Made in 1973, two years after Bangladesh’s independence, A River Called Titas remains a deeply relevant cinematic gem from Ritwik Ghatak, a master filmmaker who was described by Satyajit Ray as, “one of the few truly original talents in Indian cinema.”

Based on the 1956 Bengali classic novel of the same name by Adwaita Mallabarman, renowned Bengali auteur Ritwik Ghatak’s hauntingly beautiful, elegiac saga is set in pre-independence India and follows the tumultuous lives of the Malo fishing community along the banks of the Titas River in pre-Partition East Bengal (Now Bangladesh). Focusing on the tragic intertwining fates of a series of fascinating characters, in particular, the indomitable widow Basanti (Rosy Samad/Afsary), Ghatak tells the poignant story of an entire community’s vanishing way of life and culture.

An early example of hyperlink cinema (featuring multiple protagonists in interwoven narrative threads), A River Called Titas also demonstrates Ghatak’s bold creative vision that slowly but surely spreads out (like the river itself), offering infinite, non-linear perspectives on the characters and the landscape that shapes and determines their individual and collective destinies.

In the above trailer Martin Scorsese (director of The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, which helped to restore the film) discusses the significance of A River Called Titas.

The screening will be preceded by a pre-recorded introduction by guest curator Anupma Shanker.

Anupma Shanker is a British-Indian film curator and archives researcher with a deep and evolving interest in marginalised and minority screen narratives from, of and about the past. Her curatorial practice is focused on bringing to light films and filmmakers that remain overlooked, inaccessible and undiscovered but can offer valuable insight, wisdom and guidance in contextualizing the difficult but urgent discourses about the myths and realities of shared/contested histories, heritage, identities and memories.

Restored in 2010 by Cineteca di Bologna /L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with Ritwik Memorial Trust, the National Film Archive of India, and The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project.

Our Planting Seeds pick for August is A Thousand Fires. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the film's director Saeed Taji Farouky, a Palestinian-British award-winning documentary filmmaker and artist specialising in long-term human rights projects, hosted by Fatima Serghini.

A Thousand Fires is a mesmerising and beautifully shot account of parents working hard in the hand-drilled oil fields of central Myanmar, in order to give their son a better future. But when he quits school to follow his dream of becoming a football player, the family worries that he's throwing his life away. Part poetic meditation, part realistic ethnographic study, the film manages to both explore the specificities of Myanmar's recent history and exploitation of its 'black gold', and the wider philosophical, religious, and cultural ramifications of one family's choices and plight.

The film was nominated for Best Documentary at IDFA and at Cannes' Critics Week and won the Critics' Award at Locarno.

"Mesmerising study of Myanmar’s homemade oil wells" - The Guardian

"[A film] of beguilingly vivid sensory impact" - Screen Daily

"Beguiling, Epic Portrait of a Family in Flux" - The Film Stage

The screening on Sunday 3 August will be preceded by a live harp performance by the wonderful Natalie Lurie, who will be performing some Mozart pieces, including movements from his Harp & Flute concerto, accompanied by flautist Imogen Morrall. Tickets for the performance and screening are £15.50 for members, and £16.50 for non-members.

The first theatrical re-release of eight-time Academy Award winner Amadeus in over 20 years, now digitally restored.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce) is a remarkably talented young Viennese composer who unwittingly finds a fierce rival in the disciplined and determined Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham). Resenting Mozart for both his hedonistic lifestyle and his undeniable talent, the highly religious Salieri is gradually consumed by his jealousy and becomes obsessed with Mozart's downfall, leading to a devious scheme that has dire consequences for both men.

About Natalie Lurie:

Described as a harpist “who really nails experimental pop music" (Paste Magazine), Natalie Lurie is a classically-trained harpist, composer, arranger and session harpist based in London. Natalie began her professional career as a harp fellow with the London Philharmonia and has since established herself as a sought-after freelance harpist. With a versatile background in different genres, she has command of the stage whether at the Royal Festival Hall or The Bluebird in Nashville. Her debut pop harp EP, which she wrote and recorded in Nashville, was premiered by the Huffington Post, and most recently had a song featured on the season finale of Netflix's Grace and Frankie.

Dedicated to music education, Natalie teaches privately and at South Hampstead High School for Girls, Channing, and Dragon School.  In 2018, she was granted a UK Entrepreneur Visa sponsored by the Royal Academy of Music, enabling her to co-found the Hampstead Harp Centre, which offers ensemble coaching, chamber music, and performance opportunities for young harpists.

Website | Instagram

Hanamichi Productions and Select Japan present An Actor’s Revenge: A Kabuki Salon, a multi-disciplinary performance event that celebrates the magnificent artistry and history of Kabuki. This 400-year-old Japanese theatrical tradition is known for its stylised movement, elaborate costumes, and vivid visual storytelling.

The evening begins with a live Tsugaru shamisen performance by Hibiki Ichikawa and a sake reception in the Garden Cinema bar. This is followed by a Kabuki-inspired poetry performance by actor-dancer Suleiman Suleiman, whose original poem offers a lens through which to view Kon Ichikawa’s 1963 masterpiece An Actor’s Revenge.

Drawing on the visual and performative language of Kabuki - particularly the tradition of the onnagata (male actors who portray idealised female roles) - Suleiman will guide the audience into the film’s dreamlike world of disguise, gender illusion, and poetic vengeance.

After the screening, guests are invited to return to the bar for an ambient soundscape by English Garden Lounging and an informal Q&A with the artists.

Guests are warmly encouraged to take inspiration from Kabuki or Bowie in their attire.

About the film:

A uniquely prolific and chameleonic figure of world cinema, Kon Ichikawa delivered a burst of stylistic bravado with this intricate tale of betrayal and retribution. Set in the cloistered world of nineteenth-century kabuki theatre, the film charts a female impersonator’s attempts to avenge the deaths of his parents, who were driven to insanity and suicide by a trio of corrupt men. Ichikawa takes the conventions of melodrama and turns them on their head, bringing the hero’s fractured psyche to life in boldly experimental widescreen compositions infused with kaleidoscopic colour, pop-art influences, and meticulous choreography.

Programme timings:

19:00 - Doors open, sake at the bar, and live shamisen performance by Hibiki Ichikawa

19:30 - Poetic introduction by Suleiman Suleiman

20:00 - An Actor’s Revenge screening

22:00 - DJ set and ambient visuals in the bar, with soundscape by English Garden Lounging

23:00 - Close

Tickets for the event are £18 for members and £20 for non-members, and include a complimentary serving of sake (or non-alcoholic alternative).

This film was proposed by our member Simran Patel who writes: 'I'd love to see India's first queer film on the big screen. It was originally believed lost and only recently rediscovered in an archive.'

This daring and progressive account of a complex love triangle broke all manner of taboos to emerge as India’s first queer film and an icon of Parallel Cinema.

Prem Kapoor’s film skilfully navigates the turbulent conditions under which it was made, subtly incorporating bisexuality in such a way that it bypassed India’s strict cultural censorship. It's the story of the interlocking relationship between truck driver and ex-bandit Sarnam (Nitin Sethi), Bansari (Nandiat Thakur), a beautiful woman Sarnam saved from being raped, and Shivraj (Amar Kakkad), who works in a temple and is later hired by Sarnam.

Adapted from Kamleshwar Prasad Saxena’s 1957 novel, the movie's transgressive approach was a direct reaction to wider political turmoil. It remains an emblem of Parallel Cinema, focusing on then-unconventional representations and relationships with a keen eye.

The film was thought lost for many years but was accidentally rediscovered in 2019 in the archive of Berlin’s Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art.

The screening will feature a pre-recorded introduction by Dr Omar Ahmed: Freelance Film Scholar & International Curator of South Asian Cinema and Founder of The Cloud Door. 

Please note, the screening on Tuesday 29 July is our free members' screening, and booking for this will open on Thursday 24 July at 13:00. The second showing on Tuesday 5 August is a regular screening, which is open to the general public with tickets available now.

Stanley Kubrick bent the conventions of the historical drama to his own will in this dazzling vision of a pitiless aristocracy, adapted from a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray. In picaresque detail, Barry Lyndon chronicles the adventures of an incorrigible trickster (Ryan O’Neal) whose opportunism takes him from an Irish farm to the battlefields of the Seven Years’ War and the parlours of high society.

For the most sumptuously crafted film of his career, Kubrick recreated the decadent surfaces and intricate social codes of the period, evoking the light and texture of eighteenth-century painting with the help of pioneering cinematographic techniques and lavish costume and production design, all of which earned Academy Awards. The result is a masterpiece - a sardonic, devastating portrait of a vanishing world whose opulence conceals the moral vacancy at its heart.

A 10-minute intermission is included in the screening.

This is a special centenary edition of Sergei Eisenstein’s legendary Battleship Potemkin featuring the celebrated Tenant / Lowe score performed by Pet Shop Boys and Dresdner Sinfoniker.

A fixture in the critical canon almost since its premiere, Eisenstein’s film about a 1905 naval mutiny was revolutionary in both form and content. Battleship Potemkin is renowned for its

dynamic compositional strength and editing of such frame perfect precision that it’s hard not to be swept along.

First revealed at a special outdoor screening in front of an estimated 25,000 in Trafalgar Square in 2004, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe’s score, performed with the Dresdner Sinfoniker and orchestrated by Torsten Rasch, blends electronic beats with orchestral grandeur to create a contemporary cinematic experience.

Northern China, 1999. The grisly discovery of several corpses is made in a small town. A bloody incident during the attempt to capture the alleged murderer leaves two police officers dead and another badly injured. The surviving officer Zhang Zili is suspended from duty; he takes a job as a security guard at a factory. Five years later, another series of mysterious murders occurs. Aided by a former colleague, Zhang decides to investigate under his own initiative.

Diao Yinan's Golden Bear winning third feature is a noirish thriller in drained colours which, whilst playfully alluding to the genre, also invites us into the lives of very ordinary people

A hot-shot race-car named Lightning McQueen gets stranded in the rundown town Radiator Springs, where he learns that winning isn't everything in 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.

Our screening of Cecil B. Demented on the 14th of August will feature an introduction by season co-curator Ronja Blight.

An insane action-comedy about a young lunatic director and his devoted cult of cinema terrorists who kidnap a movie goddess and force her to star in their underground movie. Vowing to punish the crass sins of commercial cinema, fueled by revolutionary zeal and their self-imposed sexual frustration, Cecil B. DeMented and his guerrilla production crew invade the streets of Baltimore to shoot their no-budget epic. When Cecil says Action, he means action! Nothing is going to stand in his way.

The screening will feature a digital introduction by curator Tuyết Vân Huỳnh.

Not all battles are fought with fists, some are for the right to choose your future.

In Children of the Mist, we follow 12-year-old Di, a Hmong girl from rural Vietnam, as she faces the deeply ingrained cultural practice of bride kidnapping. This powerful documentary offers a rare, unflinching look at Di’s personal battle for autonomy against a backdrop of tradition, family, and cultural expectation. As the film unfolds, we not only witness the personal struggles of Di, but we also delve into the ethical challenges of documentary filmmaking.

The documentary questions the role of the filmmaker in capturing such sensitive subjects while offering a deeply human portrait of rural life in contemporary Vietnam. It is a poignant exploration of resistance, self-determination, and the complexity of tradition in a rapidly changing world.

The screening will be preceded by Xe Đạp (The Bicycle, 2000), a radical animated short made by an all-women team, showcasing textured, paper-cut aesthetics that defied formal norms of the time.

Presented by Tuyết Vân Huỳnh

With support from Arts Council England, the British Council Connections Through Culture programme, and the BFI Audience Projects Fund, awarding funds from the National Lottery.

In collaboration with TPD: The Centre for Assistance and Development of Movie Talents, the Vietnam Film Institute and Varan Hanoi.

Technology and sexuality meet in a head-on collision in Crash -director David Cronenberg's controversial adaptation of writer J. G. Ballard's hugely transgressive 1973 novel starring James Spader and Holly Hunter.

