pacing is uneven at times, and the last act feels muddled, it has an emotional intensity and depth that invites audiences to reflect on the human condition and the masks we wear in society.

Hailed as 'one of the most intelligent and terrifying horror films of the 1980s' (The Movie Guide), celebrate 40 years of Wes Craven's nightmarish masterpiece with a brand new digital restoration.

From modern horror master Craven comes a timeless shocker that remains the standard bearer for terror. Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) is having grisly nightmares. Meanwhile, her high-school friends, who are having the very same dreams, are being slaughtered in their sleep by the hideous fiend of their shared nightmares. When the police ignore her explanation, she herself must confront the killer in his shadowy realm

Narrated by Tilda Swinton, the film recently won the top award at Karlovy Vary (the first British title to do so since Kes).

A creative biography of the Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. One of the most important women in British modern art, the painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was a highly inspirational figure, whose work was deeply impacted by a pivotal event in her life.  

In his essayistic portrait Cousins delves into complex themes of gender, climate change and creativity, while laying bare the artist’s character and vast imagination so pervasively that he creates the impression we are seeing the world through her eyes.

The Garden Cinema View:

A Sudden Glimpse into Deeper Things feature documentary is Mark Cousins' love letter to Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, a significant yet often overlooked British modernist painter.

True to Cousins' unique style, the film takes different angles to investigate her legacy, combining an account of Barns-Graham's climb to the top of a glacier in Switzerland that was pivotal to her art, a lengthy contemplation over one of her photographs as an elderly woman, and a documentation of his acquisition of a Barns-Graham-inspired tattoo. As with all love letters, Cousins' exploration of Barns-Graham's innovative mind is deeply personal and idiosyncratic, weaving together fragments of her life and art in a complex tapestry.

What becomes prominent by the end of this understated documentary, sensitively narrated by Tilda Swinton, is Barns-Graham's range and depth of talent. The power of her incredible, multilayered paintings is undeniable, and the film will no doubt introduce her work to a wider audience.

Mark Cousins is a writer and director. He presented cult BBC film series Moviedrome and is most famous for his 15-hour 2011 documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey, as well as the 14-hour documentary Women Make Film. His previous film The Story of Film: A New Generation premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

Mark joined us for a Q&A on 13 October hosted by journalist Wendy Mitchell.

Film Africa presents Al Djanat- The Original Paradise.

After the death of her uncle, a dignitary Mandingo Islam, director Chloé Aïcha Boro films her family's courtyard in Dédougou, Burkina Faso. A dispute over the estate has burst out between advocates of traditional law and proponents of official law, inherited from European colonization. The courtyard becomes the theater where the future of an emblematic family is played out.

Hot Docs 2023

Visions du Réel 2023

Payal Kapadia’s hugely acclaimed fiction debut was the first Indian film to be selected in Official Competition at Cannes in three decades, where it received an 8 minute standing ovation and was awarded the Grand Prix.

All We Imagine as Light is a beautiful, sweeping, emotional film that explores the complexities of female friendship and captures the frantic pace, the vibrant colours and the heady atmosphere of modern Mumbai.

In the city, thoughtful Nurse Prabha’s routine is upset when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Her younger, flightier and rebellious roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a spot in the city to be intimate with her secret boyfriend. Their colleague Parvaty fights to stay in her home without any requisite paperwork left by her late husband. A trip to a beach town allows them each to find a space for their desires to manifest.

Director Sean Baker, (Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket), took home the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, making him the first American filmmaker to win the prize since 2012.

Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries Vanya, the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened when Vanya's parents send their henchmen to annul the marriage, setting off a wild chase through the streets of New York.

Four years ago, Tony D'Amato's (Al Pacino) Miami Sharks were at the top. Now, his team is struggling with three consecutive losses, sliding attendance, and aging heroes, particularly 39-year-old quarterback Jack 'Cap' Rooney (Dennis Quaid). Off the field, D'Amato is struggling with a failed marriage and estranged children, and is on a collision course with Christina Pagniacci (Cameron Diaz), the young president/co-owner of the Sharks organisation.

To celebrate the launch of Chris Shepherd’s debut graphic novel, Anfield Rd for Titan Comics, Chris is programming this Bar Shorts. Breaking with Bar Shorts tradition Chris will screen just the one film: Willy Russell’s classic 1977 TV Play for Today -  Our Day Out. It follows a group of teachers as they take a group of Liverpudlian school children on a trip to Wales. But the trip doesn’t go as planned.

Afterwards we will be joined by comedy legend and fellow scouser Alexei Sayle who will chat with Chris about Anfield and 1980s Liverpool. Alexei is an author, actor, stand-up comedian, television presenter and a recording artist. His autobiography Stalin Ate My Homework explores the world of Liverpool suburb Anfield.

Chris will be signing copies of Anfield Road in the bar before and after the event.

The screening on Sunday the 17th of November will be introduced by writer and lecturer Dr Julia Wagner.

“All the news behind the news… and some hippie smut.”

In Between the Lines Joan Micklin Silver (herself a former reporter for the Village Voice) creates a lived-in portrait of the smoky dive bars, record stores, pawn shops and strip clubs frequented by a ragtag group of broke but passionate journalists in the dying days of their alternative newspaper. Featuring debut performances from John Heard, Joe Morton, Marilu Henner, Raymond J. Barrie, and Jeff Goldblum (to name just a few), Between The Lines is a top-tier 1970s hangout movie, offering a comedic take on the importance of fighting for what’s important to you when the sticks are down.

Dr Julia Wagner is a lecturer and writer specialising in film and television. She holds a PhD in Film Studies from UCL and is author of Hester Street (BFI/Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2025), a BFI Classics book about Joan Micklin Silver’s debut film.

Al Pacino reunites with his Scarface director Brian De Palma for this tough-minded thriller about a gangster looking for salvation down the mean streets of 1970s New York City.

Carlito Brigante (Pacino) gets released early from prison thanks to the work of his lawyer, Kleinfeld (Sean Penn). Vowing to go straight, Carlito nonetheless finds dangers waiting for him in the outside world. As Carlito works toward redemption, Kleinfeld sinks into cocaine-fuelled corruption. When Kleinfeld crosses the mob, Carlito gets caught in the crossfire and has to face a hard choice: remain loyal to the friend who freed him or protect a new life with the woman he loves (Penelope Ann Miller). With enemies closing in from all sides, Carlito must find his way before it’s too late.

Also starring John Leguizamo, Luis Guzmán, and Viggo Mortensen, Carlito’s Way has come to be regarded as among De Palma’s most accomplished films. A hard-hitting gangster noir laced with romance and melancholy, powerful performances and nail-biting suspense.

This film was suggested by our member James Jalloh, who says: 'A precursor to the likes of Eraserhead and Night Of The Living Dead, Carnival of Souls arrived shortly after the mainstream controversy of Peeping Tom and Psycho and took that feeling to another darker place. This movie takes us to a strange other world. An Indie milestone.'

A young woman (Candace Hilligoss) in a small Kansas town survives a drag race accident, then agrees to take a job as a church organist in Salt Lake City. En route, she is haunted by a bizarre apparition that compels her toward an abandoned lakeside pavilion. Made by industrial filmmakers on a small budget, the eerily effective B-movie classic Carnival of Souls was intended to have 'the look of a Bergman and the feel of a Cocteau' - and, with its strikingly used locations and spooky organ score, it succeeds. Herk Harvey’s macabre masterpiece gained a cult following on late-night television and continues to inspire filmmakers today. - The Criterion Collection

Please note, the screening on Monday 21 October is our Free Members' Screening, and the screening on Tuesday 29 October is a general public screening.

Brian De Palma's terrifying classic returns to cinemas in a dazzling new digital restoration.

An awkward, telekinetic teenage girl’s lonely life is dominated by relentless bullying at school and an oppressive religious fanatic mother at home. When her tormentors pull a humiliating prank at the senior prom, she unleashes a horrifying chaos on everyone, leaving nothing but destruction in her wake.

Led by our very own 'Queen of Collage', Marzia Castelli, this workshop will allow you to unleash your creativity and create your own birthday cards, mini posters or other works of art.

You might not be familiar with Marzia's name, but you'll certainly have encountered her designs before: she designs all the artwork for The Garden Cinema, including our season flyers, and can often be found in our bar, camera in hand, taking the beautiful pictures you've seen on our socials and in our newsletters.

To get your creative juices flowing, we'll start off by watching Karel Zeman's The Fabulous Baron Munchausen, a kaleidoscopic marvel that blends live action with techniques including stop-motion, cutout collage, puppetry, painted backdrops, and antique tinting. After the screening, the workshop will take place in the Garden Bar.

Everything you need, from scissors and glue to piles of magazines, will be supplied, and Marzia will be there to offer her artistic insights and help you take your design to the next level. But if you do have magazines you've been meaning to get rid off, feel free to bring them with you.

Due to the nature of the workshop, tickets are very limited. They are £15, restricted to 1 per member, and include a reserved seat for the screening of The Fabulous Baron Munchausen at 13:30, the workshop, and a complimentary cup of coffee or tea. Please note, there is no need to book a separate ticket for the screening - a seat will be reserved for all attendees of the workshop.

Timings:

13:30 - 15:10  Screening of The Fabulous Baron Munchausen

15:10 - 17:00  Collage making workshop in the Garden Bar

A psychopath is scouring New York City gay clubs and viciously slaying homosexuals. Detective Steve Burns (Al Pacino) is ordered to don leather attire, hang at the city's S&M joints and keep an eye out for the killer. But as Steve becomes immersed in club hopping, he begins to identify with the subculture more than he expected. Meanwhile, Steve behaves distantly around his girlfriend, Nancy (Karen Allen), the police force's homophobia becomes apparent and the killer remains at large.

From acclaimed filmmaker Mati Diop (Atlantics), Dahomey is a poetic and immersive work of art that delves into real perspectives on far-reaching issues surrounding appropriation, self-determination and restitution. Set in November 2021, the documentary charts 26 royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey that are due to leave Paris and return to their country of origin: the present-day Republic of Benin. Using multiple perspectives Diop questions how these artifacts should be received in a country that has reinvented itself in their absence. Winner of the coveted Golden Bear prize at the 2024 Berlinale, Dahomey is an affecting though altogether singular conversation piece that is as spellbinding as it is essential.

The Garden Cinema View:

Mati Diop’s Golden Bear winning Dahomey is yet another glowing node in a career that encompasses superb short form work, the beautiful docufiction tribute to her uncle Djibril Diop Mambéty, Mille Soleils, the astonishing ghost story Atlantics, and an era defining performance in Claire Denis’ 35 Shots of Rum. Dahomey, throughout a brief running time, continually shifts registers and tones. The Wiseman-esque sequences of the logistics of storage, transportation, and display provide a riposte to arguments surrounding the safe-keeping and preservation of purloined treasures by ex-colonial powers and institutions. A student debate in Benin, eloquently lays out the complex framework of history, politics, and emotions that the return of these objects invokes. And the voices of the statues themselves speak out, flowing into the ambient score from Wally Badarou and Dean Blunt, and Diop’s own poetic imagery of the city of Abomey.