Spader stars as James Ballard, a film producer whose deviant sexual desires are awakened by a near fatal automobile accident with Dr. Helen Remington (Hunter). Soon the pair, alongside Ballard's wife Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger), are drawn into an underground world of car-crash fetishism presided over by renegade scientist Vaughan (Elias Koteas). Danger, sex and death become entwined as eroticism and technology join together in a disturbing, deadly union.

Identical twin gynaecologists Beverly and Elliot Mantle routinely trade each others’ identities, lives and even lovers. This ability leads them to a shared relationship with a well-known actress and, ultimately, a physical and psychological tailspin that sends them both to the brink of madness.

Our screening of Desperate Living on the 29th of August will feature an introduction from Token Homo, programmer of the legendary Bar Trash and Queer Horror Nights.

John Waters first feature without Divine in the lead takes some cues from mid-century womens pictures and queers it up with the gross-out, boundary pushing, excess that made him famous and an ambitious forray into fantsyland. Mink Stole is hysterical (and hysteric) as a woman on the run hiding out in the fairytale town of Mortville where evil Queen Carlotta (Waters regular Edith Massey) rules with an iron fist. Every emotion is played pitched up to the highest height while all of the humor skews to the lowest low. If something so deliberately tacky and in such poor taste could be considered operatic, then Desperate Living is it.

Opening night of Divine Trash kicks off with a video message from John Waters before a live performance inspired by Multiple Maniacs by the incredible artist biogal, conjuring Dreamland filth and frenzy on stage. Afterwards there will be drinks & music in the bar, along with a video mixtape of ephemera procured from the trash can of the Waters’ cinematic universe. As a blessing from the Pope of Trash, each ticket includes a cocktail with a non-acoholic option available.

John Waters’ gloriously grotesque second feature is replete with all manner of depravity, from robbery to murder to one of cinema’s most memorably blasphemous moments. Made on a shoestring budget in Waters’ native Baltimore, with the filmmaker taking on nearly every technical task, this gleeful mockery of the peace-and-love ethos of its era features the Cavalcade of Perversion, a traveling show mounted by a troupe of misfits whose shocking proclivities are topped only by those of their leader: the glammer-than-glam, larger-than-life Divine, out for blood after discovering her lover’s affair. Starring members of Waters’ beloved regular cast, the Dreamlanders (including David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Susan Lowe, Edith Massey, George Figgs, and Cookie Mueller), Multiple Maniacs is an anarchic masterwork from an artist who has doggedly tested the limits of good taste for decades.

19:30PM - Pre-drinks

20:10PM - Performance by biogal in Screen 3

20:30PM - Multiple Maniacs screening

22:00PM - Drinks, music & video mixtape in the Atrium bar

The Oslo Stories Trilogy (Sex, Dreams, Love) is an ambitious set of films from novelist-turned-filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud, contemplating romance, intimacy, and desire in contemporary Norway.

A Berlin Golden Bear Winner (2025), Dreams is a coming-of-age story about Johane, who falls in love for the first time with her teacher. Preserving her emotions and experiences in her journal, she shows the work to her mother and grandmother. Initially shocked, they soon see the literary potential and debate whether to encourage its publication, setting in motion a frank exploration of their differing views on love, sexuality, and self-discovery.

Witty, gentle, and eye-opening, Haugerud charts a full investigation on what contemporary love means in this series of films about romantic, sexual, philosophical, and creative awakenings.

The Garden Cinema View:

The last to be filmed (but second chronologically) in this loose trilogy of human relations has the clearest narrative structure of the trio, whilst still retaining a strong visual flair, and digressions into moments of quiet poetry. Whilst the film is heavy with voiceover narration, this seems fitting for a story about writers, and indeed about an interior world of fantasy and desire. At the core of Dreams is an ethical issue concerning safeguarding and grooming, and this plays out intelligently, with scenes involving the teenage protagonist, her mother and grandmother, showing the contrasting wisdom and blind spots of these three generations of women. Dag Johan Haugerud films Oslo in close detail, picking out the communities and contradictions of a city which contains wonderful nature, characterful districts, and the impersonal surfaces of global capitalism.  

An epic and darkly funny symphony of family dysfunction, Dying follows the estranged members of the Lunies family as they wrestle with chaotic private lives. Son Tom (Lars Eidinger), a well-regarded conductor, is too preoccupied to give his

ailing parents the attention they need. He’s juggling work - overseeing a new orchestral piece - and a confusing relationship with an ex who wants him to co-parent her newborn child. Meanwhile, daughter Ellen fumbles through life plagued by alcohol-induced blackouts and an affair with a married colleague.

Winner of Best Screenplay at the Berlin Film Festival and Best Film at the German Film Awards, Dying is a brilliant and sharply comic portrayal of a family slowly unraveling as they contend with the chaos life brings.

The Garden Cinema View:

A film that subverts expectations, in that Dying is more lowkey than the title, logline, and running-time, suggest. Starting in seemingly grim end-of-life circumstances (think Amour or Vortex), but opening up to consider a broader view of a dysfunctional German family with some sharply written, and often quite funny scenes. Other than steely matriarch Lissy, our principal trio is completed by stressed out conductor Tom, and alcoholic dental nurse Ellen. Lissy’s scenes are perhaps the most painful, and the most piercingly honest, whilst Ellen’s chapter feels quite thin, her character lacking dimensions. Tom - who would feel at home in a Ruben Östlund film - is ultimately the centre of a film that feels at times quite novelistic, and at others a little artificial (Tom conducts a piece titled 'Dying' which is described at overlong and pointless).

Eureka plays as part of our Members' Summer Selection season, and was proposed by Ben Webb, who writes: 'It would be great to see Nic Roeg’s masterpiece on a big screen. It features a towering central performance from Gene Hackman, who sadly passed away recently. It’s Roeg’s Citizen Kane but more entertaining and it was lost for many years due to studio politics.'

Twenty years after uncovering an unimaginable bounty of gold in the Klondike, prospector Jack McCann, now settled in the Caribbean, finds both his wealth and soul at stake amongst a sinister web of nefarious influences, spiritual malaise and criminal elements.

A saga of almost cosmic proportions, headlined by an exceptional cast including Gene Hackman, Rutger Hauer, Theresa Russell, Mickey Rourke, Joe Pesci, and Joe Spinell, Eureka is as powerfully acted, formally audacious, thematically layered, and emotionally complex as any of Roeg’s work.

Our screening of Female Trouble on the 16th of August will feature an introduction by Jaye from TGirlsOnFilm

Glamour has never been more grotesque than in Female Trouble, which injects the Hollywood melodrama with anarchic decadence. Divine, director John Waters’ larger-than-life muse, engulfs the screen with charisma as Dawn Davenport, the living embodiment of the film’s lurid mantra, 'Crime is beauty', who progresses from a teenage nightmare hell-bent on getting cha-cha heels for Christmas to a fame monster whose egomaniacal impulses land her in the electric chair. Shot in Waters’ native Baltimore on 16mm, with a cast drawn from his beloved troupe of regulars, the Dreamlanders (including Mink Stole, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Edith Massey, and Cookie Mueller), this film­ - the director’s favorite of his work with Divine - comes to life through the tinsel-toned vision of production designer Vincent Peranio and costume designer/makeup artist Van Smith. An endlessly quotable fan favorite, Female Trouble offers up perverse pleasures that never fail to satisfy.

A rare cinema screening of 1980s cult family favourite Flight of the Navigator.

12-year-old David is accidentally knocked out in the forest near his home, but when he awakens eight years have passed. His family is overjoyed to have him back, but is just as perplexed as he is that he hasn't aged. When a NASA scientist discovers a UFO nearby, David gets the chance to unravel the mystery and recover the life he lost.

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.

This refreshingly anarchic, darkly strange, and absurdist look at male bonding and the breakdown of a relationship is also the funniest American comedy in years.

When an errant delivery pulls suburban dad Craig Waterman into the orbit of his mysterious and charismatic new neighbour Austin Carmichael, a sweet bromance appears to blossom over an innocent evening of urban exploration, punk rock, and a mutual appreciation for paleolithic antiquities. But is this really the start of a beautiful friendship…?

The Garden Cinema View:

As with ostensibly ‘serious’ Adam Sandler films, such as Punch-Drunk Love and Uncut Gems, transposing a comic-clown persona like Tim Robinson into a world closer to reality makes for a oddly psychotic and edgy experience. Thus, what initially feels like a callback to I Love You Man descends into the kind of white collar worker meltdown of Falling Down and stalker energy of Fatal Attraction.

Friendship is filmed and edited with a degree of flair, and does introduce themes of male bonding and social anxiety. Although the frequent inclusions of sketch-type set ups means that it never has the consistency of purpose as the last great friendship-breakup movie, The Banshees of Inisherin. And it’s those moments that make Friendship feel geared towards Robinson fans, rather than a wider audience.  

Are you tired of working in an office, having children, celebrating wedding anniversaries? Ever dreamed of being a debutante? On Friday 8 August, members are invited to escape the world of normality and pay tribute to the Pope of Trash by joining us for a night of iconic John Waters clips, divine drinks, and a selection of peculiar prizes! Yes folks, this is the show you want - the sleaziest bingo show on earth!

All proceeds from the ticket sales will go to FiveforFive, a collective crowdfund for UK trans women, trans fem people, and organisations which support them.

The prizes up for grabs have been generously donated by local businesses, and will include:

• A 'golden ticket', offering a complimentary seat to every screening/event in the Divine Trash season
• A two-headed teddy bear, admission & complimentary absinthe, courtesy of The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History
• Copies of Mr. Know it All by John Waters and Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black by Cookie Mueller, kindly donated by Pages of Hackney
• Blu-Ray editions of Scala!!! and Kamikaze Hearts, and a John Waters/Divine sticker pack from our friends at the BFI Shop
• Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution, featuring interviews with John Waters and Cookie Mueller, generously contributed by Housmans
• Some of Waters’ favourite films on DVD including: Dinner in America, Climax, and Enter the Void, as well as an annual streaming subscription from the inimitable Arrow Films
• Pink Flamingos, Multiple Maniacs, Female Trouble, and Polyester Blu-Rays in all of their Criterion restored glory (bestowed by Criterion themselves)
• Variety (featuring Cookie Mueller) themed goodies donated by the wonderful Other Parties
• A Russ Meyer (Waters is a huge fan!) giveaway from the amazing Severin Films 
• Gift vouchers & free drinks, to be claimed at The Garden Cinema

Tickets for the event are available from £10 each (including a £1 booking fee), but if you'd like to give more, there is also the option to select one of the donation tiers. Members can book up to 2 tickets, which means you're welcome to bring a non-member friend.

Doors will open from 20:00 to enjoy a tipple or two, with the bingo starting at 20:30. We expect to finish around 22:30, after which there will be a bit more time to stick around for drinks.

Afflicted with a rare and fatal condition that affects her ability to perceive time and causes sudden blackouts, single mother Frankie Rhodes relies on self-recorded cassette tapes to help her navigate the world. Desperate to make ends meet while she fights for custody of her young daughter, she accepts a risky but high-paying job from a mysterious woman, which draws her into a world of paranoid conspiracies that threatens to swallow her whole.

As it didn't feel quite right to screen member Renee Francis' suggestion of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown without gazpacho, we're excited to partner up with our friends from Barrafina again for a members-only event on Sunday 17 August.

From 14:30, come enjoy a refreshing glass of the iconic chilled soup to get in the mood for Almodóvar's quintessential comedy. There will be Spanish tunes aplenty, and delicious vermouth available from the bar - at a summery discounted price, of course!

Merging international cinema with karaoke, we'll also have a pop-up ADR station available to those who (like the film's protagonist Pepa) have always wanted to try their hand at 'the art of dubbing', allowing you to provide your own improvised dialogue for some iconic non-English film scenes.

Wearing your best polka dot garment, soft pink skirt suit, or primary-coloured outfit is encouraged, as there will be the opportunity to have your picture taken.

Tickets are available for just £15, and restricted to 2 per member, meaning you're welcome to bring an amiga or amigo along for the occasion. They include a glass of (vegan) gazpacho, access to the pre-screening event, and an unallocated seat for the film.

Event timings:

14:30  Gazpacho, Spanish tunes & film dubbing in the Atrium Bar

15:45  Screening of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

17:25  Expected finish

About the film:

Melding melodrama with screwball farce, this Academy Award–nominated black comedy was Pedro Almodóvar’s international breakthrough and secured his place at the vanguard of modern Spanish cinema. Continuing the auteur’s exploration of the female psyche, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown tells the story of Pepa - played by the director’s frequent collaborator Carmen Maura - who resolves to kill herself with a batch of sleeping-pill-laced gazpacho after her lover leaves her. Fortunately, she is interrupted by a deliciously chaotic series of events. The filmmaker channeled Hollywood inspiration into his own unique vision, arriving at the irreverent humor and vibrant visual sense that define his work today. With an exceptional ensemble cast that also includes Antonio Banderas and Rossy de Palma, this film shows an artist in total control of his craft.

About Barrafina:

Barrafina is a modern Spanish tapas restaurant group founded by Sam and Eddie Hart, with Executive Head Chefs Antonio Gonzalez Milla and Francisco Jose Torrico at the helm. There are five Barrafinas across London: Adelaide Street in Trafalgar Square, Drury Lane in Covent Garden, Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross, Borough Yards near London Bridge, and Dean Street in Soho - home to the original site, which first opened on Frith Street in 2007 before relocating in 2016.

Barrafina is renowned for its theatrical countertop dining experience, where guests enjoy exceptional Spanish tapas prepared directly across from them. The à la carte menus celebrate authentic regional dishes from across Spain, complemented by daily specials unique to each site. A focused wine list showcases some of Spain’s best sherries, Cavas and regional wines. Barrafina Adelaide Street is recognised on The World’s 50 Best Discovery list.

Website | Instagram

There will be another (regular) screening of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown on Monday 28 July at 20:00. You can buy tickets for this here.

Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker) is a contract killer, a master of his trade who can whirl a gun at warp speed and moves through this world like a phantom -- stealthy and evanescent. In the spirit of the samurai, he has pledged his loyalty to a small time mobster named Louie (John Tormey) who saved his life many years before.

Girl plays as part of our Members' Summer Selection season, and was proposed by our member Joseph Miller, who writes: 'Before his masterpiece Close (2022), Lukas Dhont created a controversial yet deeply humane look at transitioning through the eyes of Lara (based on Nora Monsecour‘s own life), A unique experience needed to be screened.'

Lukas Dhont's breathtaking debut feature encompasses the heartache, courage, and punishing training of a ballerina transitioning in her teenage years. Winner of three prizes at the Cannes Film Festival 2018, including one for the extraordinary physical performance by teenage dancer Victor Polster as Lara, through whom we see the daily toil of the desperate desire to accelerate the sluggish process of transition.

Select Japan presents, in collaboration with the Japan Foundation, two screenings celebrating the brilliantly eccentric career of Nobuhiko Obayashi. Obayashi's dazzling anti-war masterpiece, Hanagatami, is screening to mark the 80th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and will be introduced by Select Japan curator George Crosthwait.

In 2016, Nobuhiko Obayashi, the director of the cult Japanese film Hausu was diagnosed with lung cancer and given only a few months to live. Despite not much time left, for what was supposed to be his final film he adapted Kazuo Dan’s 1937 novella Hanagatami, his passion project 40 years in the making.

In the spring of 1941, sixteen-year-old Toshihiko leaves Amsterdam to attend school in Karatsu, a small town on the western coast of Japan, where his aunt Keiko cares for his ailing cousin Mina. Immersed in the seaside’s nature and culture, Toshihiko soon befriends the town’s other extraordinary adolescents as they all contend with the war’s inescapable gravitational pull. With his memories as a survivor of World War II echoing in the uncertainty of world events unfolding today, director Obayashi returns us to 1941, a pivotal time for Japan, as the unstoppable momentum of war forcibly seized the lives of youth away to battlefields where they disappeared forever. In dazzling, full-bloom Obayashi style, Hanagatami captures the passion, innocence, and struggle of the end days of youth in a country consumed by the flames of war.

Join us on 6 August for a rare screening of Obayashi's masterpiece His Motorbike, Her Island, followed by a Q&A with the director's daughter, Chigumi Obayashi, and her husband, Manga artist Takehito Moriizumi.

Thanks to Third Window for providing both films in our Obayashi tribute. And congratulations on celebrating their 20th Anniversary this year.

From Athina Rachel Tsangari (Chevalier, Attenberg), Harvest is a spellbinding and thrillingly distinctive period piece like no other, telling a folk horror-inflected story about the trauma of modernity and the looming threat of the outsider. Set over seven hallucinatory days in an idyllic rural Scottish village, the traditional way of life for its agrarian community is suddenly disrupted when a series of unexpected invaders from the outside world bring about irrevocable - and potentially damaging - change. Combining an ensemble cast lead by Caleb Landry Jones with beautifully textured storytelling, this is an eerie, atmospheric and deeply immersive cinematic experience that asks what happens when people decide what a society should be.

Please note, per the request of the director, all dialogue in Harvest is subtitled.

The Garden Cinema View:

Rachel Athina Tsangari creates an immersive world with a folk-horror adjacent tale of communal living, superstition, and the threat of encroaching modernity. As with Jim Crace's source novel, the location and time period are deliberately vague (although we're somewhere in Scotland here), allowing for a kind of permeating allegorical thrust, albeit without a particularly defined point. Wandering into this wonderfully realised environment is Caleb Landry Jones' peculiar and insular Walt Firsk. It's a piece of casting that is both striking and distracting, imbuing Crace's rather empty protagonist with an uneasy energy, slightly at odds with the character's role in the village. Sean Price Williams provides delightfully tactile 16mm cinematography, and supporting performances from Harry Melling (Pillion) and Rosy McEwen (Blue Jean) are strong. The pacing and narrative do meander and plod along, but there is still much to admire in such an ambitious adaptation.

In the late 1970s, as renegade filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola struggles to complete an epic allegory of the Vietnam War, Apocalypse Now, his wife, Eleanor, films his daily travails with a camera of her own. The documentary based on her footage details the difficulties of the large production -- from weather-related delays in the Philippines to star Martin Sheen's heart attack while filming -- and it provides unprecedented behind-the-scenes clips of one of Hollywood's most-acclaimed films.

To celebrate the start of our South Asian Heritage Month 2025 programme, the opening screening of Heat & Dust will be preceded by a live sitar performance by internationally acclaimed sitarist Jonathan Mayer, and a pre-recorded introduction by guest curator Anupma Shanker. To mark the occasion, our wonderful neighbours from Masala Zone are generously providing complimentary cocktail samosas for all ticketholders to enjoy before heading into the screen.

Adapted by the British American novelist and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from her Booker Prize-winning novel, and winner of Best Screenplay at the 1983 BAFTAs, Heat and Dust is a sensual and evocative Merchant Ivory classic that traces the intertwined stories of two English women living in India more than fifty years apart.

Anne (Julie Christie), a young historical researcher, inherits letters written by her great aunt Olivia (Greta Scacchi) and becomes obsessed with their revelations of her past in colonial India. Flitting between the present-day and the 1920s, examines the parallel journeys of self-discovery of the two women, as well as the eternal, seductive allures of the mystical wonder that is India.

About Anupma Shanker:

Anupma Shanker is a British-Indian film curator and archives researcher with a deep and evolving interest in marginalised and minority screen narratives from, of and about the past. Her curatorial practice is focused on bringing to light films and filmmakers that remain overlooked, inaccessible and undiscovered but can offer valuable insight, wisdom and guidance in contextualizing the difficult but urgent discourses about the myths and realities of shared/contested histories, heritage, identities and memories. Website

About Jonathan Mayer:

Son of the late Kolkata composer John Mayer, Jonathan began his musical training at the early age of 5. His teachers have included Clem Alford (the first ever European sitar player), Pandit Subroto Roychowdhury of Senia Gharana and Wajahat Khan (direct descendent of Mia Tansen the great musician, one of the nine jewels in Moghul court of Emperor Akbar). Jonathan has performed all over the world and his works have been performed and commissioned by The London Philharmonic Orchestra, Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra, Docklands Sinfonia, among others. Jonathan is the co-founder of First Hand Records Ltd and Artistic Director of Zeroclassikal. Website

About Masala Zone:

Masala Zone Covent Garden uniquely combines authentic Indian culinary and visual provenance - proper Indian food, spanning regions, types of food & cooking styles, and exciting interiors. Dishes are from the true sources of Indian food – the gourmet homes & street stalls across India’s regions. Menus cover a panoramic range of Indian cuisine – such as 18 different types of grazing small plates, delicious home thalis and a galaxy of proper regional curries. The individual interiors are a sophisticated display of Indian art & tradition infused with contemporary design. Website | Instagram

We'll be joined for a Q&A with director Sam Shahid hosted by producer and programmer Rebecca del Tufo after the screening on Friday 11 July.

An intimate look at pioneering artist George Platt Lynes, who took radically explicit photographs of the male nude. The documentary reveals Lynes' gifted eye for the male form, his long-term friendships with Gertrude Stein and Alfred Kinsey, and his lasting influence as one of the first openly gay American artists.

The Garden Cinema View:

Prior to Stonewall, and before the concepts of queer art, polyamory, and throuples went mainstream, there was George Platt. A fiercely talented photographer who was never really in the closet, and unapologetically worshiped the male nude form in his art. Moving through the bohemian circles of his time, Platt found kinship with fellow artists like Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, and Man Ray, creating work that pushed boundaries and inspired later artists like Robert Mapplethorpe.

Not that everything was smooth sailing! His erotic art was mostly kept locked away in his personal archives while he earned his living through exceptionally elegant and poised commercial fashion photography for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. So a vast part of his work remained, as the title indicates, hidden. This documentary attempts to correct this, immersing us in the beauty of his artistic vision and introducing us to this brave, brazen character who was celebrating his true nature - even when the world wasn't ready to celebrate it back.

Select Japan presents, in collaboration with the Japan Foundation, two screenings celebrating the brilliantly eccentric career of Nobuhiko Obayashi. Following this rare screening of His Motorbike, Her Island, we're delighted to be joined for a Q&A by the director's daughter, Chigumi Obayashi, and her husband, Manga artist Takehito Moriizumi.

Nobuhiko Obayashi (Hausu) takes on the Bōsōzoku (youth bike gang) genre with a poetic and bittersweet look at rebellious youth and young love.

After being threatened by his girlfriend’s brother, Ko (Riki Takeuchi) goes on a trip on his Kawasaki to contemplate his options. He meets Miiyo (Kiwako Harada) by chance, and the two stay in touch. He later receives an invitation to her island, where he begins to teach her how to ride, and quickly falls for her. Miiyo is an extremely quick study, and the two are a well-matched pair. However, her obsession with motorbikes seems to be leading her down a dangerous path.

Join us on 9 August for Obayashi's dazzling anti-war masterpiece, Hanagatami, screening to mark the 80th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Thanks to Third Window for providing both films in our Obayashi tribute. And congratulations on celebrating their 20th Anniversary this year.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion co-hosted with Clean Break. Anna Herrmann, Artistic Director and Joint CEO of Clean Break, will join Sabrina Mahtani from Women Beyond Walls, Lorraine Maher, the facilitator featured in the film, and producer Polly Creed on the panel.

Directed by Emmy-nominated Sophie Compton (Another Body) and BAFTA Breakthrough Daisy-May Hudson (Half Way, Lollipop), HOLLOWAY is a profound, emotionally charged and visually striking film set entirely inside the now-demolished Holloway Prison in London, once the largest women’s prison in Europe.