Proudly screening as part of our Trailblazers season.  

About the film:

A landmark of queer and independent filmmaking, Desert Hearts blazed a trail for lesbian representation on screen. Arriving in the Reno desert to finalise her divorce, uptight New York academic Vivian’s heart is hijacked by unruly tomboy Cay, who she is introduced to in one of cinema’s most rip-roaring ‘meet cute’ sequences. Shot with a languorous, sensual cinematography that Deitch achieved on a small budget, the film is ahead of its time in its unapologetic celebration of lesbian sexuality.

Proudly screening as part of our season celebrating the work of women filmmakers in the US in the 1970s and 80s, Desert Hearts, a landmark of queer and independent filmmaking, blazed a trail for lesbian representation on screen. In celebration of this pioneering film, we're thrilled to organise another queer members' mixer on Saturday 23 November.

Join us in the Garden Bar from 19:00, to meet fellow members - all are welcome, whether you're queer, questioning, or a raging ally. There will be the opportunity to craft your own badge featuring a queer cinematic icons, whilst enjoying a complimentary 'Flaming Hearts' cocktail. Meanwhile, we'll be blasting our favourite queer dancefloor anthems, and your musical suggestions will be welcomed with open arms!

At 20:30 we'll make our way into the screen, where Clara Bradbury-Rance will introduce the film, offering insight into the film's special place in the history of lesbian filmmaking.

Tickets are £16.50 each, and restricted to 2 per member, meaning you can bring a date or a mate. The ticket includes access to the pre-screening disco and badgemaking, a complimentary (non-)alcoholic cocktail, and an unallocated seat for the screening.

Timings:

19:00        ‘Flaming Hearts’ cocktail hour, Desert Hearts disco and queer ‘pin up’ badgemaking with artist Alex Michon

20:30        Film introduction by Clara Bradbury-Rance

20:45        Screening of Desert Hearts

22:20        Expected finish

About the film:

Arriving in the Reno desert to finalise her divorce, uptight New York academic Vivian’s heart is hijacked by unruly tomboy Cay, who she is introduced to in one of cinema’s most rip-roaring ‘meet cute’ sequences. Shot with a languorous, sensual cinematography that Deitch achieved on a small budget, the film is ahead of its time in its unapologetic celebration of lesbian sexuality.

About Clara Bradbury-Rance:

Clara Bradbury-Rance is a Senior Lecturer in Gender and Sexuality Studies at King’s College London. She is the author of the book Lesbian Cinema after Queer Theory (2019). Alongside her academic writing, Clara publishes film reviews in Sight and Sound magazine. She is currently working on a book for the BFI Classics series on Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

On one of the hottest days of August 1972, three amateur bank robbers plan to hold up a Brooklyn bank. A nice simple robbery: Walk in, take the money, and run. Unfortunately, the supposedly uncomplicated heist suddenly becomes a bizarre nightmare as everything that could go wrong does. Sidney Lumet’s film, based on a true story, is driven by a legendary performance from Al Pacino, ably supported by John Cazale.

Film Africa presents Everybody Loves Touda, directed by Nabil Ayouch (Mektoub) from a screenplay co-written with Maryam Touzani (The Blue Caftan).The film had its world premiere at the 77th Cannes Film Festival and it was selected as the Moroccan submission for the Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.

Touda only dreams of one thing: being a Sheikha, a traditional Moroccan performer. She belts out songs about resistance, love and emancipation, passed down from generation to generation. Every evening, she performs in bars under the gaze of men in her tiny village while hoping for a better future for her and her son. Disrespected and shamed, she sets her sights on leaving for the bright lights of Casablanca…

Amidst a hypnotic soundscape of Moroccan music, Nabil Ayouch (Casablanca Beats) portrays a vibrant woman and mother.

Doc'n Roll Film Festival presents the World Premiere of Four Strings Good. A feature documentary of a live concert celebrating the music and life of multi-instrumentalist, producer and renowned session musician Mo Foster (1944-2023).

Featuring performances by Ray Russell, Simon Phillips, Tony Hymas, Judie Tzuke, Deborah Bonham, Jimmy Helms, Kim Goody, Moon Williams, Phil Hilborne and others, the event captured Mo's enduring influence, musical legacy and great humour.

A revered figure in the London music scene, Foster played with artists including Jeff Beck, Gil Evans, Phil Collins, Gerry Rafferty, Joan Armatrading and Gary Moore. Fellow session legend Ray Russell, who shared the stage with Foster in the esteemed RMS band, took the initiative to commemorate his friend’s legacy via this musical evening. Four Strings Good captures that event, along with footage of interviews and talks that Foster hosted.

Doc'n Roll Film Festival presents the UK Premiere of Garland Jeffreys: The King of In Between + Zoom Q&A with director Claire Jeffreys.

Hubris, anger, prejudice...doo-wop, reggae, rock...expectations, heartbreak, transformation...Garland Jeffreys: The King of In Between examines the fifty-year career of this genre-bending, biracial singer-songwriter. An enigmatic performer since his start in the Greenwich Village clubs, Jeffreys never reached the success predicted for him. The film asks why and explores how his commitment to writing about race in America is more relevant now than ever.

Adapted for the screen by David Mamet from his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, the compelling, witty, and endlessly quotable script is delivered with razor-sharp precision by an ensemble cast at the height of their powers.

A group of Chicago real-estate salesmen-cum-con artists live on the edge. Life is good for the one on a roll. For the rest, life hangs in the balance. There is no room for losers. A-B-C: Always Be Closing, sell or go under, is the salesman’s mantra. With the pressure on, so begins a rainy night of cutthroat business and shattered lives. Delivering an Academy Award nominated performance. Al Pacino plays the fast-talking Ricky Roma, alongside Jack Lemmon giving a phenomenal performance as the veteran Shelley 'The Machine' Levene, struggling to keep his neck above water.

Screening in memory of the great Maggie Smith.

Our screening on Sunday October 13 will be introduced by our member Paul Murphy.

In 2001, Robert Altman took the unexpected step into Agatha Christie territory with Gosford Park, a murder-mystery whodunit set in an English country house starring a host of British acting greats and with an Oscar-winning screenplay by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes. It would become a huge success with audiences and critics alike.

Set in 1932, the action unfolds during a weekend shooting party hosted by Sir William McArdle (Alan Bates), and his wife Lady Sylvia (Kristin Scott Thomas) at his estate, Gosford Park. Among the guests are friends, relatives, the actor and composer Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam), and an American film producer (Bob Balaban). When Sir William is found murdered in the library, everyone and their servants becomes a suspect.

John Carpenter's genre defining classic returns... home, in a new digital restoration.

On a black and unholy Halloween night years ago, little Michael Myers brutally slaughtered his sister in cold bold. But for the last fifteen years, town residents have rested easy, knowing that he was safely locked away in a mental hospital – until tonight. Tonight, Michael returns to the same quiet neighbourhood to relive his grisly murder again…and again…and again. For this is a night of evil. Tonight is Halloween!

Michael Mann's classic crime thriller Heat was released in 1995 and stars Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro as two men on opposite sides of the law whose live become tangled and destabilised in an intense game of cat-and-mouse. When one heist led by master thief Neil McCauley (DeNiro) is compromised due to a clue left behind, LAPD Lieutenant Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) finds himself obsessed with pursuing them in an ever-escalating war - one that may cause significant collateral damage.

As part of China Week 2024, King’s College London’s Lau China Institute and The Garden Cinema’s Chinese Cinema Project present the screening of I Wish I Knew, followed by a panel discussion.

From the acclaimed 6th Generation Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke, I Wish I Knew is a vivid portrait of the fast-changing metropolis and port city of Shanghai. A century-long history of this legendary city is revealed via interviews with eighteen real life characters who have complex personal relationships with the city’s rich cultural legacy. Those interview subjects include filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien, painter Danqing Chen, writer Han Han, and actress Rebecca Pan, many of whom immigrated from the mainland to Hong Kong and Taiwan due to political upheaval.

I Wish I Knew also features a performance from Jia Zhangke’s long-time collaborator and muse Zhao Tao, in the backdrop of 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

Chris Berry is Professor of Film Studies at King’s College London, and Co-Investigator of the AHRC-funded Chinese Independent Film Archive project with Professor Sabrina Yu, University of Newcastle. He is also co-editor of The New Chinese Documentary Film Movement: For the Public Record, as well as various other works on aspects of Sinitic-language cinema.

Giulia D’Aquila is a PhD candidate in Chinese Studies at the Lau China Institute. Her current research focuses on the role that UK-China film co-production plays in the bilateral relation between the UK and China.

Dr Vivienne Xiangwei Guo is a historian of modern China in the history department, King’s College London. Her research focuses on the intellectual, political, and cultural history of modern China, particularly the history of China’s intellectual elites in the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century.

China Week is a week-long series of events designed to help contribute to an informed understanding of China's growing global influence through research and public engagement.

The Chinese Cinema Project is an exhibition initiative showcasing works from emerging and under-represented Chinese filmmakers via regular screenings, exploring auteurship and cinematic beauty in its various forms.

From acclaimed director Chris Nolan comes the story of a veteran police detective (Al Pacino) who is sent to a small Alaskan town to investigate the murder of a teenage girl. Forced into a psychological game of cat-and-mouse by the primary suspect (Robin Williams), events escalate and the detective finds his own stability dangerously threatened.

A joyous adventure that celebrates science and nature, Journey to the Beginning of Time sends four schoolboys on an awe-inspiring expedition back through time, where they behold landscapes and creatures that have long since vanished from the earth. Combining live action with stop motion, puppetry and animatronics, visionary filmmaker Karel Zeman evokes worlds of wonder and discovery to produce his most beguiling and magical work.

Rated one of the best children‘s adventure films of all time, it is also a pioneering work of world cinema. Described as the ‘Czech Méliès’, Zeman has been a profound influence on generations of film artists including Jan Švankmajer, Tim Burton, the Quay Brothers and Wes Anderson.

Part of the 28th Made in Prague Festival, 31 October – 30 November 2024. Organized by the Czech Centre London.

Digitally restored as part of Cistíme svet fantazie / Restoring the World of Fantasy, a joint project of the Karel Zeman Museum, the Czech Film Foundation and Czech Television.

On Sunday mornings our Family Screenings are followed by a free activity for Children.

The screening is Pay What You Can, which means you’re free to pay as much or as little as you can afford. By paying for a ticket, you will enable us to keep offering Pay What You Can screenings to families struggling with the cost of living. Thank you  

After sorting through a huge pile of 2,400 entries, LIAF have curated a selection of 83 outstanding new films from 31 countries. These films range from humorous and dramatic to bizarre, subtle, frightening, and autobiographical. What they all share is our belief that they represent the best of the best. These 8 international competition programmes showcase a variety of techniques, genres, and styles. This is your annual glimpse into the vibrant world of international indie animation.