Six women return to the abandoned building of Holloway Prison to take part in a women’s circle. Sharing some of the most intimate experiences of their lives, they unravel what led each of them to prison, building an eye-opening portrait of failing systems, childhood trauma and discovering their extraordinary capacity to heal through sisterhood. Formally daring and collaboratively made, HOLLOWAY is the result of an innovative, trauma-informed production model developed with its contributors, who are recognised as lived experience experts. Their input shaped every stage of the film, from development through to editing, ensuring the women’s voices remain central throughout. This co-creative process has been recognised by academics from Middlesex University as a “blueprint” for ethical, trauma-informed storytelling.

“radical and emotionally devastating” (Cineuropa),

“raw and essential” (Film Carnage)

“a vital act of storytelling” (Loud and Clear)

The directorial debut from award-winning screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Ida, Disobedience), Hot Milk is an intimate exploration of self-discovery, desire, and the complex bonds that shape us. Set against the sun-drenched Spanish coast, a young woman discovers that the people in her life - her ailing mother, and a mysterious lover - may not be exactly who she thought they were. Secrets, lies, and revelations lead her to doors that might be best left unopened. Based on the acclaimed novel by Deborah Levy and featuring compelling performances from Emma Mackey, Fiona Shaw and Vicky Krieps, this is a vivid and evocative look at liberation and longing.

The Garden Cinema View:

Adapting Deborah Levy’s slippery and psychological novels can be challenging for filmmakers - apologies to Swimming Home - but Rebecca Lenkiewicz’ Hot Milk admirably distils the essence of Levy’s central mother-daughter dichotomy, whilst adding something cinematic in the setting and visuals. Credit to Christopher Blauvelt (who has collaborated so successfully with Kelly Reichardt) for photographing the Almerían coast in such immersive and authentic fashion. Rugged mountains, arid desert, polytunnel farming, and abandoned construction lend a rough edge to the calm (if rugged) natural splendour of the Mediterranean. There’s a less successful veer towards melodrama in the closing act, but solid lead performances from Fiona Shaw (teasing out Levy’s peculiar humour) and Emma Mackey (always good with internalised desire and anger) means this doesn’t sting too much.  

Join us for a rare screening of Gurinder Chadha's (Bend it Like Beckham, Blinded By The Light) earliest directorial venture.

The documentary short I'm British But... examines what it meant to be a young British Asian in the 1980s. The rhythms of Bhangra and Bangla music set the pace for this lively collage of interviews with British Asian youth. Mixing archival footage with present day street scenes of Asians in England, this film chronicles the role of race and cultural identity in the formation of modern day British society.

The screening is followed by an open discussion exploring the themes of the film and the meaning of British Asian identity today led by Aagya Pradhan.

Aagya Pradhan is a freelance film programmer based in London. Their interest lies in cinema from the South Asian diaspora, centred on films exploring identity and the complexities of cultural heritage. Their work has also focused on highlighting Nepali voices in cinema, particularly of Nepali Women filmmakers as captured in the Hamro Katha shorts programme, curated for the ICO's Cinema of Ideas.

This screening is taking place in the screen in the Atrium bar and is £5.

Our screening on Tuesday 5 August will be introduced by Lucy Bolton (QMUL).

A critical and commerical flop upon release in 2003, Jane Campion's giallo-infleced, erotic thriller is now considered a masterpiece of female desire and subjectivity.

Frannie (Meg Ryan) is a lonely but determined woman living alone in Manhattan, who becomes involved in a murder investigation following the gruesome slaying of a young woman in her neighbourhood. It soon appears that she may know more about the murderer than she thinks, after witnessing what could have been the prelude to the crime. Drawn to the homicide detective (Mark Ruffalo) investigating the case, she discovers the dark side of passion when she embarks on a risky and turbulent affair with him. But as the death toll rises, each victim getting closer to Frannie, she begins to wonder if her new lover is hiding a deadly secret.

Two of Hong Kong cinema’s most iconic leading men, Tony Leung and Andy Lau, face off in the breathtaking thriller that revitalised the city's twenty-first-century film industry, launched a blockbuster franchise, and inspired Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. The setup is diabolical in its simplicity: two undercover moles -a police officer (Leung) assigned to infiltrate a ruthless triad by posing as a gangster, and a gangster (Lau) who becomes a police officer in order to serve as a spy for the underworld - find themselves locked in a deadly game of cat and mouse, each racing against time to unmask the other. As the shifting loyalties, murky moral compromises, and deadly betrayals mount, Infernal Affairs raises haunting questions about what it means to live a double life, lost in a labyrinth of conflicting identities and allegiances.

Agathe, hopelessly clumsy yet charming and full of contradictions, finds herself in desperate singlehood. Her dream is to experience love akin to a Jane Austen novel and her ultimate aspiration is to become a writer. Instead, she spends her days selling books in the legendary English-language bookshop, Shakespeare & Co, in Paris. Invited to the Jane Austen Writers' Residency in England, she must confront her insecurities to finally fulfil her ambition of becoming a novelist and put an end to wasting her sentimental life.

The Garden Cinema View:

In the last decade, rom-coms have been replaced with either ironic deconstructions or clichéd soaps, often emerging from some kind of streaming-service purgatory. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life serves as a delightful revamp, adding depth to this endangered genre while preserving the romanticism and escapism that audiences expect.

Camille Rutherford is fantastic as the extremely clumsy and vulnerable Agathe, who learns how to reclaim her life in small ways, making her all the more modern and relatable. Equally refreshing is that the film consciously abstains from algorithmic online dating tropes, and exists among the (also) endangered world of writers, readers, and bookshops. Taking inspiration from Austen's literary universe, the film maintains all of Austen’s fun romantic dilemmas as well as her sharp focus on women's perspectives and self-actualisation.

The London Australian Film Society is proud to present the UK premiere of the absorbing and poetic docufiction, FLATHEAD, followed by a live Q&A with the film’s director, Jaydon Martin.

Despite his ailing health, Cass (Cass Cumerford) leaves the big smoke of Sydney, hitting the road for his long-forsaken childhood home of Bundaberg in regional Queensland. Cass’ memories and traumas are reignited as he rediscovers Bundaberg, opening his heart to a spiritual exploration amongst the community.

The deeper Cass digs, however, the deeper his connection to his past. On this unwitting journey of self-discovery, he crosses paths with a local fish and chip shop worker, Andrew (Andrew Wong), a second generation Chinese Australian who is suddenly confronted with the death of his father. Cass and Andrew’s stories of loss intertwine, seeing them exchange emotional comfort during their most turbulent times.

Set against the rhythmic backdrop of manual work in rural Queensland, from farms to pubs to recycling centres to cleaners to factories, this stunning work weaves documentary and fiction to reveal a side of modern Australia rarely seen on screen.

Australian snacks and sweets will be on sale, and a raffle will take place before the screening.

With thanks to Jaydon Martin and Patrick McCabe.

An entirely ordinary day on the beds ward of a surgical department. The nursing team is understaffed due to a shortage of personnel. Despite the hectic environment, Floria cares for her patients with expertise and full dedication. Although she gives her all, the shift gradually spirals out of control - until it eventually leads to a dramatic outburst.

London Animation Club is delighted to welcome back stop-motion visionary Joseph Wallace for a screening of his films and a conversation about his influences and his process.

Joseph is a BAFTA Cymru-nominated director, writer and producer who works between stop-motion and puppetry, combining mediums to create enticing fantasy worlds inspired by folktales and mythology. His work has won awards, received Vimeo Staff Picks and screened at festivals around the world. His acclaimed music video for Sparks led Wallace to create sequences for Edgar Wright’s documentary feature The Sparks Brothers which premiered at Sundance and Wallace’s segments were described as ‘dark wonders’ by The Guardian’s Mark Kermode. Joseph’s 2022 short Salvation Has No Name won the Grand Prix and Best Director at Animage festival in Brazil, was long-listed for both BIFA and BAFTA and most recently received the Jury Special Mention at the Unifrance Prix du Court Metrage at Cannes 2023.

The programme will include a mix of short films, music videos, commercials and more.

The Man Who Was Afraid of Falling (Short film, Joseph Wallace, UK, 2011)

Natural Disaster (Short film, Joseph Wallace, UK, 2014)

Dear John (Music video, Péter Vácz / Joseph Wallace, UK, 2016)

La Forêt Sauvage (Short film, Joseph Wallace, UK, 2014)

Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me) (Music video, Joseph Wallace, UK, 2017)

Chemicals (Music video, Joseph Wallace, UK, 2018)

The Sparks Brothers (Animation extracts, Edgar Wright / Joseph Wallace, UK, 2021)

The Letter (Ident, Joseph Wallace, UK, 2023)

A Christmas Carol (Advert, Joseph Wallace, UK, 2023)

The Wickywock and the Jub Jub Berry (Short film, Joseph Wallace / Cat Johnston, UK, 2025)

Need a Good Sleep? (Advert, Joseph Wallace, UK, 2024)

The Whimsical Worlds Of Suna Fujita (Advert, Joseph Wallace, UK, 2024)

Salvation Has No Name (Short film, Joseph Wallace, UK, 2022)

Bi Gan followed the mesmerising Kaili Blues with this noir-tinged stunner about a lost soul (Jue Huang) on a quest to find a missing woman from his past (Wei Tang, Lust, Caution). Following leads across Guizhou province, he crosses paths with a series of colorful characters, among them a prickly hairdresser played by Taiwanese superstar Sylvia Chang. When the search leads him to a dingy movie theater, the film launches into an hour-long, gravity-defying long-take which plunges its protagonist - and us - into a labyrinthine cityscape. China's biggest arthouse hit of all time, the film took in more than £30 million in its opening weekend at the domestic box office.

Screening in the 2D version.

Founded by Neeraj Churi, Lotus Visual Productions brings South Asian LGBT+ stories to the global screen. With active projects in various stages of production in India and the UK, they strive for authentic representation of LGBT+ experiences and provide opportunities for community members on and off the screen.

The Garden Cinema is delighted to be showcasing a selection of their critically acclaimed and award winning short films from recent years, including titles which have been made possible through the KASHISH QDrishti Film Grant.

Following the screening, Neeraj Churi will be available to answer your questions.

Films in the programme:

Queer Parivaar

Writer/Director – Shiva Raichandani | Length: 25 min | Language: English | Country: UK

When a mysterious gatecrasher appears at their wedding, Madhav and Sufi are forced to face past secrets and reflect on what makes a family.

IYKYK (If You Know You Know)

Writer/Director Bonita Rajpurohit | Length 18 min | Language English, Hindi, Gujrati (with English Subtitles)

We follow Kusum, a trans girl on a series of dates with boys to find "the one" for her.

Mehroon

Writer/Director Abu Sohel Khondekar | Length: 10 min | Language: Silent

In the wake of her father's death, Mehroon is confronted with a will that holds her in a suffocating grip. Determined to break free from this oppressive force, she embarks on a journey of self-discovery and liberation while navigating the expectations of society and family.

Malwa Khushan

Writers/Directors Preeti Kanungo and Sourav Yadav  | Length: 20 min | Language: Hindi (English Subtitles)

Coming of age story of two sisters Malwa and Khushan exploring and experiencing sexuality and attraction in their adolescent years. Living with their grandmother, Khushan always looks up to Malwa for her outspoken nature and courage. Soon a new girl arrives in Khushan's class and she starts developing feelings for her

Taps

Writer/Director – Arvind Caulagi | Length: 15 min | Language: Hindi (English Subtitles)

A simple misunderstanding puts Akshay and Rohan's domestic idyll on shaky grounds. Set over the course of an evening, Taps offers an intimate look at how the couple navigates their way back to each other.

My Mother’s Girlfriend

Director Arun Fulara | Marathi with English Subtitles | 15 min

Renuka and Sadiya, two mature working-class women in love with each other, are out celebrating Renuka's birthday. Unknown to them, Renuka's son, Mangesh, is around. My Mother's Girlfriend is the story of these two relationships colliding.