This programme represents our yearly exploration of abstract and experimental animation. It features 17 short films where animators use a wide range of techniques, from hand-drawn "musical scores" to high-definition computer-assisted imagery. Each film reflects a deep passion for animated movement and showcases the artist's skill in using colour and crafting non-narrative visuals to captivate the screen.

Please visit liaf.org.uk for more details

SKRFF

A graffiti wall in Vienna becomes an archeological site and a sgraffito sculpture, as skrffologists activate traces of the past with stop motion animation. But can history ever be remembered clearly in all its complexity?

Austria 2024 Dir: Corrie Francis Parks, Daniel Nuderscher 7’00

Shapes

A psychedelic and mysterious galaxy composed of different shapes, textures, patterns and colours.

Hong Kong 2023 Dir: Tsz-wing Ho 5’20

Help Desk

A hypnotic hand drawn animation, providing a meditative and contemplative space, oscillating between flatness and depth, control and instability.

UK 2023 Dir: Edwin Rostron 3’10

Rekonstrukt

In 1923, Andor Weininger, a Hungarian-born artist, musician and leader of the Weimar Bauhaus group, put down on paper the first animated film script for a Hungarian animated film, but the abstract work would not be realised until exactly one hundred years later.

Hungary 2023 Dir: Gabor Ulrich 4’05

Entropic Memory

This photographic exploration of family photo albums ravaged by water evokes hazy and indistinct memories, poignant witnesses of a fragile past.

Canada 2024 Dir: Nicolas Brault 6’30

Flow

Lens based video and photography combine with digital geometric shapes to imitate the invisible flow in nature.

Hong Kong 2024 Dir: Alex Bai 3’00

Lines

An aggressive battle unfolds between red and dark blue. The borderlines between the colours vibrate with tension as they fight for their lives.

Germany 2024 Dir: Martin Schmidt 4’10

Tao

Chinese Taoism, the concepts of yin and yang, and the Five Elements. Dao generates one, one generates two, two generates three and three generates all things.

Hong Kong 2024 Dir: Shuxin Yan Wang, Simai Stella Huang, Haoran Yan Yang 2’15

Dawn & Dusk

The time between dawn and dusk reveals how the dual nature of light changes on a microscopic level, through the vibrations of photons, the oscillations of electromagnetic waves, and the properties of light refraction and reflection.

Spain 2023 Dir: Toni Mitjanit 5’10

0.1g

Fluids leak from the body, seeping through various orifices and beyond the boundary of the skin.

Switzerland 2023 Dir: Raymond Hoepflinger 1’55

To Hear to See

A fusion of abstract optical soundtracks from analogue 16mm and 35mm film expanding on the 1930’s Russian experiments of Nikolai Voinov which impacted electronic music.

Australia 2023 Dir: Dirk de Bruyn 4’35

Clash

Two geometric objects explore and challenge each other’s domains by switching tactics and transforming body forms.

Hong Kong 2024 Dir: Yuming Liao, Jingxian Zhan, Yingyue Zhuang 2’30

Electronic Insects

The connection between nature and abstraction characterised by the shapes and forms of a myriad of insects’ features.

USA 2023 Dir: Keum-Taek Jung 1’30

Grain Cloud Atmosphere

Many grains make a cloud. Many clouds form an atmosphere. An exploration of the perception of time through the eyes and ears.

Italy 2023 Dir: Martin Moolhuijsen 6’40

Geometric Symphony

A symphony of flapping and vibrating imagery set to a whirlwind of perfectly synchronised optical sounds.

Hong Kong 2024 Dir: Ka Yuet Chan, Yau Hing Lam 2’15

Fusion

Drawn directly onto 35mm motion picture film without the use of camera or musical instruments, a visual and aural feast for the senses.

Canada 2024 Dir: Richard Reeves 3’15

(S)

An immersive loop of organic forms, reflecting on the entangled nature of life and art.

UK 2024 Dir: Mario Radev 12’30

This programme explores the full spectrum of human emotions through 9 captivating films that delve into themes of love, hate, jealousy, sensuality, melancholy, anxiety, confusion, fear, and doubt. Each film is powerful and moving, offering profound insights and striking visuals that resonate with contemporary issues.

Independent animation remains a dynamic and evolving art form, showcasing a stunning array of styles, materials, and techniques—from hand-drawn and paint-on-glass to collage, sculpture, cut-outs, puppetry, abstract forms, and innovative CGI. This year's LIAF highlights the most diverse and exciting developments within this vibrant medium.

After sorting through a huge pile of 2,400 entries, we’ve curated a selection of 83 outstanding new films from 31 countries. These films range from humorous and dramatic to bizarre, subtle, frightening, and autobiographical. What they all share is our belief that they represent the best of the best. These 8 international competition programmes showcase a variety of techniques, genres, and styles. This is your annual glimpse into the vibrant world of international indie animation.

Please visit liaf.org.uk for more details

It's Just a Whole

An unpleasant examination by a meticulous doctor leads to a supposedly inevitable medical intervention that leaves the young patient scarred in body and soul.

Germany 2023 Dir: Bianca Scali 10’35

In Thousand Petals

A young married woman collects the sweet memories of her romance. On closer inspection, she leaves bits of herself behind.

Belgium 2023 Dir: Louise Bongartz 10’05

Freeride in C

The serene whiteness of the mountains is interrupted by vibrant winter sports enthusiasts indulging in downhill skiing.

Latvia 2024 Dir: Edmunds Jansons 10’10

Chicken

A woman who is escaping an abusive situation stumbles and finds herself eye to eye with a hen who is in the same situation.

Germany 2023 Dir: Anna Benner 7’55

Three Birds

A wise birdwoman sends three birds to guide a girl into the dark unknown landscapes of her inner world.

Slovenia 2024 Dir: Zarja Menart 8’15

Yuck!

Yuck! Couples kissing on the mouth are gross. And the worst thing is, you can’t miss them: when people are about to kiss, their lips go all pink and shiny

France 2024 Dir: Loic Espuche 13’10

Stale Smoke

The most difficult questions and secrets are invariably the ones within families.

France 2023 Dir: Arthur Jamain 9’30

Cold Soup

A victim of domestic violence looks back at the years when she was married, recalling how difficult it was to stay afloat.

Portugal, France 2023 Dir: Marta Monteiro 9’50

Zarko, You will spoil the child!

Memories of a childhood in Split in the 1980s and a moving tribute to the love of a grandpa and grandma who did their best to keep their granddaughter smiling.

Croatia 2024 Dir: Veljko Popovic, Milivoj Popovic 13’00

This programme ‘From Absurd to Zany’ celebrates some of the funniest, weirdest and eye-poppingly nutty films that were entered this year. Tales of murderous dreams, existential crises, destructive machines that just want to hurt us, a young girl's anxiety about her appendix, an insane Jeff Bezos and the bakery he runs plus many more bonkers scenarios. Buckle up for a wild ride.

Independent animation remains a dynamic and evolving art form, showcasing a stunning array of styles, materials, and techniques—from hand-drawn and paint-on-glass to collage, sculpture, cut-outs, puppetry, abstract forms, and innovative CGI. This year's LIAF highlights the most diverse and exciting developments within this vibrant medium.

After sorting through a huge pile of 2,400 entries, we’ve curated a selection of 83 outstanding new films from 31 countries. These films range from humorous and dramatic to bizarre, subtle, frightening, and autobiographical. What they all share is our belief that they represent the best of the best. These 8 international competition programmes showcase a variety of techniques, genres, and styles. This is your annual glimpse into the vibrant world of international indie animation.

Please visit liaf.org.uk for more details

Gina Kamentsky's Pinocchio in 70mm

Pinocchio felt a longing deep within him. Someday, he would become a real girl and live a life beyond the confines of make-believe.

USA 2024 Dir: Gina Kamentsky 3’10

Mee and Burd

A post operative existential crisis inspires an animator to make a film about a post operative existential crisis.

UK 2023 Dir: Greg McLeod 7’45

Human Resources

Andy, followed by a friend filming the scene, goes to his recycling appointment. Wanda, the secretary of the company, welcomes him. We follow Andy through the whole process, until his last seconds of life.

France 2023 Dir: Trinidad Plass, Titouan Tillier, Isaac Wenzer 3’30

No Room

In this film, cars have legs. Maybe that is why they feel free to use the pavement as they please. There is no room, but could we perhaps be a little more considerate?

Croatia 2024 Dir: Jelena Oroz 6’20

A Round of Applause for Death

A surreal, abstract journey through a series of murderous dreams, where Death takes centre stage and faceless spectators applaud the inevitable.

UK 2024 Dir: Stephen Irwin 4’50

Hurikan

Hurikán rushes to save his favourite beer stand and impress the barmaid, by opening a new keg. In a gritty part of Prague, he faces off against thieves, police, and his own thirst. Although he retrieves the keg, he ultimately gives in to temptation.

Slovakia, Czech Republic, France, Bosnia and Herzegovina 2024 Dir: Jan Saska 13’05

Humanity

Life is hard even without having to tolerate other people's annoying habits. The problem is you can't kill somebody just because they chew too loudly.

Czech Republic 2024 Dir: Tereza Kovandová 7’40

Matta and Matto

In a dystopian world where touch is forbidden, Matta and Matto offer refuge to the lonely at Hotel Vaip. In the deceptive labyrinth of mind bending rooms at their transient hotel, deepest desires are fulfilled and surpassed, but this comes at a price.

Switzerland 2023 Dir: Bianca Caderas, Kerstin Zemp 10’15

I Am A Robot

An autonomous vacuum cleaner, a self-driving car and a supercomputer confess their murderous innermost thoughts as they go about their day.

USA 2024 Dir: Sean Buckelew 7’05

Extremely Short

A man sets out in search of the shortest thing in Tokyo, which turns out to be a single syllable uttered by a dying man.

Japan 2024 Dir: Koji Yamamura 5’20

Let Them Eat Cake

Jeff Bezos is an ambitious capitalist and businessman. This Jeff Bezos manages a local bakery and does everything in his power to satisfy his customers. EVERYTHING.

Denmark 2023 Dir: Mathias Rodrigues Bjerre 11’00

Bunnyhood

"Mum would never lie to me, would she?" Innocent Bobby discovers the answer to this question when she is surprised by a last minute trip to the hospital.

UK 2024 Dir: Mansi Maheshwari 9’05

This programme examines some big life moments and asks some pointed questions. The 10 powerful films include a breathtaking take on an author's experience with mescaline, the internal struggles of a group of female gymnasts, a humorous animated road movie documenting Poland during the communist era and a touching mother-daughter relationship.