The Oslo Stories Trilogy (Sex, Dreams, Love) is an ambitious set of films from novelist-turned-filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud, contemplating romance, intimacy, and desire in contemporary Norway.

In Love, (Venice, 2024), Haugerud explores the sexual freedom experienced by Tor, a gay nurse, and the more conventional constraints Marianne, his straight colleague, encounters. Neither wants to be bound by conforming to societal norms, but where one can seemingly live a carefree existence, for women, the realities are more complex.

Witty, gentle, and eye-opening, Haugerud charts a full investigation on what contemporary love means in this series of films about romantic, sexual, philosophical, and creative awakenings.

The Garden Cinema View:

The second to be filmed (but third chronologically - not that it matters) in Dag Johan Haugerud’s trilogy of relationships is, fittingly given the title, the most tender. A loose structure revolves around ferry journeys across the Oslofjord (apparently a hotbed of cruising and pickup activity), centennial celebration preparations at city hall, and the love lives of medical professions working in a cancer clinic. Like the other entries in the trilogy, this is a film that interweaves beautifully captured montages of the city with extended conversations. These dialogues are often impressively intelligent, mature, and honest. Haugerud’s Oslo is a pleasure to inhabit, and his characters are fascinating to eavesdrop on.

A group of spoiled animals who have spent all their life in the New York Central Zoo escape with the help of four fugitive penguins. When they find themselves in the jungles of Madagascar, they must adjust to living in the wild.

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.

To help the creatives in our membership community develop their WIP projects, we're excited to host our first ever Members' Scratch Night on Thursday 31 July. This is an opportunity to test out material - be it unfinished films, scripts, pieces of writing, or other art forms - in front of a supportive audience, who will then be able to provide you with their thoughts and feedback in a casual setting. The event will take place in the Atrium Bar, and will be hosted by fellow cinema member Roberto Prestia.

We'll have six 15-minute slots available for members to present their material (with microphones and a projector available to use), and additional tickets for audience members who are interested in discovering new work by fellow members, and in contributing to their creative process.

The schedule on the night will be as follows:

19:00-20:00  Introduction and first three presentations of 15 minutes each

20:00-20:30  Break for drinks, providing feedback, and mingling

20:30-21:15  Additional three presentations of 15 minutes each

21:15-22:00  Drinks, providing feedback, and further mingling

Tickets for the event are £5, and include a token for a complimentary glass of house wine, a beer or a soft drink at the bar. They are restricted to 1 per member. Please ensure you select the right option when booking a ticket:

• Only six Presenter tickets will be available to purchase for those looking to present a project.
• The additional tickets will be Audience tickets, for members who want to watch the presentations and provide feedback.

About Roberto:

Roberto Prestia is a London based independent filmmaker. In his quest for DIY filmmaking and creative freedom, he has made constant use of scratch nights and workshops with fellow creatives, as a tool for developing his early shorts as well as his second feature film, which is currently in the making.

Our screening of Sunday 3 August will be introduced by film journalist Darren Richman.

Inspired by true events, this rain-drenched sophomore feature from the Oscar-winning filmmaker Bong Joon ho blends true-crime with social satire and comedy in typically masterful fashion.

In 1986 Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, after two women are found raped and murdered, Seoul detective Seo Tae-yoon (Kim Sang-kyung) is brought in to help local detective Park Doo-man (Song Kang-ho) with the investigation. As more bodies are found, the pair realise they have a serial killer on their hands.

Millennium Actress plays as part of our Members' Summer Selection season. The film was proposed by Harry Robertson, who writes: 'My favourite Satoshi Kon movie that I can never find anywhere to stream and would love to see on the big screen. It’s a movie about holding on to something even when the whole world tells you to let go. It seamlessly blends a love of Japanese cinema with the career of its protagonist and has a lovely wholesome and humorous tone.'

From anime genius Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Paprika), take a journey through cinema history via his unique, world-bending perspective.

With the renowned Ginei Studios shutting down and their buildings about to be demolished, film-maker Genya Tachibana sets out to commemorate this historical moment by interviewing the studio’s former superstar - the now-reclusive Chiyoko Fujiwara. As Chiyoko recounts her story, so Genya and his cameraman are pulled into a wide-ranging journey through the lens of her films. Interviews and recollections, acting and reality, all blur into the single rich tapestry of a remarkable life.

Our screening on Wednesday 16 July will be introduced by John Wischmeyer (City Lit).

The brilliant breakthrough film by writer-director Neil Jordan journeys into the dark heart of the London underworld to weave a gripping, noir-infused love story. Bob Hoskins received a multitude of honors - including an Oscar nomination - for his touchingly vulnerable, not-so-tough-guy portrayal of George, recently released from prison and hired by a sinister mob boss (Michael Caine) to chauffeur call girl Simone (Cathy Tyson, in a celebrated performance) between high-paying clients. George’s fascination with the elegant, enigmatic Simone leads him on a dangerous quest through the city’s underbelly, where love is a weakness to be exploited and betrayed. Jordan’s colorful dialogue and eye for evocatively surreal details lend a dreamlike sheen to Mona Lisa, an unconventionally romantic tale of damaged people searching for tenderness in an unforgiving world.

Summer holidays at The Garden Cinema would not be complete without Monsieur Hulot.

Jacques Tati’s endearing clown, takes a holiday at a seaside resort, where his presence provokes one catastrophe after another. Tati’s masterpiece of gentle slapstick is a series of effortlessly well-choreographed sight gags involving dogs, boats, and firecrackers; it was the first entry in the Hulot series and the film that launched its maker to international stardom.

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  

Movies, Memories, Magic celebrates the hybrid cinematic and cultural heritage sculpted by London’s South Asian communities across time and space. Cinema has served as a vital bridge between cultures and countries, for South Asians in Britain. This award-winning documentary is the result of a year-long Heritage Lottery-supported South Asian heritage project – Memories Through Cinema, led by the UK Asian Film Festival (UKAFF) in collaboration with Queen Mary, University of London.

The film paints a vibrant picture of how iconic South Asian films screened in renowned cinema halls in London, from the winding alleyways of Brick Lane to the bustling streets of Southall, galvanised cultural conversations and shaped trends in music, food, fashion and politics. From cinema stalwarts such as Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar, film classics such as Mother India (1957) and Sholay (1975) and the razzmatazz of Bollywood, to the bold and bravura brand of new Indian Indie cinema, the film’s inter-generational contributors reminisce about how cinema spaces and viewing practices have transformed over time. Having been screened to audiences across the UK, India, Bhutan, South Africa and Singapore, the film is testament to how the magic of movies and the indelible memories they inscribe have catalysed a hyphenated cultural identity – rooted in local London and blended with global South Asian culture.

This screening is taking place in the screen in the Atrium bar and is £5.

The screening will be Introduced by the film's director Dr Ashvin Immanuel Devasundaram.

Dr Ashvin Immanuel Devasundaram is Reader in Global Cinemas at Queen Mary University of London. He is author of India's New Independent Cinema: Rise of the Hybrid (Routledge, 2016), Indian Cinema Beyond Bollywood: The New Independent Cinema Revolution (Routledge, 2018) and Indian Indies: A Guide to New Independent Indian Cinema (with a foreword by Shabana Azmi) (Routledge, 2022) - the world's first books on new Indian Indie films. Ashvin has directed Movies, Memories, Magic (2018). He is Principal Investigator on the ongoing AHRC-funded research project ‘Connecting Creative Industries and Cultural Heritage: India-UK Film Festival Federation, Youth Curation and Community Co-Creation’ (2024-27).

John Waters’ gloriously grotesque second feature is replete with all manner of depravity, from robbery to murder to one of cinema’s most memorably blasphemous moments. Made on a shoestring budget in Waters’ native Baltimore, with the filmmaker taking on nearly every technical task, this gleeful mockery of the peace-and-love ethos of its era features the Cavalcade of Perversion, a traveling show mounted by a troupe of misfits whose shocking proclivities are topped only by those of their leader: the glammer-than-glam, larger-than-life Divine, out for blood after discovering her lover’s affair. Starring members of Waters’ beloved regular cast, the Dreamlanders (including David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Susan Lowe, Edith Massey, George Figgs, and Cookie Mueller), Multiple Maniacs is an anarchic masterwork from an artist who has doggedly tested the limits of good taste for decades.

Stephen Frears was at the forefront of the British cinematic revival of the mid-1980s, and the delightfully transgressive My Beautiful Laundrette is his greatest triumph of the period. Working from a richly layered script by Hanif Kureishi, who was soon to be an internationally renowned writer, Frears tells an uncommon love story that takes place between a young South London Pakistani man (Gordon Warnecke), who decides to open an upscale laundromat to make his family proud, and his childhood friend, a skinhead (Daniel Day-Lewis, in a breakthrough role) who volunteers to help make his dream a reality. This culture-clash comedy is also a subversive work of social realism that dares to address racism, homophobia, and sociopolitical marginalisation in Margaret Thatcher’s England.

Directed by Dr. Lester James Peries, widely regarded as the father of Sri Lankan cinema, and based on a short story by the prominent Sinhalese author G.B Senanayake, Nidhanaya is a chilling portrait of a crumbling aristocracy in colonial Sri Lanka through the microcosm of one man’s psychological turmoil.

Often likened to his Indian contemporary Satyajit Ray, Dr. Lester James Peries won the Silver Lion at the 1972 Venice International Film Festival for Nidhanaya which has been lauded as the best film of the first 50 years of Sri Lankan cinema and was included among the top 100 films of the century by Cinémathèque Française.

This is the first time the film is officially being screened in the UK.

Willie Abeynayake (Gamini Fonseka), the superstitious scion of a once-wealthy family facing financial ruin, comes across an ancient manuscript that holds the keys to a secret treasure. However, in order to retrieve it, Willie must find a virgin girl with four birthmarks and perform a sacrifice. Tormented by the impossibility of the task, Willy grows increasingly disturbed but when he miraculously encounters the ideal woman with birthmarks (Malini Fonseka), her unwavering devotion towards him softens his heart, until sudden economic turmoil force him once again to reconsider the sacrifice.

Nidhanaya was restored in 2013 by Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in association with The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and the Lester James and Sumitra Peries Foundation, and was premiered at the 2013 Venice International Film Festival.

The screening will be preceded by a pre-recorded introduction by guest curator Anupma Shanker.

Anupma Shanker is a British-Indian film curator and archives researcher with a deep and evolving interest in marginalised and minority screen narratives from, of and about the past. Her curatorial practice is focused on bringing to light films and filmmakers that remain overlooked, inaccessible and undiscovered but can offer valuable insight, wisdom and guidance in contextualizing the difficult but urgent discourses about the myths and realities of shared/contested histories, heritage, identities and memories.

This special theatrical screening of Pavements will be followed by a pre-recorded Q&A with Alex Ross Perry.

From Alex Ross Perry, the acclaimed director of Her Smell and Listen Up Philip, and a distinctive voice in post-mumblecore cinema, comes an irreverent, genre-bending portrait of the iconic '90s indie rock band Pavement. Premiering at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, Pavements blends authentic archival footage, contemporary documentary moments, an ironic jukebox musical, a satirical Hollywood biopic, and playful mockumentary sequences, brilliantly collapsing the boundaries between reality and fiction.

As Pavement prepare for their sold-out 2022 reunion tour, the film captures surreal behind-the-scenes preparations for a musical adaptation of their songs, a museum dedicated entirely to the band's legacy, and a knowingly clichéd Hollywood biopic starring Joe Keery as frontman Stephen Malkmus.

Interwoven with genuine archival footage and featuring the band members themselves alongside a cast of actors and comedians, Pavements humorously examines fan obsession, myth-making, and the cultural mechanics behind fame. This uniquely layered exploration challenges the traditional way stories about musicians are told with artistry, absurdity and humor, culminating in a refreshingly inventive and endearingly self-aware tribute to an unforgettable band.