Independent animation remains a dynamic and evolving art form, showcasing a stunning array of styles, materials, and techniques—from hand-drawn and paint-on-glass to collage, sculpture, cut-outs, puppetry, abstract forms, and innovative CGI. This year's LIAF highlights the most diverse and exciting developments within this vibrant medium.

After sorting through a huge pile of 2,400 entries, we’ve curated a selection of 83 outstanding new films from 31 countries. These films range from humorous and dramatic to bizarre, subtle, frightening, and autobiographical. What they all share is our belief that they represent the best of the best. These 8 international competition programmes showcase a variety of techniques, genres, and styles. This is your annual glimpse into the vibrant world of international indie animation.

Please visit liaf.org.uk for more details

The Last Drop

Kata is a member of the national rhythmic gymnastics team that is exposed to extreme coaching techniques. The pressure on her is building, and the finals are near.

Hungary 2024 Dir: Anna Tőkés 10’40

Misérable Miracle

Inspired by the poems and drawings of Henri Michaux, this film takes animation to the breathtaking limits of language and perception.

Japan, Canada, France 2023 Dir: Ryo Orikasa 8’15

All Futures

The arrival and evolution of humanity on Somnum, a virgin planet where night is eternal.

France, Argentina 2024 Dir: Barbara Cerro 11’55

On Hold

A young woman is stuck in the hold queue of a telephone hotline. A surreal episodic short film about the absurdities of urban life and the frustration of a paralysing standstill.

Switzerland 2024 Dir: Delia Hess 7’10

Surprisingly Beautiful

An unsuspecting artist is moved by a visit from a seemingly banal moth. As events unfold into the final fleeting moments, a hidden marvel is revealed which the artist fights to preserve.

Canada 2024 Dir: Kathryn Jankowski 7’00

Earth Coal

In the countryside of the past, within the mines and factories, these men appear to share similar sorrows. There seems to be something that resonates with us today—whether it’s a genuine connection or merely the simplicity of everyday life.

France 2024 Dir: Bastien Dupriez 12’45

Box

In a regulated system, different figures live isolated from each other in their boxes. They draw, cut, fold and stack the paper boxes on top of each other. As the stacks get higher and higher and collapse, the figures find each other and discover life together.

Switzerland 2024 Dir: Aline Schoch 8’00

It Shouldn't Rain Tomorrow

As she gets older, Oma’s perception begins to change. While her daughter tries to adapt to her new situation, she seems to sink deeper and deeper into herself. Portugal, Germany 2024 Dir: Maria Trigo Teixeira 11’15

Circle

A girl draws a circle on the ground. Passers-by step into it, one by one. Soon the circle is full of people struggling to make room for each other. Once the girl returns and erases the circle, people start heading on their way.

South Korea 2024 Dir: Yumi Joung 6’55

The Car that came back from the Sea

Six friends drive to the Polish Baltic coast and back in a small, beaten-up car. During their trip, their car and their country fall apart.

Poland 2023 Dir: Jadwiga Kowalska 10’45

Welcome to our annual deep-dive into the dark heart of animation. Here you will find films featuring a blind sculptor and his countless failed experiments, corn husk skulls, mental armadillos, evil twin babies, skeletons, maggots and death everywhere. Step in, take a seat, turn out the light and get ready for our annual showcase of all manner of dark, creepy, strange, violent and spooky films.

Independent animation remains a dynamic and evolving art form, showcasing a stunning array of styles, materials, and techniques—from hand-drawn and paint-on-glass to collage, sculpture, cut-outs, puppetry, abstract forms, and innovative CGI. This year's LIAF highlights the most diverse and exciting developments within this vibrant medium.

After sorting through a huge pile of 2,400 entries, we’ve curated a selection of 83 outstanding new films from 31 countries. These films range from humorous and dramatic to bizarre, subtle, frightening, and autobiographical. What they all share is our belief that they represent the best of the best. These 8 international competition programmes showcase a variety of techniques, genres, and styles. This is your annual glimpse into the vibrant world of international indie animation.

Please visit liaf.org.uk for more details

Playing God

A clay sculpture comes to life in the darkness of a workshop, surrounded by strange creatures.

Italy, France 2024 Dir: De Matteo Burani & Arianna Gheller 8’55

Duck

One stormy night, Bex's plans for a Chinese takeaway are disrupted when she nearly kills a mysterious old woman.

USA 2024 Dir: Mic Graves, Tony Hull 8’15

As I Was a Tree

In a surreal odyssey, the Self seeks escape.

Germany 2024 Dir: Jalal Maghout 10’40

Little Other

Two babies are about to be born. One of them is bound to be a regular child. The other is destined to be a trickster. But how to determine which is which?

Estonia 2024 Dir: Andres Tenusaar 12’00

Madeline's House

A little girl, Madeline, takes us on a tour of her beloved childhood home. The more rooms we explore, she slowly remembers the strange and disturbing events that led to her death.

UK 2023 Dir: Eliska Dvorackova 3’20

Dolores

Dolores is a 7-year-old girl who just wants to play, runs away from a fire demon and accidentally falls into a grave.

Mexico 2024 Dir: Cecilia Andalón Delgadillo 8’15

Sleepy

Thirteen-year-old Varka lives in a shoemaker’s home where she performs the duties of nanny and housemaid. Varka’s only wish is to get some sleep.

Russian Federation 2023 Dir: Igor Voloshin 13’30

Drizzle in Johnson

A scientist obsessively seeking the answers of the universe is thrust into a mind-bending odyssey of grotesqueries and genitalia.

Canada 2023 Dir: Ivan Li 20’40

Persuasive, illustrative and able to get over abstract details in attractive and compelling ways, animation is the perfect tool to document someone’s vision of the truth. This past decade has seen a boom in non-fiction films that use animation to tell their stories and LIAF has been one of the vanguards with our annual showcase dedicated to the documentary form dating back to 2008. This year’s programme features 11 of the best true life stories coupled with mind-blowing imagery.

Independent animation remains a dynamic and evolving art form, showcasing a stunning array of styles, materials, and techniques—from hand-drawn and paint-on-glass to collage, sculpture, cut-outs, puppetry, abstract forms, and innovative CGI. This year's LIAF highlights the most diverse and exciting developments within this vibrant medium.

After sorting through a huge pile of 2,400 entries, we’ve curated a selection of 83 outstanding new films from 31 countries. These films range from humorous and dramatic to bizarre, subtle, frightening, and autobiographical. What they all share is our belief that they represent the best of the best. These 8 international competition programmes showcase a variety of techniques, genres, and styles. This is your annual glimpse into the vibrant world of international indie animation.

Please visit liaf.org.uk/ for more details

Us Four

The bittersweet experiences of growing up and the evolving dynamics of sisterly relationships.

UK 2024 Dir: Alex Peake 6’45

Percebes

With the sea and urban Algarve as the backdrop, we follow a complete life cycle of a special shellfish called percebes, the goose barnacle.

Portugal 2024 Dir: Alexandra Ramires, Laura Gonçalves 11’25

Noggin

No sugarcoatin’ it, you’ve got brain damage from multiple sclerosis. Your memories are fading so gather everything left in that noggin, like paper and ink and photos and love of course.

USA, Italy 2024 Dir: Case Jernigan 7’10

High Street Repeat

The story of migration and enterprise, told through the changing face of Britain’s high street. This playful combination of stop motion with digital techniques and manipulation of photographic cut-outs creates a continuous transition between the past and present.

UK 2023 Dir: Osbert Parker, Laurie Hill 4’25

I Died in Irpin

24 February 2022 my boyfriend and I fled from Kyiv to Irpin. We spent 10 days in a blockaded city and managed to escape with the last evacuation convoy. Time passed, but the feeling that I died in Irpin has never left me since.

Czech Republic 2024 Dir: Anastasiia Falileieva 11’30

Joana

Joana is about to turn 6. Her father decides to make an animated documentary to portray her personality and the things she loves the most.

Spain 2024 Dir: Antoni Sendra Barrachina 2’50

Touching Darkness

10 year old Vítek has special abilities – he can feel and hear what others cannot. This is a door to his world and shows us that the absence of one sense doesn't have to be just an obstacle.

Czech Republic 2024 Dir: Jamaica Kindlová 4’50

Dying for Beginners

What happens as we die? A gentle step by step journey through the process of dying.

UK 2023 Dir: Emily Downe 4’20

Margarita's Story

A heart-wrenching film presenting the perilous journey of a 10 year old girl’s flight from Mariupol, Ukraine in March of 2022.

UK 2023 Dir: Jonathan Hodgson 3’30

Ur Heinous Habit

A blackmail email prompts a filmmaker to explore the intersection of shame and masturbation.

USA 2023 Dir: Eugene Kolb 13’45

Inside, The Valley Sings

Trapped in the never-ending horror of prolonged solitary confinement, 3 prisoners seek comfort and escape in the boundless vistas of their own imaginations.

Ireland 2024 Dir: Nathan Fagan, Natasza Cetner 15’00

Some films need extra time to develop their themes, to grow and draw us more comprehensively into their worlds. It takes time to think. Reflection tends to work best at a slower tempo. This competition programme is dedicated to showcasing the best of these longer films. 7 longer short films, 7 thoughtful and complex stories.

Independent animation remains a dynamic and evolving art form, showcasing a stunning array of styles, materials, and techniques—from hand-drawn and paint-on-glass to collage, sculpture, cut-outs, puppetry, abstract forms, and innovative CGI. This year's LIAF highlights the most diverse and exciting developments within this vibrant medium.

After sorting through a huge pile of 2,400 entries, we’ve curated a selection of 83 outstanding new films from 31 countries. These films range from humorous and dramatic to bizarre, subtle, frightening, and autobiographical. What they all share is our belief that they represent the best of the best. These 8 international competition programmes showcase a variety of techniques, genres, and styles. This is your annual glimpse into the vibrant world of international indie animation.

Please visit liaf.org.uk for more details

Wander to Wonder

Mary, Billybud, and Fumbleton star in an 80’s kids’ TV-series called Wander to Wonder. After the creator of the show has died, they are left alone in the studio. Struggling to find enough to eat, they continue to make increasingly strange episodes for their fans.

Netherlands, Belgium, France, UK 2023 Dir: Nina Gantz 13’45

Butterfly

In the sea, a man swims. As he does, memories come to the surface.From his early childhood to his life as a man, all his memories are linked to water. Some are happy, some glorious, some traumatic.

France 2024 Dir: Florence Miailhe 15’00

Progress Mining

Feed the monster, have a cup of tea, and if it’s your first day – don’t pay attention to anything peculiar in Sector 3. Nick shows a new worker around the crumbling Progress Mining Company, while Mary tries to get it shut for repairs.

UK, Switzerland 2024 Dir: Gabriel Bohmer 16’30

Shoes and Hooves

A pedicurist in a small-town, Paula the centaur-girl longs to have human feet. When she meets Arnold the crocodile-man it is love at first sight. Can Paula take the first steps in her search for identity? What will be the price of her attempts to fit in and deny her true self?

Hungary 2024 Dir: Viktória Traub 15’00

The Voice of the Sirens

At the heart of the sea bed, between rocks and corals, primitive algae undulate, lulled by the muffled and roaring sound of the currents. Up above, on the surface of the water, something extraordinary has just appeared: a voice. So soft and seductive that it is unlike anything we have ever heard before.

France, Italy 2023 Dir: Gianluigi Toccafondo 19’45

The Sunset Special 2

On this exclusive luxury cruise two families meet. While artificial facades dissolve, psychedelic dreamworlds unfold and the reality beyond superficial comfort is unveiled.

Germany 2024 Dir: Nicolas Gebbe 18’50

Stampfer Dreams

This tribute to scientist Simon Stampfer features animated sequences inspired by his Optical Magic Discs, first showcased in Vienna in 1833. It presents 3 dreams that capture young Simon's visions of future advancements in technology and art, spanning from the 19th century to the present day.

Austria 2024 Dir: Thomas Renoldner 11’50

LRB Screen returns to the Garden Cinema for the final event of its 2024 series, in partnership with MUBI, exploring the art of literary adaptation

Shirley is a striking recent example of that strange and unsettling hybrid form, the largely fictionalised feature about a real person. But the atmosphere that the film conjures around its protagonist, the American horror and mystery writer Shirley Jackson (Elisabeth Moss), is entirely in keeping with her life and work. Renowned for novels and stories that are both highly literary and landmarks of genre fiction, many of which have been ‘rediscovered’ and reissued in recent years, Jackson was a singular character who had to negotiate a complex family life and numerous health problems alongside her successful and controversial career as a writer.

Shirley, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Susan Scarf Merrell, examines the period around the writing of Jackson’s second novel, Hangsaman. Provoking complex responses on its release, the film ‘is far from a traditional biopic, instead playing on the horror tropes of Jackson’s own work to lure viewers inside the author’s brilliant but troubled mind’ (Harper’s Bazaar).

Responding to the film’s portrayal of Shirley Jackson and its treatment of her life and writings will be the great American novelist Joyce Carol Oates, who edited the Library of America edition of Jackson’s novels and stories. She’ll be joining by video link after the screening for a conversation and Q&A that will also refer to adaptations of her own novels. The evening will be introduced and hosted, as ever, by Gareth Evans.

This film was proposed by our member Yueqi Guo, who writes: 'Want to watch a film season of director Lucrecia Martel’s work.'

This Argentinean tale, which revolves around a group of families passing summer vacation in a rural country house, does not rely on a concrete plot line, but rather roves, rambles, and stumbles upon each new event. No event, no action, no exchange of words, no scene of the movie is more or less important than another. Instead, the film continues nonsequentially in what feels like a prolonged wait.

Please note, the screening on Tuesday 8 October is our Free Members' Screening, and the screening on Wednesday 16 October is a general public screening.

Gillian Armstrong's heartfelt adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's classic novel about love, family and the female spirit, stars Winona Ryder, Kirsten Dunst, Christian Bale, Claire Danes, and Susan Sarandon.

With her husband off at war, Marmee (Sarandon) is left alone to raise their four daughters, her Little Women. There is the spirited Jo (Ryder); conservative Meg (Trini Alvarado); fragile Beth (Danes); and romantic Amy (played at different ages by Kristen Dunst and Samantha Mathis). As the years pass, the sisters share some of the most cherished and painful memories of self-discovery, as Marmee and Aunt March (Mary Wickes) guide them through issues of independence, romance and virtue.

On Sunday mornings our Family Screenings are followed by a free activity for Children.

The screening is Pay What You Can, which means you’re free to pay as much or as little as you can afford. By paying for a ticket, you will enable us to keep offering Pay What You Can screenings to families struggling with the cost of living. Thank you  

London Breeze Film Festival 2024 is delighted to be bringing two screenings of this summer's British animation feature film, Kensuke's Kingdom, to The Garden Cinema as part of our Impact Day and Youth & Family Day programmes within our 5-day festival (23rd to 27th October) at venues around London.

Both screenings are pay-what-you-can:

On Saturday 26th October, come and meet the film's co-directors and animators, Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry, who will join us for a Q&A following the screening. Have your questions ready! We will especially want to hear from children in the audience.

On Sunday 27th October 11am the screening will be followed by a FREE children's craft activity.

Based on the much-loved, best-selling children’s novel by Michael Morpurgo, and adapted for screen by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Kensuke's Kingdom tells the epic adventure of Michael, a young boy, shipwrecked on a remote island, who must adapt to life alone. Over time, he feels another presence, learning that this world is home to both unimaginable danger and beauty, in this gripping animated adaptation of a beloved novel. Kensuke's Kingdom features the voices of Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy, Oscar-nominated Sally Hawkins, Ken Watanabe, Raffey Cassidy, and Aaron MacGregor.

Film Africa presents Mambar Pierrette, the narrative feature debut by established Cameroonian documentarian Rosine Mbakam (Delphine's Prayers). Previously screened at TIFF, this moving portrait of fortitude and care centres on a valiant seamstress and single mother in Cameroon.

The city of Douala, Cameroon is getting ready for the start of the school year. A long line of customers come to Pierrette to prepare their clothes for upcoming social events and ceremonies. More than a seamstress, she is the confidant of her customers and community. But when it starts pouring and the rain threatens to flood her workshop - one of many misfortunes - Pierrette will have to struggle to stay afloat. Marked by moments of beauty and quiet grace, Mbakam’s naturalistic approach favors a portrait of resilience in the face of adversity and socioeconomic hardship.

It’s 1930s London and everyone’s favourite nanny has returned - Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) is ready to spread joy and magic in the much-anticipated sequel to the 1964 classic. This time, she finds that the Banks children have grown up and found themselves in need of a friendly face - as well as a little bit of magic. A Disney musical and sequel starring Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Ben Wishaw, along with Dick Van Dyke, Emily Mortimer, Colin Firth, and Meryl Streep.

On Sunday mornings our Family Screenings are followed by a free activity for Children.

The screening is Pay What You Can, which means you’re free to pay as much or as little as you can afford. By paying for a ticket, you will enable us to keep offering Pay What You Can screenings to families struggling with the cost of living. Thank you

Are you the person in your friend group who everyone asks for film recommendations once the end of October approaches? Do you know your Craven from your Carpenter, and your Kreuger from your Karloff?

These skills you've been honing may well save you from eternal damnation, because on Thursday 24 October we're hosting our diabolical Members' Halloween Film Quiz! Join us for an evening of horror themed trivia questions, picture rounds and much more. There will be (cursed) prizes up for grabs for the top 3 teams including:

• Spell candles for Friendship, donated by our friends at The Atlantis Bookshop, who are family-run, celebrating 100 years, and the living history of magic. They're London's oldest independent occult bookshop, on Museum Street - just a few minutes walk from the cinema
• A selection of blood-curdling books (of the dead), donated by our friends/fiends at Fopp Covent Garden, the best shop in Seven Dials for music, films & books at low prices
• Free cinema tickets to be claimed for any spooky (or mundane) film of your choice

There will also be a (questionable) bonus for the best team name, and a special (poisoned) drink for anyone in costume.

We have space for 9 teams of max. 5 contestants each. Tickets are £5, and are restricted to 1 per member, so please make sure to be logged in and book quickly once ticket sales open on Friday 4 October at 13:00.

Important info before booking:

If you would like to be placed on a team with friends (who must also be members of the cinema), you can either:

• Purchase your tickets individually, and leave their names during the checkout process, so we can place you on the same team
• Purchase tickets for the entire team, and assign each ticket to the individual team members (you will need to know the full name or email address their membership is registered under, to do this)

Please note that any teams of 3 contestants or less may be merged together to allow as many members as possible to join.

If you're joining by yourself, you will be placed on a Garden Cinema All Stars team - a great opportunity to meet fellow members which, as proven by previous editions, greatly improves your chances of winning the quiz!

The screening on Saturday the 2nd of November will include a welcome by season programmer Alice Pember and an introduction to the film by film journalist Christina Newland.

A darkly subversive gangster film and an unsung masterpiece of American cinema, in Mikey and Nicky Elaine May brings audiences a career-best performance from writer-director John Cassavetes and one of the most devastating insights into American masculinity ever brought to the big screen. Set over the course of one night, this restless drama finds Nicky (Cassavetes) holed up in a hotel after the boss he stole money from puts a hit out on him. Terrified, he calls on Mikey (Peter Falk), the one person he thinks can save him. The product of a notoriously troubled production and rarely screened in the UK, we are pleased to bring May’s definitive final cut to Garden Cinema audiences this Autumn.

Timings:

20:30  Season welcome (Alice Pember)

20:35  Film introduction (Christina Newland)

20:45  Screening

22:45  Expected finish

Dr Alice Pember is an Assistant Professor in Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick. Her research interests include independent cinema, feminist film philosophy and dance and pop music on screen. Her research has appeared in Modern and Contemporary France, French Screen Studies and Film-Philosophy journals. She teaches across areas related to independent French, British and American cinema, film philosophy and queer and women's cinema. Her monograph The Dancing Girl in Contemporary Cinema will be published next year with Edinburgh University Press.

Christina Newland is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster on film and culture, with bylines at Criterion, BBC, Rolling Stone, MUBI, and others. She is the lead film critic at the i Newspaper and a contributing editor to Empire Magazine. Her newsletter, Sisters Under the Mink, on depictions of women in crime film and television, won a Freelance Writing Award in 2021, and her first book, an edited anthology called She Found It at the Movies: Women Writers on Sex, Desire and Cinema, was published in March 2020.

For Halloween, the smaller beings in our audience can enjoy a gently monstrous classic of their own, with pay-what-you-can screenings of Monsters, Inc.

James Sullivan 'Sulley' and Mike Wazowski are monsters. They earn their living scaring children and are the best in the business… even though they’re more afraid of the children than they are of them. But when Sulley accidentally lets a little human girl into Monstropolis, life turns upside down and she teaches Sulley and Mike that laughter is more powerful than a scream.

On Sunday mornings our Family Screenings are followed by a free activity for Children.

The screening is Pay What You Can, which means you’re free to pay as much or as little as you can afford. By paying for a ticket, you will enable us to keep offering Pay What You Can screenings to families struggling with the cost of living. Thank you

On Saturday 21 September, there will be a special members' screening of My Favourite Cake, with delicious Persian cake by Naroon. You can book tickets for this here.

Since her husband’s death and her daughter’s departure for Europe, Mahin has been living alone in Tehran, until an afternoon tea with friends leads her to break her solitary routine and revitalise her love life. But as Mahin opens herself up to new romance, what begins as an unexpected encounter quickly evolves into an unpredictable, unforgettable evening.