Our screening of Pink Flamingos on the 22nd of August will feature an introduction from former Scala programmer, Jane Giles. The second screening on the 31st of August will feature an introduction from Category H Film Club programmer, Molly Miles.

John Waters made bad taste perversely transcendent with the forever shocking counterculture sensation Pink Flamingos, his most infamous and daring cinematic transgression. Outré diva Divine is iconic as the wanted criminal hiding out with her family of degenerates in a trailer outside Baltimore while reveling in her tabloid notoriety as the 'Filthiest Person Alive'. When a pair of sociopaths (Mink Stole and David Lochary) with a habit of kidnapping women in order to impregnate them attempt to challenge her title, Divine resolves to show them and the world the true meaning of the word 'filth'. Incest, cannibalism, shrimping, and film history’s most legendary gross-out ending—Waters and his merry band of Dreamlanders leave no taboo unsmashed in this gleefully subversive ode to outsiderhood, in which camp spectacle and pitch-black satire are wielded in an all-out assault on respectability.

For his first studio picture, filth maestro John Waters took advantage of his biggest budget yet to allow his muse Divine to sink his teeth into a role unlike any he had played before: Baltimore housewife Francine Fishpaw, a heroine worthy of a Douglas Sirk melodrama. Blessed with a keen sense of smell and cursed with a philandering pornographer husband, a parasitic mother, and a pair of delinquent children, the long-suffering Francine turns to the bottle as her life falls apart—until deliverance appears in the form of a hunk named Todd Tomorrow (vintage heartthrob Tab Hunter). One of Waters’ most hilarious inventions, Polyester is replete with stomach-churning smells, sadistic nuns, AA meetings, and foot stomping galore.

For his first studio picture, filth maestro John Waters took advantage of his biggest budget yet to allow his muse Divine to sink his teeth into a role unlike any he had played before: Baltimore housewife Francine Fishpaw, a heroine worthy of a Douglas Sirk melodrama. Blessed with a keen sense of smell and cursed with a philandering pornographer husband, a parasitic mother, and a pair of delinquent children, the long-suffering Francine turns to the bottle as her life falls apart—until deliverance appears in the form of a hunk named Todd Tomorrow (vintage heartthrob Tab Hunter). One of Waters’ most hilarious inventions, Polyester is replete with stomach-churning smells, sadistic nuns, AA meetings, and foot stomping galore.

One of the most important and influential film makers in cinematic history, Akira Kurosawa directed 30 films in a career spanning 57 years. His final masterpiece, Ran, is a reimagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear set in feudal Japan. Ran tells the story of Lord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai) an aging warlord who, after spending his life consolidating his empire, decides to abdicate and divide his Kingdom amongst his three sons Taro, Jiro, and Saburo. This leads to a brutal and bloody war between the brothers for absolute power of the kingdom.

This potent, political landmark of Indian independent filmmaking – famously funded by 500,000 farmers – explores the ugly truths of class and caste in rural Gujarat.

Produced by 500,000 farmers who contributed 2 ruppes each towards the making of the film, Manthan  (The Churning) is a powerful film about the tempestuous winds of change that blow through a village when an idealistic veterinary surgeon from the city arrives in the village to start a milk cooperative movement. His notions of equitable distribution of profits irrespective of class and caste and freedom from exploitative middlemen, churn up a maelstrom of mistrust, anger and resistance among the feudal landlords and the peasants, threatening the deep-rooted social hierarchy based on generations of discrimination. The story plumbs the depths of despair as Dr. Rao faces false accusations and village politics, but ends on a high with a glimmering of change as the idea of the cooperative slowly takes root.

Nearly 50 years after it was made, a pristinely restored Manthan received a red-carpet world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last year.

Restored by Film Heritage Foundation at Prasad Corporation Pvt. Ltd.’s Post – Studios, Chennai and L’Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory, in association with Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd., the cinematographer Govind Nihalani and the director Shyam Benegal.

Reborn India Film (RIF) is a dynamic organization dedicated to the celebration of cinema through its annual film festivals and round-the-clock programs. Each year, we curate an eclectic lineup of screenings, workshops, podcasts, and more, providing a platform for filmmakers, industry professionals, and audiences to engage, learn, and connect. As a production house, RIF specializes in line production, offering comprehensive services to bring film projects to life. With a passion for storytelling and a commitment to excellence, RIF continues to push boundaries, inspire creativity, and shape the future of Indian cinema.

Rich Mr. Dashwood dies, leaving his second wife and her three daughters poor by the rules of inheritance. The two eldest daughters are the titular opposites.

John Waters brings his twisted cinematic vision to the seemingly mundane world of suburbia in Serial Mom, an outrageous dark comedy starring Kathleen Turner (Body Heat, Romancing The Stone).

Beverly (Turner) is the perfect happy homemaker. Along with her doting husband Eugene (Sam Waterston) and two children, Misty (Ricki Lake) and Chip (Matthew Lillard), she lives a life straight out of Good Housekeeping. But this nuclear family just might explode when Beverly's fascination with serial killers collides with her ever-so-proper code of ethics - transforming her from middle class mom to mass murderer! Soon, the bodies begin to pile up… and suburbia faces a horror even worse than wearing white after Labor Day.

The Oslo Stories Trilogy (Sex, Dreams, Love) is an ambitious set of films from novelist-turned-filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud, contemplating romance, intimacy, and desire in contemporary Norway.

Sex (Berlin, 2024) sees two men, both in heterosexual marriages, who have an unexpected experience that challenges them to reconsider their understanding of sexuality, gender, and identity

Witty, gentle, and eye-opening, Haugerud charts a full investigation on what contemporary love means in this series of films about romantic, sexual, philosophical, and creative awakenings.

The Garden Cinema View:

The first entry in Dag Johan Haugerud’s trilogy of human relationships (although the order of viewing is arbitrary), Sex is the most male-centric. Issues of queer sexuality, gender dysmorphia, religion, fatherhood, marriage, and ego are all explored in tender and open conversations between two chimney sweeps and their families. As with Love and Dreams, Haugerud finds humour and insight in these extended dialogues, and even the most unloved corners of Oslo are captured warmly by his camera. Whether Sex marks your entry, middle, or end point to the trilogy, it’s another gem in this special series of films.

The screening on 22 July will be introduced by Aagya Pradhan.

The second feature from writer-director Min Bahadur Bham, following 2015’s The Black Hen – Nepal’s official Oscars entry and a Venice Critics Week winner.

In the heart of the Nepalese Himalayas, the spirited Pema embraces a polyandrous marriage with Tashi and his two younger brothers. They initially lead a harmonious life, but when Tashi fails to return from a trading trip, the legitimacy of Pema’s unborn child is questioned by her community. Determined to prove her love and purity, she embarks on a quest to find Tashi.  Accompanied by her brother-in-law, her now de facto spouse Karma, who is a monk, she embarks on a journey into the unforgiving wilderness to find him, evolving into a quest of self-discovery and liberation.

Belinale 2024- Competition

Locarno- Piazza Grande

Aagya Pradhan is a freelance film programmer based in London. Their interest lies in cinema from the South Asian diaspora, centred on films exploring identity and the complexities of cultural heritage. Their work has also focused on highlighting Nepali voices in cinema, particularly of Nepali Women filmmakers as captured in the Hamro Katha shorts programme, curated for the ICO's Cinema of Ideas.

The screening will feature a digital introduction by curator Tuyết Vân Huỳnh.

The rare and much-anticipated Hát Giữa Chiều Mưa (Singing in the Rainy Afternoon), is a cinematic gem from 1990 that blends drama, humor, and radiant style. This hidden masterpiece, a hallmark of “instant noodle cinema” is a story of love, music, loss, and resilience, featuring Mai, a young woman who loses her sight in a fireworks accident and must navigate the pain of her father’s thirst for revenge, while holding on to the emotional strength that music offers. The film culminates in a whimsical, moving musical finale set in the rain, a moment of joy and transcendence.

Presented by Tuyết Vân Huỳnh

With support from Arts Council England, the British Council Connections Through Culture programme, and the BFI Audience Projects Fund, awarding funds from the National Lottery.

In collaboration with TPD: The Centre for Assistance and Development of Movie Talents, the Vietnam Film Institute and Varan Hanoi.

Smiles of a Summer Night plays as part of our Members' Summer Selection season, and was proposed by Jonathan Wakeham, who writes: 'I would love to celebrate the 70th anniversary of one of Ingmar Bergman’s best-loved films. It’s one of his few comedies, as four men and four women are caught up in a delicious and dangerous dance of attraction, manipulation, betrayal and desire. Starring many of Bergman’s regular players, it would be a perfect midsummer screening.'

After fifteen films that received mostly local acclaim, the comedy Smiles of a Summer Night at last ushered in an international audience for Ingmar Bergman. In turn-of-the-century Sweden, four men and four women attempt to navigate the laws of attraction. During a weekend in the country, the women collude to force the men’s hands in matters of the heart, exposing their pretensions and insecurities along the way. Chock-full of flirtatious propositions and sharp witticisms delivered by such Swedish screen legends as Gunnar Björnstrand and Harriet Andersson, Smiles of a Summer Night is one of cinema’s great erotic comedies.

Connie is fifteen, bored, and beautiful—with nothing much to do but hang around the mall, try on new identities, and flirt with boys. Her mother doesn’t understand her, her sister resents her, and the summer stretches out in every direction. Then a strange older man pulls up in a gold convertible...

Based on a Joyce Carol Oates story and starring baby Laura Dern, Smooth Talk is all about the danger of an endless summer afternoon. Sun-drenched and deeply unsettling, it’s a female-directed, teen-girl centred masterclass in dreamy dread.

Trigger Warning: Contains sexual threat

Summertime Sadness

Long, hot summers have always been fertile ground for anxiety, danger and despair on screen. From holiday horrors to angsty coming-of-age tales, summertime sadness is a microgenre all on its own. Even the way we watch – sitting in a dark room – goes against the spirit of warm, sunny days. Escape the packed pubs, hay fever, and heatwave irritability, and come wallow with Zodiac Film Club in a mini-season of sad girl summer classics that lull you with sunshine... then give you a shock.

This screening of François Truffaut's classic marks the centennial of the great French composer Antoine Duhamel. The screening will be preceded by a special introduction from Oscar-nominated composer Gary Yershon.

Jean-Pierre Léaud returns in the delightful Stolen Kisses, the third instalment in the Antoine Doinel series. It is now 1968, and the mischievous and perpetually lovestruck Doinel has been dishonourably discharged from the army and released onto the streets of Paris, where he stumbles into the unlikely profession of private detective and embarks on a series of misadventures. Whimsical, nostalgic, and irrepressibly romantic, Stolen Kisses is François Truffaut’s timeless ode to the passion and impetuosity of youth.

This film was proposed by our member Stella Feehily and Gill Simpson, who writes: 'My favourite film (along with Parapluies de Cherbourg!!) Funny, moving – and has a social conscience. Lovely performances.'

Successful movie director John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), convinced he won't be able to film his ambitious masterpiece until he has suffered, dons a hobo disguise and sets off on a journey, aiming to 'know trouble' first-hand. When all he finds is a train ride back to Hollywood and a beautiful blonde companion (Veronica Lake), he redoubles his efforts, managing to land himself in more trouble than he bargained for when he loses his memory and ends up a prisoner on a chain gang.

Please note, the screening on Monday 14 July is our free members' screening, while the one on Tuesday 22 July is a regular screening, which is open to the general public.

These screenings are part of 'Lou Ye: Chaotic Desires', a special presentation dedicated to one of China’s great contemporary auteurs, and featuring a collection of Lou's key works across two decades, alongside the release of his new title An Unfinished Film.