The Garden Cinema View:

Mahin’s daily routines would seem listless even for Jeanne Dielman (for at least she had potatoes to peel). But when, inspired by her friends, she decides to leave her cocoon of isolated non-existence, she embarks on a gently humorous and surprisingly righteous search for companionship. Eventually encountering taxi driver Faramarz (like a depressed version of Perfect Days’ Kōji Yakusho), My Favourite Cake settles into a kind of septuagenarian spin on Before Sunrise. And it’s wonderful. That is until the filmmakers make a highly controversial narrative choice in the film’s final act. Sure to be a controversial decision, for this viewer a potential modern masterpiece is severely undermined by its ending.

The 28th Made in Prague Festival presents the UK premiere of Adam Martinec’s ‘A Rowdily Tragicomic Ode to Family Feuds and Disappearing Traditions‘ , inspired by Miloš Forman’s films and Bohumil Hrabal’s poetics. The film received the Jury’s Special Mention at the 2024 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

The women cry over onions in the kitchen, united in exasperation with their men, the men, led by recent widower Karel, drink plum brandy outside getting ready for a pig killing. This is an annual gathering when family comes together to reconnect and enjoy great food. But this year family tensions are high and things do not go according to plan. Karel’s daughter Romana misses her mother, her sister’s marriage is on the rocks, grandpa doesn’t want to do any more pig killings while the butcher hides the fact that the ammunition is damp and a nosy neighbour plans to report the illegal slaughter. Amidst the chaos, six-year-old Dusik goes missing. Inspired by Milos Forman’s film and Bohumil Hrabal’s poetics, the director unveils the Czech temperament, creating a poignant  comedy full of slapstic moments, searing humour and great empathy amidst gender and generational divides. With strong visuals, an atmospheric soundtrack, and a fantastic array of non-actors, this remarkable debut blends the tragic and comic undertones.

'A Rowdily Tragicomic Ode to Family Feuds and Disappearing Traditions' -Variety

 'Debuting filmmaker Adam Martinec delivers a probe into Czech identity and generational conflict set against the fading tradition of domestic pig slaughter''- Cineuropa

London Palestine Film Festival 2024 presents Real Visions (shorts session). This selection of non-fiction shorts play cross images, dreams, realities and memories. What proof do images reveal? How do visible truths affect our understanding of actualities, and our future existence?

The Bride and The Dowry

1979, Ibrahim Abu Nab, 26’

This rich historical documentary from Palestinian filmmaker, Ibrahim Abu Nab (1931 - 1991), narrates the aftereffects of the 1967 War on the people of the West Bank. From powerful testimonials from lawyers, academics and victims of displacement, to the chronicling of the story of a Palestinian leader targeted as he demands justice for his people, we understand the impact of Israeli occupation on Palestinian life, and the consequences of attempting to defy it. Environmental degradation, land seizures, and resource control are used as tools of oppression. Central to the narrative is the metaphor of a bride and dowry, used by an Israeli human rights lawyer to describe the cruel tactics employed to force Palestinians into submission. The film emphasizes the ongoing resilience of the Palestinian people, despite these relentless pressures.

Trigger warning: harrowing testimonials of torture and other violence

Nazareth

2021, Mike Halboom, 7’

A single photo from 1948: A return to the fateful year of 1948 in Israel, reframed by a single photograph that is taken up one face at a time. Four figures on a hillside bear witness to the revolutionary society, the new state, the new law. Like too many moments of catastrophe it is filled with invisibility charms and ghost relations. How to speak of what can’t be put into words, how to show what cannot be seen?

Tuesday by the Sea

Palestine/USA, 2019, Shourideh C. Molvi, 7’

The border demarcates the inside and outside. Conceptually two-dimensional and two-sided, but without a clear beginning and end, the border creates a length and not a width. This short film, with no dialogue, cuts between two locations, allowing us to see the very real distinctions of two places on a single day. This screening is dedicated to co-founder of Ain Media Gaza, Roshdi al-Sarraj, our loved friend and collaborator on the film, who was tragically martyred on 22 October 2023 when an Israeli airstrike hit his home in Tel al Hawa during breakfast with his family.

Gaza Atelier

Palestine, 2023, Montaser Alsabe, 11’

Ahlam, a young Palestinian fashion designer plans to open her own atelier in Gaza city. With the opening date approaching, things take a different path than what she is planning. But with a name like Ahlam, meaning dreams in Arabic, her ambitions won’t fade.

The Poem we Sang

Canada/Palestine, 2024, Annie Sakkab, 20’

This dream-like documentary meditates on love and longing: the love of one’s family and the longing for one’s home. Photojournalist Annie Sakkab strings together found footage, images, poems and memories to contemplate how to overcome the trauma of losing a family home and forced migration. Through this nostalgic journey, Sakkab transforms lifelong regrets into a healing journey of creative catharsis and bearing witness.

Man Number 4

UK, 2024, Miranda Pennell, 10'

Gaza, December 2023: a photograph shows men in a berm, soldiers in mid-distance and ghostly apartment blocks. A confrontation with this disturbing photograph on social media triggers questions about what it means to be an onlooker.

After getting a green card in exchange for assassinating a Cuban government official, Tony Montana stakes a claim on the drug trade in Miami. Viciously murdering anyone who stands in his way, Tony eventually becomes the biggest drug lord in the state, controlling nearly all the cocaine that comes through Miami. But increased pressure from the police, wars with Colombian drug cartels and his own drug-fueled paranoia serve to fuel the flames of his eventual downfall.

Frank (Al Pacino in an Oscar winning performance) is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the US army. He's blind and impossible to get along with. Charlie is at school and is looking forward to going to college. To help pay for a trip home for Christmas, he agrees to look after Frank over Thanksgiving. Frank's niece says this will be easy money, but she didn't reckon on Frank spending his Thanksgiving in New York.

Discover the stunning restoration of a New Hollywood classic from director Sidney Lumet – the true story about a cop who blew the whistle on rampant corruption in the police force. In New York in 1971, an honest policeman, Serpico (Al Pacino in a ferocious and career changing performance), investigates corruption among his fellow workers. In the course of his inquiries, he becomes increasingly isolated but more convinced of their guilt until finally he decides to reveal all to the New York Times.

The screening on Sunday 8 December will be introduced by writer, editor and founder of Girlhood Studies Claire Marie Healy, who will also join us for an informal post-film discussion in The Garden Cinema Bar.

This digital restoration of Joyce Chopra’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning film features a breakout performance from Laura Dern as Connie, the fifteen-year-old familial black sheep whose summertime idyll of beach trips, mall hangouts and innocent flirtations is shattered by an encounter with a mysterious stranger. Adapted from a short story by Joyce Carol Oates, Chopra fills the gaps of Oates’ sparse story with a dream-like visual palette that evokes Connie’s increasingly nightmarish passage from girl to woman.

Timings:

15:00  Introduction (Claire Marie Healy)

15:15  Screening

16:50  Comfort break

17:00  Discussion (Garden Bar)

18:00  Expected finish

Claire Marie Healy’s writing and curated projects explore film, art, fashion, and the internet. Formerly the editor of Dazed, she has since edited books on roller discos, dancefloors and SFX makeup for places like IDEA and A24. Her ongoing research project, Girlhood Studies, explores how visual culture shapes the experiences of young women, and has encompassed a column, film screenings and an essay-book with the Tate.

The origins of Donald Trump are brought to life in a provocative, electrifying portrait of the man and his mentor, Roy Cohn - a notorious lawyer who will never let the truth get in the way of winning a fight. Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong star as Trump and Cohn respectively, with Maria Bakalova starring as Ivana Trump and acclaimed director Ali Abbasi bringing a unique perspective to this gripping, darkly funny tale of greed, power, and the dark art of the deal.

The Garden Cinema View:

In a surprising thematic turn, Ali Abbasi (Holy Spider, Border) takes on a Trump biopic, with very satisfying results. The Apprentice is a consistently entertaining portrait that - remarkably - humanises Trump without absolving him of any his sins or narcissism.

Sebastian Stan's incredible performance plays a crucial role in maintaining this difficult balance. Astonishingly, Stan manages to transcend Trump's cartoonish facade and reach a kind of authenticity whilst still displaying early behavioural and physical traits of the man we now know.

The film reaches its zenith in its early stages, exploring a young Trump's formative relationships. These include his ruthless mentor, Roy Cohn (portrayed with method-acting bravado by Jeremy Strong), his tyrannical mogul father, and his first wife, Ivana (played with humorous empathy by Borat 2's, Maria Bakalova). The depiction of present-day Trump feels slightly less engaging, perhaps given how extensively he has been studied and satirised in recent years.

The film's stance is that Roy Cohn played a pivotal role in molding him into the figure we know today, emphasising nurture over nature in this monstrous formation. Viewers may disagree with this perspective, but Abbasi presents it with clarity and conviction.

Based on the first of the classic series of novels by CS Lewis, this fantasy adventure film follows four siblings: Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. Evacuated to the countryside during World War Two, the children find a way into another world - through the back of an old wardrobe. Entering the strange world of Narnia, the children discover a land in thrall to the White Witch (Tilda Swinton), where it's winter all year round, but never Christmas, and where magical creatures live in fear of her cruelty. In order to break her wintry spell, the brothers and sisters must join forces with Aslan the Lion, and fulfil their destinies. This wonderful film brings the magic, myths and sheer excitement of CS Lewis' story to life.

On Sunday mornings our Family Screenings are followed by a free activity for Children.

The screening is Pay What You Can, which means you’re free to pay as much or as little as you can afford. By paying for a ticket, you will enable us to keep offering Pay What You Can screenings to families struggling with the cost of living. Thank you

Aspiring Florida defense lawyer Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves) accepts a high-powered position at a New York law firm headed by legal shark John Milton (Al Pacino). As Kevin moves up in the firm's ranks, his wife, Mary Ann (Charlize Theron), has several frightening, mystical experiences that begin to warp her sense of reality. With the stakes getting higher with each case, Kevin quickly learns that his mentor is planning a far greater evil than simply winning without scruples.

If you're interested in attending the collage making workshop for members as well as the screening, please book your ticket here instead.

In The Fabulous Baron Munchausen, Karel Zeman conjures the adventures of the legendary, boastful baron, whose whirlwind exploits take him from the moon to eighteenth-century Turkey to the belly of a whale and beyond. A kaleidoscopic marvel that blends live action with techniques including stop-motion, cutout collage, puppetry, painted backdrops, and antique tinting, Zeman’s film is an exhilarating visual delight and a warmhearted whirl through a bygone age too entrancing to have existed.

Join the Fashion Film Club for a special screening of Gold Diggers of 1933, chosen by Holly Waddington, Academy Award Winner for Best Costume Design (Poor Things). The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Holly and FFC founder Sarah Bailey about costume design, desire and fantasy.

A Broadway producer has the talent, the tunes, the theatre and everything else he needs to put on a show – except the dough. Not to worry, say Ginger Rogers and the other leggy chorines decked out in giant coins. Everyone will soon be singing We're in the Money. Soon after 42nd Street, the brothers Warner again kicked the Depression blues out the stage door and into a back alley. Mervyn Le Roy directs the snappy non-musical portions involving three wonderfully silly love matches (including Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler). And Busby Berkeley brings his peerless magic to the production numbers, his camera swooping and gliding to showstoppers that are naughty (Pettin' in the Park), neon-lit (The Shadow Waltz) and soul-searing (Remember My Forgotten Man). Solid cinema gold! - Warner Bros

The third of a Gold Diggers "franchise", the film tells the story of show girls trying to make a living during the Great Depression, which the film references openly. The Gold Diggers of 1933 is often cited as one of the great classics of pre-Code Hollywood.

Beautifully crafted and acted, Frank Capra's festive favourite is considered one of the most charming Christmas films of all time. George Bailey (James Stewart) has spent his life supporting the community of Bedford Falls. Overwhelmed with professional and personal problems, he finds his previously happy life falling apart on Christmas Eve. Struggling to see a way out, George is visited by his guardian angel and shown what life would be like if he'd never been born.

All proceeds from this screening will be donated to The Food Chain

The Food Chain exists to ensure people living with HIV in London can access the nutrition they need to get well, stay well and lead healthy, independent lives. People living with HIV often struggle to access the food they need to stay well because of ill health, poverty, isolation and a lack of motivation to eat well, or limited skills or knowledge. We deliver meals and groceries, offer cookery and nutrition classes and communal eating opportunities to people living with HIV in London and their dependents.

Every Christmas Day we run a group lunch for around 60 of our most isolated Service Users, folk who would otherwise be spending the day alone. It's a very joyful day full of food and games and merriment, and after the festivities are done we send everyone home with a card, present and some bags of groceries.

With no public funding for our services, we rely on trust and grant-giving foundations, community fundraising events and the generosity of individual donors. Your support will make our Christmas possible! Thank you.

"Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the Excellent Special Christmas - from the fantastic environment as usual, the support, the xmas quiz, the exceptionally special food and drinks, the happiness, laughter and fun, you name it, all were fabulous & brilliant. Indeed whenever I attend Food Chain, l always feel so well connected to my peers too and also receive well tailored help and support which continues to give me HOPE for the future." - Food Chain Christmas guest, 2022.

The first instalment of what would become Francis Ford Coppola’s epic trilogy chronicling the vicissitudes of the Corleone clan sees patriarch Don Vito navigating an expansion into narcotics and the unexpected ascent of his youngest son Michael. From an inter-family war that erupts on the streets of New York and an attempt to edge in on the lucrative entertainment world of Las Vegas to life in a Sicilian pastoral idyl, the machinations of a complex and far-reaching crime syndicate are never far away in this exemplary mob drama.

The screening on 14 December will be introduced by film historian and Coppola expert Jon Lewis, author of the BFI Film Classics on The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II.

Sequels had not yet become the Hollywood norm when Francis Ford Coppola signed up for a continuation to his hugely successful 1972 adaptation of Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather, but this second film set a high standard for follow-ups in the way that it enriches and deepens the Corleone family narrative.

Ranging over multiple locations, Coppola’s film ambitiously intertwines two time periods: the story of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) becoming increasingly consumed and isolated by his new power as head of the family, and flashbacks to his father Vito Corleone’s (Robert De Niro) arrival as an immigrant in New York, and his gradual ascent to power.

The project’s ambition did not go unrecognised: like the first film, it won best picture at the 1974 Academy Awards.

The 28th Made in Prague Festival in collaboration with Second Run presents a special screening celebrating the UK Blu-ray release of The Hop-Picker, the very first Czechoslovak film musical.

The Hop-Pickers was an instant sensation upon its release and continues to charm generations of Czech audiences. With its vibrant portrayal of youthful rebellion, blossoming romance, lively production numbers, and irresistibly catchy songs, it has endured as a beloved classic. Channeling the energy of the swinging ’60s with a distinctly Czech twist, The Hop-Pickers boldly blends music, dance, and New Wave realism, offering a fresh take on societal norms and a playful exploration of sexual freedom.  

After seeking the expertise of former Big Tobacco executive Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), seasoned TV producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) suspects a story lies behind Wigand's reluctance to speak. As Bergman persuades Wigand to share his knowledge of industry secrets, the two must contend with the courts and the corporations that stand between them and exposing the truth. All the while, Wigand must struggle to maintain his family life amidst lawsuits and death threats.

In the irreverent spirit of fun that made The Lego Movie a worldwide phenomenon, the self-described leading man of that ensemble—Lego Batman—stars in his own big-screen adventure. But there are big changes brewing in Gotham, and if he wants to save the city from The Joker’s hostile takeover, Batman may have to drop the lone vigilante thing, try to work with others and maybe, just maybe, learn to lighten up.

On Sunday mornings our Family Screenings are followed by a free activity for Children.

The screening is Pay What You Can, which means you’re free to pay as much or as little as you can afford. By paying for a ticket, you will enable us to keep offering Pay What You Can screenings to families struggling with the cost of living. Thank you  

Rona, fresh out of rehab, returns to the wild Orkney Islands after more than a decade away. As she reconnects with the dramatic landscape where she grew up, memories of her childhood merge with the more recent challenging events that have set her on the path to recovery.

The Garden Cinema View:

Many acclaimed films (The Lost Weekend, Leaving Las Vegas) have explored the detrimental effects of addiction and the success or failure of rehabilitation. What sets The Outrun apart is how truthfully and diligently it presents the relentless, everyday challenge of staying sober without the numbing effects of other substances to ease the pain. Can an ex-addict ever be happy? The film relentlessly explores this question, depicting a mind shaped by years of alcoholism. This journey is the emotional core of the film, brought to life through Saoirse Ronan's most powerful performance to date. The wildly beautiful Orkney Islands provide a stunning backdrop that mirrors the protagonist's internal life.

The Outrun is not flawless, (there are some on-the-nose scenes and a few nature metaphors that don't quite work), yet this doesn't take away from the overall powerful impact. Although The Outrun shares several elements with Nora Fingscheidt's previous works such as System Crasher (2019), it provides an in-depth exploration of its themes that elevates above these earlier films.

Our screening on Saturday 28 September will be introduced by Mark Searby, the author of Al Pacino: The Movies Behind The Man.

Our Screening on Monday 21 October will be introduced by freelance film programmer Nathasha Orlando Kappler.

Bobby (Al Pacino) is a heroin addict who lives in 'Needle Park', the nickname for an area on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where junkies congregate. He meets Helen (Kitty Winn), a lonely homeless girl, and they fall in love. However, Bobby also introduces Helen to heroin, and she eventually becomes addicted, too. As Bobby and Helen become more and more dependent on each other and on heroin, their need for money to feed their habit grows, resulting in crime, desperation and betrayal

London Palestine Film Festival 2024 presents The Roller, The Life, The Fight + virtual screen talk.

 Hazem arrives in Belgium after a painful journey from Gaza. At the same time, Elettra arrives in Brussels to study documentary film. Their first moments together reveal a triggering desire to know each other , the camera becomes the tool they share for understanding. Through the images of their lives, we are plunged into the meeting of two worlds. The displacements they endure strengthen their wish to resist a divided society; the act of recording is a commitment to justice. Being confronted to the rigidity of Hazem’s asylum procedure, they embark on an exile, an inner migration to reach a place where gazes are softer and more just.

This screening will be followed by a virtual screen talk with directors, Elettra Bisogno and Hazem Alqaddi.

It has been years since long-time friends Ingrid, a best-selling novelist, and Martha, a war journalist, have seen each other. Upon learning of Martha’s cancer diagnosis, Ingrid rushes to her side and they rekindle their bond. With each shared memory, including Martha’s recollections of war and of her fractured relationship with her daughter, their connection grows. And a deeply personal request from Martha will bound the two women forever.

Demi Moore gives a career-best performance as Elisabeth Sparkle, a former A-lister past her prime and suddenly fired from her fitness TV show by repellent studio head Harvey (Dennis Quaid).

She is then drawn to the opportunity presented by a mysterious new drug: The Substance. All it takes is one injection and she is reborn - temporarily - as the gorgeous, twentysomething Sue (Margaret Qualley).

The only rule? Time needs to be split: exactly one week in one body, then one week in the other. No exceptions. A perfect balance. What could go wrong

The Garden Cinema View:

Finally following up her superb Revenge, Coralie Fargeat delivers a squishy, body-horror-Hollywood- satire; a broad critique of our/the media’s obsession with female beauty, and the disposability of middle aged performers. The Substance stretches its skin over a dense frame of cinematic references, and there is a degree of pleasure in spotting all the nods to Kubrick, Hitchcock, Sunset Boulevard, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, and many more. Admittedly, this reaches a point of oversaturation, and a couple of famous music cues feel awkwardly on the nose. The Substance is perversely enjoyable (the hefty running time flies by), but it doesn’t match the depth of Cronenberg’s best body-horrors, the genuine unease of Lynch’s Hollywood nightmares, or the sense of actual transgression of Julia Ducournau’s Titane.    

On Saturday 12 October, we're organising a special fundraiser screening of The Teacher. You can find more details about this here.

A Palestinian school teacher (Saleh Bakri) struggles to reconcile his life-threatening commitment to political resistance with his emotional support for one of his students (Muhammad Abed El Rahman) and the chance of a new romantic relationship with a volunteer worker (Imogen Poots).

The Garden Cinema View:

The Teacher is released in the UK the very same week that a school in the West Bank is besieged by the Israeli army, its Palestinian pupils unable to go home. The film charts the countless ways in which the occupation has dehumanised Palestinians, and the generational traumatic toll it takes. Nabulsi skillfully portrays its impact on the average Palestinian through a rousing narrative, with just enough context and references to real life events to reach and emotionally connect with a wide audience.

The indignity and all-encompassing violence of the occupation permeates every aspect of life, the strain on Bassem’s marriage just one illustration of its domestic micropolitical costs. This is only Nabulsi’s second foray into filmmaking, following BAFTA award-winning short The Present, which in the same vein depicts the way in which Israeli checkpoints and settlements have turned the most routine, menial task - buying a new fridge - into a Herculean and perilous feat. Once again reprising his role as a beaten down dad, Saleh Bakri is as ever eminently watchable.

As part of Trailblazers, we're thrilled to present a landmark double bill featuring two films from 1976 that document women’s contributions to the labour movement. There will be a comfort break between the two screenings.

The screening on Saturday 9 November will be briefly introduced by season programmer Alice Pember and followed by an informal post-film discussion in The Garden Bar, where we will be joined by film critic Christina Newland.

Union Maids (1976, 59m)

Painting a collective portrait of labour organizers that were active in Chicago in the 1930s, Union Maids offers an important and compelling insight into the lives of three women at the forefront of the labour movement in the US. Celebrated upon release, the film’s assemblage of old and new documentary footage, still images and talking head interviews attests to the tenacity (and efficacy) of working-class women in the fight for class equality, offering an optimistic view that was no doubt as invigorating for viewers at the time of its release as it is today.