China, 1989. Two young lovers play out their complex, erotic, love/hate relationship against a Chinese volatile backdrop of political unrest. Beautiful Yu Hong leaves her village, her family and her boyfriend to study in Beijing, where she discovers a world of intense sexual and emotional experimentation, and falls madly in love with fellow student Zhou Wei. Their relationship becomes one of dangerous games, as all around them, their fellow students begin to demonstrate, demanding democracy and freedom.

Digital restoration. These screenings are part of 'Lou Ye: Chaotic Desires', a special presentation by the Chinese Cinema Project dedicated to one of China’s great contemporary auteurs, and featuring a collection of Lou's key works across two decades, alongside the release of his new title An Unfinished Film.

The feature will be preceded by the short film In Shanghai (2001, 17 mins), a personal portrait of Lou Ye's hometown, and the setting of Suzhou River.

On the banks of the Suzhou River, which winds precariously through Shanghai, Marda falls in love with a beautiful young woman named Moudan. When he tries to kidnap her in order to demand ransom money from her rich father, she escapes, jumping in to the river and disappearing forever. Marda serves a three-year jail sentence for his attempted crime. Upon his release, he meets a woman that looks exactly like Moudan, named MeiMei.

Each screening of The 4th Man will feature a pre-recorded introduction from lead actress Renée Soutendijk.

Paul Verhoeven's last film produced in the Netherlands before he created his Hollywood classics Robocop and Total Recall, invites us into the twisted psyche of Gerard Reve, a troubled writer whose life becomes entangled with mysterious women, murder, and the supernatural. As Reve spirals into a world of erotic desire and deceit, he must navigate the blurred lines between reality and fantasy to uncover the truth. Indulge your senses, challenge your perceptions, and join us for The 4th Man.

Wim Wenders pays loving homage to rough-and-tumble Hollywood film noir with The American Friend, a loose adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel Ripley’s Game. Dennis Hopper oozes quirky menace as an amoral American art dealer who entangles a terminally ill German everyman, played by Bruno Ganz, in a seedy criminal underworld as revenge for a personal slight - but when the two become embroiled in an ever-deepening murder plot, they form an unlikely bond. Filmed on location in Hamburg and Paris, with some scenes shot in grimy, late-seventies New York City, Wenders’s international breakout is a stripped-down crime story that mixes West German and American film flavors, and it features cameos by filmmakers Jean Eustache, Samuel Fuller, and Nicholas Ray.

Eccentric lottery winner Charles dreams of getting his favourite musicians, McGwyer Mortimer, back together. The fantasy becomes real when the bandmates and former lovers agree to play a private show at his home on Wallis Island. Old tensions resurface as Charles tries desperately to salvage his dream gig.

The Garden Cinema View:

The Ballad of Wallis Island might have single-handedly revitalised British comedy filmmaking. Among an extraordinary gag-rate (mainly from Tim Key) and some lovely folk music, there is a simple but genuinely affecting study of loss and loneliness. There’s also an intense sense of ‘Pembrokeshire-ness’ that permeates the film; the wintery Welsh coast perfectly resonating with the melancholy tone of the narrative. A gentle and rich watch, and probably the best remote-British-island film since The Wicker Man.  

This Cannes prize-winning documentary takes us on an intimate and emotional journey with the travelling cinemas of India, which yearly bring the wonder of the movies to faraway villages. Filmed over five years, it accompanies a shrewd exhibitor, a benevolent showman and a maverick projector mechanic who all bear a beautiful burden: to keep the last travelling cinemas of the world running.

Our brilliant neighbours from Cinnamon Bazaar will be sharing some of their wonderful summer chaat for all ticketholders to enjoy in the cinema's bar before heading into the screening.

This Cannes prize-winning documentary takes us on an intimate and emotional journey with the travelling cinemas of India, which yearly bring the wonder of the movies to faraway villages. Filmed over five years, it accompanies a shrewd exhibitor, a benevolent showman and a maverick projector mechanic who all bear a beautiful burden: to keep the last travelling cinemas of the world running.

Timings:

18:00  Complimentary chaat from Cinnamon Bazaar

18:30  Film screening

20:15  Expected finish

Spice Up Your Cinema Experience with Our Friends at Cinnamon Bazaar

This South Asian Heritage Month, we’re partnering with Cinnamon Bazaar – a vibrant restaurant in the heart of Covent Garden that brings the flavours of Indian street markets to life in a colourful and only slightly chaotic setting. Bazaar team will be sharing some of their wonderful summer chaat tasting before the screening of The Cinema Traveller.

To help you make the most of your cinema trips this season, why not stop by before your film for a bite of something bold and flavourful, or wind down after with one of their signature cocktails?

As part of our collaboration, Cinnamon Bazaar is offering 20% off when you dine with them and show your Garden Cinema ticket from any Heritage Month screening and beyond*.

Good food, good films... it’s the perfect pairing.

*Valid Until 30th Sept 2025.

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This screening will follow our members' wine & cheese tasting. Tickets for the tasting and the film will need to be booked separately, but a combo discount will automatically apply when adding both to your shopping basket, reducing the film ticket price to just £8.50. 

When churlish mobster Albert Spica (Michael Gambon) acquires an upscale French restaurant in London, he dines there nightly, effectively scaring off the clientele with his bad manners. His wife, Georgina (Helen Mirren), is especially disgusted by him, and soon begins an affair with another restaurant guest, Michael (Alan Howard). Despite their efforts to keep it a secret, however, Spica finds out about their trysts, and plans to exact a terrible revenge.

“The forest is alive. It will only die if the whites persist in destroying it. (...) Then we will die, one after another, both whites and us. All the shamans will eventually die. When there are no more of them alive to uphold the sky, it will collapse.”- Davi Kopenawa

In collaboration with Brazil’s indigenous Yanomami people, The Falling Sky follows the Yanomami leader and shaman Davi Kopenawa as he fights to return the world to balance in closely observed rituals and trenchant comments on the ruthless logic of a materialistic outside culture. Illegal logging, gold mining, and the deadly mix of epidemics these intrusions spread threaten the existence of the Yanomami.

Based on an acute understanding of geopolitical forces, Davi Kopenawa holds up a mirror to capitalist societies of “the merchandise people” and the unsustainable lifestyle of the so-called “developed countries” that threatens the survival of humanity as a whole.

The film is a presentation of the cosmology of the Yanomami people, the work of the shamans to hold up the sky and heal the world from the diseases produced by non-indigenous people, illegal mining, the siege promoted by the ‘people of merchandise’ and the revenge of the Earth.

The screening will be preceded by an introduction by the Cine Brazil.

Survival International also have copies of the book that inspired the film on sale in the Atrium Bar from 19:00.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly plays as part of our Members' Summer Selection season, and was proposed by our member Mo, who writes, 'I would love to see such an epic Western on the big screen.'

With the two preceding films in his 'Dollars' trilogy having unleashed a boom in Euro Western productions, Sergio Leone knew that his concluding chapter would have to top them all. Armed with his largest budget yet, Leone created what is, for many, the final word on the subject - a violent, picaresque epic presented with operatic scope and intensity, with Clint Eastwood donning the iconic hat and poncho one last time.

The Gospel According to St. Matthew plays as part of our Members' Summer Selection season, and was proposed by members Barbara Armstrong, Penny Averill, and John Forde, who writes: 'This year is the 50th anniversary of the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini. Though he’s probably better known for the disturbing Salò, his film of the life of Jesus is a stunning achievement, especially when you consider he was an atheist.'

A biblical epic that only the Marxist dissident Pier Paolo Pasolini could make, this intensely faithful adaptation of Saint Matthew’s Gospel depicts the life and teachings of Jesus Christ (Enrique Irazoqui, a Spanish economics student and Communist activist), whose unwavering compassion for the poor and defiant condemnation of moral hypocrisy make him a perhaps unexpected embodiment of the director’s own worldview. Stunningly shot amid the timeless landscapes of southern Italy and set to a soundtrack that encompasses everything from Bach to Black spirituals, The Gospel According to St. Matthew cuts past dogma and straight to the core of Jesus’ radical humanism.

While trying to lead a quiet suburban life, a family of undercover superheroes are thrown back into the world of super-heroism when Mr Incredible receives a mysterious communication summoning him to a remote island for a top-secret mission.

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.

One of Disney's most beloved films, The Little Mermaid tells the story of Ariel, a beautiful and spirited young mermaid who longs to find out more about the world beyond the sea. She makes a deal with the evil sea witch, Ursula, which gives her a chance to experience life on land but ultimately places her life, and her father’s crown, in jeopardy.

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.

Like childhood, animation is full of wonder and simple pleasures. This carefully chosen programme for our littlest and most special audience contains 10 of the best, wonderful short animated films, full of joy, from all around the world. There’ll be talking animals, seriously fun adventures and wondrous tales to spark those little imaginations.

This delightful selection of films includes a bouncy song about the unlimited contents of a hippie's bag, a magical ping-pong tournament, peculiar hedgehogs, happy hippos, a fox who can play the most beautiful tunes on a violin and many more charming stories.

For more information about the London International Animation Festival and our programmes please check out our website at https://liaf.org.uk/

Cornershop “What did the Hippie have in his bag?”

Director: Rude, UK, 2011, 4’15

He had be-bop, German jazz, a dragon that was half-Welsh and a massive, massive cake amongst other things.

Magic Cube and Ping Pong

Director: Lei Lei, China, 2009, 4’15

In the city of the Magic Cube there is a ping-pong tournament.

Dunder

Director: Endre Skandfer, Norway, 2016, 10’00

Bulder, a wild and funny monster, is playing with his best friend Modika. Their snowball fight is interrupted when quiet Lex invites Modika to study snowflakes.

The Adventure Of The Afternoon

Director: Vance Yang, Stella Huang, Taiwan, 7’45, 2016

One beautiful afternoon, a little boy meets an unexpected friend, with whom he starts an adventurous journey.

The Kid And The Hedgehog

Director: Marc Riba, Anna Solanas, Spain, 3’00, 2016

A kid is climbing a hill. On the hill he’s about to meet a very peculiar hedgehog.

Spider Web or The Gossamer

Director: Natalia Chernysheva, Russia, 4’05, 2016

A mutual friendship is weaved when a small spider finds inspiration in a woman's knitting patterns.

Hippo and Juice

Director: Alexey Minchenok, Russia, 2’30, 2015

Hippo works as an airline pilot and he lives in a comfortable little house, where his refrigerator is always stocked with a blueberry pie and a jug full of juice.

The Fox Who Could Play the Violin

Director: Natalya Nilova, Russia, 10’50, 2015

The fox can play the violin really well – and the other woodland animals start to take notice.

Tekkol

Director: Jorn Leeuwerink, Netherlands, 2017, 2’00

A dog decides to help a hen and her chicks in crossing the river, but then he lets all kinds of animals walk all over him.

The Birdie

Director: Yekaterina Filippova, Russia, 2’00, 2015

Once upon a time the birdie met a hippo. They became friends and built a lovely house together.

Murky Papers

Director: Heta Jokinen, Finland, 2011, 8’00

A woman is reading but her cutout paper is determined to have its own way.

Hu Lulu, Hong longlong, Hua lala

Director: Lei Lei, China, 2010, 5’35

A small village is disrupted by heavy rain which threatens to disrupt the people’s peaceful lives.

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.

The Lost Weekend plays as part of our Members' Summer Selection season, and was proposed by Ben Whitehead, who writes, 'Reasons: 1. I’m continually discovering the genius of Billy Wilder, 2. I haven’t seen this one, 3. In 2011, The Lost Weekend was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry!'

Writer Don Birnam (Ray Milland) is on the wagon. Sober for only a few days, Don is supposed to be spending the weekend with his brother, Wick (Phillip Terry), but, eager for a drink, Don convinces his girlfriend (Jane Wyman) to take Wick to a show. Don, meanwhile, heads to his local bar and misses the train out of town. After recounting to the bartender (Howard da Silva) how he developed a drinking problem, Don goes on a weekend-long bender that just might prove to be his last.

Identical twins Annie and Hallie are separated at birth after their parents' divorce. Unknowingly to their parents, the girls are sent to the same summer camp where they meet, discover the truth about themselves, and then plot with each other to switch places and bring their wayward parents back together.

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.

In a bid to secure his family’s legacy, an international tycoon brings his nun-daughter into his most daring scheme yet in this tale of espionage and intrigue from legendary filmmaker Wes Anderson.

The Garden Cinema View:

With pastel colours, deadpan humour, and an all-star cast playing it with typical emotional detachment, The Phoenician Scheme feels like Anderson has (once again) made a pastiche of Wes Anderson. Unlike Asteroid City though, Anderson's latest offering makes no pretence of exploring profound philosophical themes. Instead, he uses the redemption story of business tycoon Zsa-zsa Korda (played with deadpan gusto by Benicio Del Toro) as an excuse to unleash his remarkable comedic instincts and showcase his artistic prowess.

Featuring cartoonish airplanes drifting alongside puffy clouds, harmless crashes, and grenades that never detonate, the film evokes the aesthetics of animation more than any of his previous works. With a parade of cameo appearances (Bryan Cranston, Tom Hanks, Benedict Cumberbatch, Scarlett Johansson) dressed in outrageously funny costumes and delivering absurd lines with impeccable timing, together with finely tuned, sharp camera movements, the film provides a highly entertaining viewing experience.

There are seeds of larger concepts such as corruption, hubris, and redemption, but Anderson doesn't seem eager to develop these ideas further. Nevertheless, the level of craftsmanship is exceptionally high, and it's clear that Anderson had a blast making it!

In the remote Irish woods, Cellach (Brendan Gleeson) prepares a fortress for an impending attack by a Viking war party. Unbeknown to Cellach, his young nephew Brendan (Evan McGuire) -- who has no taste for battle -- works secretly as an apprentice in the scriptorium of the local monastery, learning the ancient art of calligraphy. As the Vikings approach, revered illuminator Aidan (Mick Lally) arrives at the monastery and recruits Brendan to complete a series of dangerous, magical tasks

Into Film age recommendation: 7+

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

Karsh, a creative entrepreneur who lost his spouse, develops a machine designed to communicate with deceased individuals.

The Garden Cinema View:

You'll likely know within a few minutes whether The Shrouds is to your taste. That is to say whether you can tune into Cronenberg's peculiar register of tone and dialogue that evokes both J.G. Ballard and Don DeLillo (two authors that Cronenberg has adapted brilliantly). This is a painfully autobiographical work for Cronenberg, who lost his wife in 2017. His onscreen avatar is an elegant Vincent Cassel, bearing a rather uncanny physical resemblance to the legendary director.

This is certainly a mournful and moving film, but also contains a subversive strain of humour, and a peculiar eroticism (Ballard smiles in his grave). As The Shrouds shifts into a twisty mediation on conspiracy theories (DeLillo nods approvingly), the narrative threatens to collapse. But, perhaps the nature of conspiracy itself means the core of this intelligent, yet corporeal film, inevitably remains something of a mystery.

Select Japan is delighted to bring The Tale of Iya back to London for only the second UK screening. We would like to thank Tsteuichiro Tsuta for his assistance with the screening, as well as Garden Cinema member Edmund Barns for initially suggesting the film. The screening will be briefly introduced by Select Japan curator George Crosthwait.

A tunnel to be built in Iya threatens to disrupt the natural order as an elderly man and his granddaughter Haruna meet a young man from Tokyo, whose life will be changed forever in experiencing their simple, secluded lifestyle.

Ambitious, beautiful and moving, Tetsuichiro Tsuta’s second feature depicts the nobility of co-existing with nature. Drawing inspiration from the films of Kenji Mizoguchi, Shohei Imamura and even Studio Ghibli, The Tale of Iya can itself be seen as a precursor to Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Evil Does Not Exist. Shot on 35mm in the mountains of Tokushima, it captures the changing seasons over the course of a year, creating a dreamlike visual poem that offers viewers a truly cinematic experience.

Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould plays as part of our Members' Summer Selection season. It was proposed by Ryan Gilbey, who writes: 'I don’t know if it’s a rights issue but it’s surprising that this film is so rarely screened. It’s a radical and imaginative approach to the biopic, split into (yes, 32) fragments that cumulatively evoke the life and genius of Glenn Gould – and here’s the radical part – *without ever showing him playing the piano*.'

A rare film biography as boldly unconventional as its subject, writer-director François Girard’s visionary portrait of iconoclastic, world-renowned pianist Glenn Gould explodes the conventions of the form to illuminate the brilliant mind and innermost obsessions of a singular artist. Across thirty-two vignettes encompassing everything from dramatic sketches to documentary interviews to avant-garde animation, Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould pieces together the story of Gould’s trajectory from child prodigy to celebrated concert pianist who turned his back on public performance to pursue his all-consuming fascination with recording technology. Led by a tour-de-force performance by Colm Feore and underscored by Gould’s landmark recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Girard’s film daringly deconstructs the enigma of genius.

Unrestricted View Film Festival presents AIFF’s Best of the Fests.

Join us for ‘Best of the Fests 2025’, a one-night-only showcase bringing together standout short films from across the UK’s indie film festival circuit. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.

This event is brought to you by AIFF (Association of Independent Film Festivals), a group championing transparency, fairness, and equitable treatment for filmmakers, and setting and upholding a charter that ensures member festivals operate with integrity and respect.

Expect bold storytelling and a variety of genres, from the hilarious to the heartfelt.

Featuring:

Where to?, dir. Jill Worsley

PLUNGE, dir. by Ellie Land

Terminal, dir. by Sunny Bahia

Hot Mess, dir. by Tortor Smith

1 Star Review, dir. John Ferrer

Sleepyhead, dir. Millie Garnier

One Night Stand, dir. Jared Vaughn

Benji, dir. Oscar Garth

How to Build a Life, dir. Matthew Reese

Crusts, dir. by India Sleem

Cope, dir. Anthony Sutcliffe

Celebrate the best of this year’s festival circuit, all in one sitting!

Donghwa, a poet in his thirties, drops off Junhee, his girlfriend of three years, at her house and marvels at how large it is. He intends to look around the front yard and then leave, but by chance he runs into Junhee’s father, and ends up spending the entire day with Junhee's family.

From this simple premise Hong Sangsoo crafts a deft and moving exploration of sincerity, familial bonds and the value of a life dedicated to art.

The Garden Cinema View:

The latest (at the time of writing) film from the prolific Hong Sangsoo shuffles his pack of stock characters, actors, and situations to generate something that feels slightly unique, whilst retaining his indelible cinematic flavours. Kwon Hae-hyo is here, moving now into more paternal roles, perhaps reflecting Hong’s experiences of becoming a new father once again. There’s the usual carousel of boozy table scenes that will be so familiar and comforting to fans of the Hong Sangsoo-niverse, and the director’s recent focus on poets is continued. What Does That Nature Say to You is unusual in that Hong’s usual flirtation gameplay is missing. Rather, the ‘meet the parents’ setup leads to power moves and coded seduction with quite different stakes. This is also Hong’s most visually striking film since 2018’s Hotel by the River. Instead of that film's stark monochrome, here Hong seemingly shoots on an old DV camera. The resulting fuzzy look casts a nostalgic, home-video-like veil over the film. Pretty suitable for a trip to your parents house in the mountains in your 1996-model car.  

This film was chosen as Films of Resistance's pick for the Lebanese season, to highlight the way Lebanese and Palestinian communities are interconnected.

This screening will be introduced by Taghrid Choucair-Vizoso, curator from South Lebanon. We will be selling crafts to raise funds for Lebanese and Palestinian cultural centres.

In this award-winning documentary, directors Masri and Chamoun focus on the women who played a crucial role in fighting the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon. Preserving their stories on camera, Wild Flowers: Women of South Lebanon is a poignant documentary about courage, resistance, and hope.

Contemporary films in cinema from the Middle East often find inspiration in the history of the country. As part of this season on New Lebanese Cinema, it was therefore important to include a film which celebrates key players in the history of the Lebanese and Palestinian people and how their fates have been, and continue to be, interconnected.

Wild Flowers: Women of South Lebanon could be considered as a sister act to Heiny Srour's Leila and the Wolves (1984), in the way that Mai Masri gives us an intimate look inside the experiences lived by guerilla groups of Lebanese and Palestinian women in South Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War and Israeli occupation. The result is a gentle yet powerful recollection of the fight and the pain lived by those women, contrasted by scenes of joy, desires and creativity captured with compassion and accuracy by Mai Masri's camera.

Mai Masri is one of the pioneers of Palestinian documentary, with most of her work focusing on the linked histories of Lebanon and Palestine. Her films have been screened internationally and won over 90 awards. She is mostly recognised for her poetic and humanistic approach, centering women and children in her stories. Mai worked closely with her late husband Lebanese filmmaker Jean Chamoun and earned international acclaim with her films, including Children of Fire, Woman for Her Time, Children of Shatila, and Beirut Diaries.

Films of Resistance are a collective offering a decentralised screening and fundraising resource. All funds raised through their screenings are reinvested into Palestinian filmmaking.

At the peak of summer, join us for a seasonally appropriate members' wine & cheese tasting.

Our friend Brooke Davis from Moreno Wines will take us through the best (but surely not last!) of the summer wine, giving you a chance to taste some of the varieties that are currently only sold by the bottle. The tasting will also include a surprise wine, which may or may not be added to our menu, pending your review! Moreno, founded in a tiny shop in Maida Vale, are passionate about wines that have soul, story, and character, and will kindly share a carefully curated selection with us at the tasting.

We're also partnering up with local favourite Soho Dairy again, whose stall can be found over on Berwick Street Market (W1F 0PH). They are not only fiercely independent and community-orientated, but operate by hand, foot and cargo bike, making them virtually zero carbon. Alongside the wines, you will be able to try some of their excellent assortment of prize-winning cheeses, straight from independent UK dairy producers. 

For those who are keen to add a bit of cinematic oomph to the evening, we will be screening a fantastic (albeit slightly disturbing) food-centric film just after the tasting ends: Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. Tickets for the tasting and the screening will need to be booked separately, but a combo discount will automatically apply when adding both to your shopping basket, reducing the film ticket price to just £8.50. 

The tasting will last approximately 2 hours and will include 6 servings of wine, as well as some delectable cheeses and other nibbles. If you have any dietary restrictions, please notify us by emailing membership@thegardencinema.co.uk at least 72 hours in advance, so we can take them into account.

Tickets are available for £25 each. They are restricted to 2 per member, making it the perfect opportunity to introduce a friend to the cinema.

Playing as part of our Members' Summer Selection season, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown was proposed by Renee Francis, who writes, 'The first Pedro Almodovar film I ever saw… now he’s one of my favourite directors. A madcap film focused on the lives of women and the importance of friendship.'

Melding melodrama with screwball farce, this Academy Award–nominated black comedy was Pedro Almodóvar’s international breakthrough and secured his place at the vanguard of modern Spanish cinema. Continuing the auteur’s exploration of the female psyche, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown tells the story of Pepa - played by the director’s frequent collaborator Carmen Maura - who resolves to kill herself with a batch of sleeping-pill-laced gazpacho after her lover leaves her. Fortunately, she is interrupted by a deliciously chaotic series of events. The filmmaker channeled Hollywood inspiration into his own unique vision, arriving at the irreverent humor and vibrant visual sense that define his work today. With an exceptional ensemble cast that also includes Antonio Banderas and Rossy de Palma, this film shows an artist in total control of his craft.

We're also screening Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown at our members' event on Sunday 17 August, which features delicious gazpacho by Barrafina and a film dubbing station. You can book tickets for this here.

Elias (14) feels attracted to his new neighbour Alexander (14). Soon he realizes that he's truly in love for the first time. The interactions with his friends and family bring more questions than answers. Confused by his burgeoning feelings, Elias tries to sort out his inner chaos to prove that he is worth Alexander's heart.