Harlan County, USA (1976, 103m)

Winning the 1976 Academy Award for ‘Best Documentary Feature’, Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County, USA offers a comparatively present-tense view of the frontline of the then-recent ‘Brookside Strike’, a series of actions taken against the Duke Power Company by miners and their wives in Harlan County, Kentucky in 1973. A product of four years of preparation, filming and editing (during which Kopple lived alongside her subjects in Harlan) the film captures key developments in the strike with an immediacy that attests to her rapport with her subjects. As well as being an important document of working-class solidarity and the intersection of class and gendered liberation, the film also raises important questions about documentary ethics and documentary filmmaking making as feminist praxis.

Saturday 9 November Event Timings

16:00  Welcome (Alice Pember)

16:05  Programme start  

19:15  Discussion (Garden Bar)

20:00  Expected finish

Dr Alice Pember is an Assistant Professor in Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick. Her research interests include independent cinema, feminist film philosophy and dance and pop music on screen. Her research has appeared in Modern and Contemporary France, French Screen Studies and Film-Philosophy journals. She teaches across areas related to independent French, British and American cinema, film philosophy and queer and women's cinema. Her monograph The Dancing Girl in Contemporary Cinema will be published next year with Edinburgh University Press.

Christina Newland is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster on film and culture, with bylines at Criterion, BBC, Rolling Stone, MUBI, and others. She is the lead film critic at the i Newspaper and a contributing editor to Empire Magazine. Her newsletter, Sisters Under the Mink, on depictions of women in crime film and television, won a Freelance Writing Award in 2021, and her first book, an edited anthology called She Found It at the Movies: Women Writers on Sex, Desire and Cinema, was published in March 2020.

Join Video Bazaar on Halloween for a night of occult imagery and esoterica with a rare screening of the 1922 silent horror masterpiece Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, accompanied by a special live score from Leeds psych-rock quintet, Self Immolation Music.

Released in 1922, Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages is a silent documentary-style horror film by Danish director Benjamin Christensen. Blurring the lines between history, myth, and the macabre, Häxan is an ambitious exploration of witchcraft, demonology, and the persecution of witches throughout the centuries. With its surreal blend of historical reenactments, animation, and early special effects, the film dives deep into medieval superstitions and religious hysteria surrounding witches.

Häxan is divided into seven parts, each illustrating various aspects of witchcraft and the occult, from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and beyond. The film provocatively combines real historical research with nightmarish dramatisations of demonic rituals, witch hunts, and torture. Christensen himself appears as Satan in some of the film’s most striking sequences, tempting women to forsake their faith for dark powers.

Orchestrating the sound of this demonic iconography will be Leeds’ Self Immolation Music, who run the gauntlet of dreamlike pulsing basslines, nightmarish synthscapes, and acid soaked guitar licks, all filtered through a punk lens. After years of experimenting with a completely new sound palette, they emerged with a cohesive and unique take on psychedelia. There are nods to the quintessential psychedelic bands that inspired them (Spacemen 3, Hawkwind, The 13th Floor Elevators) but we get something raw and heavier than you might expect.

This screening is presented by the cult film collective, Video Bazaar, who are proud to present this rarely screened film and are dedicated to bringing the weird, the obscure and forgotten classics to London audiences at The Garden Cinema.

Video Bazaar presents a special anniversary screening of Threads, the harrowing 1984 made-for-TV drama that left audiences across the nation stunned into silence.

Screening at The Garden Cinema 40 years after it was originally broadcast on the BBC, this landmark of British television, directed by Mick Jackson and written by Barry Hines, remains one of the most chilling and realistic depictions of nuclear war ever committed to the screen.

Set in the industrial city of Sheffield, Threads follows the lives of ordinary people as the unthinkable unfolds - a nuclear conflict that shatters society and plunges survivors into a nightmarish struggle for post-fallout existence. With its documentary-style approach, the film explores the horrifying consequences of nuclear war in gruesome detail, making it just as relevant today as it was four decades ago.

Commissioned by the BBC in response to growing public anxiety about nuclear war during the Cold War, Threads was first broadcast on 23 September 1984. This anniversary screening offers a chance to transport yourself back to that same evening, to the living rooms of British families during the heightened tensions of the 1980s, when the looming threat of nuclear conflict felt all too real.

This screening will also feature a pre-recorded video introduction by Bob Mielke, Professor of English at Truman State University and author of the 2023 book Threads, which 'examines the film through the lens of history, pop culture, and horror. Mielke’s impeccable research, sharp analysis, life experience, and gallows humor bring new insight into what makes this film so disturbing - and disturbingly enduring.'

This screening is presented by the cult film collective Video Bazaar, this event showcases rarely screened films and is dedicated to bringing the weird and obscure to London audiences at The Garden Cinema. .

Join Video Bazaar and The Nickel this Halloween for a rare screening of Tony Williams’ Next of Kin. An unsettling piece of Australian horror, this eerie 1982 gem blends gothic suspense with psychological terror, making it perfect viewing for this Halloween season. Please note that this event will feature an introduction and a Halloween mystery video show carefully curated by your hosts.

Set in a decaying, isolated mansion, Next of Kin follows Linda, a young woman who inherits her family's aged rest home, only to discover a series of strange and terrifying events. As paranoia mounts and the past refuses to stay buried, the line between reality and nightmare blurs in this atmospheric slow-burn that builds to a shocking climax.

Often overlooked in the horror canon, Next of Kin has earned a cult following for its eerie slow-burn tension, gothic stylings and a haunting synth heavy score by Klaus Schulze of Tangerine Dream. The suffocating, creeping terror draws you in, leaving you questioning what’s real until the very end.

This screening is presented by The Nickel Cinema and cult film collective Video Bazaar, who exhibit rarely screened films and are dedicated to bringing the weird and obscure to London audiences.

From first periods to life after menopause, the Women Over 50 Film Festival's got you covered. Join WOFFF and friends for an evening of education, insights and laughter with animations, dramas, documentaries and comedies from Britain,Trinidad and Tobago and Canada all focused on periods, perimenopause, menopause and beyond.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with older female filmmakers from tonight’s programme.

Emma Lazenby, Alison Ramsey and Sue Bridge will join hosts Dr Deborah Jermyn from the University of Roehampton ('Everything you need to embrace the change': The 'menopausal turn' in contemporary UK culture) and Nuala O’Sullivan, founder and director of the Women Over 50 Film Festival. Together, we’ll reflect on what perimenopause and menopause mean for us all – and particularly for women over 50.

Men and gender non-binary folks very welcome!

Good Girls Don't by Ana de Lara | Canada | Drama | 15min

Cycle of Change by Emma Lazenby | UK | Animation | 5min

Face It - Abbey by Jason Edwards | UK| Drama | 15min        

Menopause: The Movie by Alison Ramsey | UK | Experimental | 12min

Our Menopause by Nicola Zawadi Cross | Trinidad and Tobago, UK | Documentary | 20min

The Last Egg by Sue Bridge | UK | Animation | 5min

The screening on Sunday 1 December will be followed by a panel discussion with writer and programmer Rōgan Graham and film scholar Giulia Rho, which will be chaired by writer and editor Laura Staab.

A revolutionary film movement that emerged from the UCLA Film School in the early 1970s, the so-called ‘L.A. Rebellion’ was a powerful and transformative chapter in the history of American cinema. A significant cultural and artistic response to the turbulent sociopolitical climate of the time, the films challenged prevailing norms of Black representation, forging a new African American cinematic language.

Often remembered for the pioneering work of male directors like Charles Burnett, this programme of shorts brings together short films by three ‘insurgent sisters’ of the LA Rebellion, featuring an early short by Julie Dash (who would go on to make the acclaimed feature Daughters of the Dust). Offering a specifically ‘womanist’ sensibility, Illusions, Cycles and A Different Image resist the images of Black womenhood produced by Hollywood and independent film of the time, reclaiming Black female subjectivity through poetic and playful cinematic reconstructions of time, space and the body.  

Timings:

15:00  Welcome (Alice Pember)

15:10  Shorts Programme

16:55  Comfort break

17:05  Panel discussion

18:00  Expected finish

A Different Image

Alile Sharon Larkin, 1982, USA, 52m.

An poetic portrait of a beautiful young African American attempting to escape her position as object and discover her true heritage. Through a sensitive and humorous story about her relationship with a man, the film makes provocative connections between racism and sexual stereotyping, showcasing the intersectional cinematic language pioneered by women of the LA Rebellion.

Illusions

Julie Dash, 1982, USA, 34m.

Set in Hollywood during WWII, Illusions tells the story of Mignon Duprée, a studio executive passing for white, and Ester Jeeter, an African American singer hired to dub the voice of a white movie star. The film is a gripping critique of the power of the movies to shape perception, exploring the multiple illusions created by Hollywood and the very illusion of racial identity. An early short by Julie Dash (who would go on to make the critically acclaimed Daughters of the Dust), the film conveys Dash’s sincere love of Hollywood cinema whilst presenting a radical, damning critique of the industry's racism.

Cycles

Zeinabu irene Davis, 1989, USA, 17m.

One of the first films made Zeinabu Irene Davis, an award winning director and producer who is still active today, Cycles (1989) is a playful, experimental film which focuses on an woman anxiously awaiting her overdue period. Combining beautifully intimate still and moving images of the woman’s body and home space with playful stop-motion sequences, the film presents a provocative exploration of African American experience as a collective unconscious and offers a rare on-screen engagement with the topic of periods.

Rōgan Graham is a writer and programmer from South London. Working broadly in film exhibition, her areas of interest are works by Women and Black filmmakers. In 2021 she edited the Clio Award winning FYC book for Barry Jenkins' The Underground Railroad. The founder of Divas Do Film, when she isn’t writing reviews, hosting Q&As or appearing on podcasts, she can be found on a soapbox talking about Mariah Carey.

Dr Giulia Rho has recently completed her PhD in Film Studies. Her research covers experimental women filmmakers and queer artists, especially those operating within the New York Avant Garde and LA Rebellion. Her work deals with post-structuralist feminist philosophy as well as theories of queer time and questions of archival memory and justice. Her writing has appeared in Frames Film Journal and Film-Philosophy.

Dr Laura Staab works as an Assistant Editor at MUBI. She holds a doctorate in film studies from King’s College London and writes regularly on art cinema and experimental film for Another Gaze, Notebook, and Sight & Sound.

In this hilarious cult classic, Mel Brooks gives us a surreal parody of the horror staple, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Respected medical lecturer Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) learns that he has inherited his infamous grandfather's estate in Transylvania. Arriving at the castle, Dr. Frankenstein soon begins to recreate his grandfather's experiments with the help of servants Igor (Marty Feldman), Inga (Teri Garr) and the fearsome Frau Blücher (Cloris Leachman). After he creates his own monster (Peter Boyle), new complications ensue with the arrival of the doctor's fiancée, Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn).