Stanley Kubrick's controversial film triggered copycat violence on its initial release and as a result the director withdrew the film from circulation in Britain, keeping it suppressed right up to his death in 1999. The film follows sadistic punk Alex (Malcolm McDowell) as he takes his gang on a rape and murder spree, showing absolutely no mercy to any of his victims. When he is eventually captured, the authorities subject him to a series of experiments designed to rid him of his violent tendencies.

A Real Pain follows mismatched cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) as they reunite for a tour through Poland to honour their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the odd-couple's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.

Nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Kieran Culkin) at the 2025 Academy Awards.

The Garden Cinema View:

For better or for worse, Jesse Eisenberg resurrects a kind of Noughties indie sensibility for a very personal work that is both funnier than it’s heavy premise, and strives for meaning beyond the broadly drawn comic characters. The loose tone and breezy pace make A Real Pain a very watchable film. Whether the themes of historical atrocity and personal suffering can ever truly gel is another question.

The film was proposed by our member Maggie Crowe who writes: 'This highly stylised 2009 film directed by Tom Ford is a classic movie about love, loss and grieving. Based on the 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood it’s easy to forget how being gay was so taboo then. Colin Firth is simply wonderful in this film.'

George (Colin Firth) is a college professor who recently lost his lover, Jim, in a car accident. Terribly grief-stricken, George plans to commit suicide. As he goes about his daily routine and puts his affairs in order, his encounters with colleagues, students and an old friend (Julianne Moore) lead him to make a final decision as to whether life is worth living without Jim.

Our screening on 16 January was be introduced by writer and filmmaker Adam Scovell.

Based on Ronald Blythe’s much-loved oral history book, Akenfield traces three generations of one Suffolk family and their lives in the farming industry, with director Peter Hall – known for his theatre direction - using to great effect a cast non-professional actors drawn from the communities of several Suffolk villages.

With all three generations grandfather, father and son performed by the same actor (local farmer Garrow Shand), the film paints a compelling picture of a traditional way of life facing a period of great change, brought about by the industrialisation of the twentieth century. A profoundly romantic work of sublime poetic realism, Akenfield boasts a sweeping, rhapsodic orchestral score composed by Michael Tippett (Fantasia Concertante on a theme by Corelli) that resonates with the film’s beautiful Impressionistic cinematography, which captures seasonal changes as the film was shot on weekends only across nine months.

boiled blue, blue fried present the first UK public screening of All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, directed by raven jackson produced by A24.

Transported to somewhere along the Mississippi, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is a gentle bending of time, and a meditation through sound and cinema. The film follows the grief, love, and rituals of Mack. Submerging into water from the first shot, the viewer is left still and enchanted on the other side of this unfolding fictional daydream. This film feels like an ode to those whose lives and stories start at the river.

Bonds we forge through blood and secrets do not have to be linear and over explained, and love rarely needs to be expressed verbally, but rather is evoked by colour and cinematography throughout this debut. An epic doused in realness that allows and projects the vitality of our imaginations and our ability to dream.

In our world where atrocities compound our day to day, we believe that the stories we are told in this film are required and responsibly fabled. We believe this movie embodies the saying that 'those who can't hear, must feel.'

boiled blue, blue fried are two film loving poets, trying something new.

Nominated for Best Film Not in the English Language at the 2025 BAFTAs.

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

The Garden Cinema View:

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

All We Imagine as Light is an excellent character study of three women from different generations facing distinct challenges. The gradual unfolding of their friendship bond is masterfully depicted. Equally prominent is the city of Mumbai, in all its chaotic and sensual energy. Though the film explores the city's class inequalities and aggressive gentrification, it never falls into kitchen-sink drama clichés, and retains a dreamlike, poetic quality. The excellent soundtrack by R&B Kolkata artist Topshe also amplifies the city's seductive atmosphere.

All We Imagine as Light is cinema at its best. Rather than heavily relying on one cinematic element, Kapadia skilfully combines image, sound, and performance to convey meaning beyond words. In this sense, this is the closest film to visual poetry we have seen recently.

Synopsis:

The Alps is a secret society including a nurse, a gym coach, a gymnast and a paramedic. They offer a unique service: the recently bereaved can hire them to act as surrogates for the deceased loved ones - wearing their clothes, adopting their mannerisms, etc. - in order to help them adjust to their loss.

'Both a companion piece to and in many ways a reversal of Dogtooth, Alps finds Lanthimos building on that film’s surreally terse style and notions of communication and identity without diluting its singularity or concentration. Working with cinematographer Christos Voudouris, he composes his images (with characters frequently decapitated by off-center framing or liquefied into out-of-focus background forms) to conjure up an atmosphere of dread that hangs over even the most deceptively tranquil scenes. By swathing every relationship in layers of hierarchical pretense and distortion, Lanthimos envisions social order itself as a continuous performance, an existential variation of Shakespeare’s dictum about the human race as players on the world’s stage. For him, the roles people assign each other can weigh as much as the stone masks of ancient Greek theater.' - Fernando F. Croce, Slant

The screening on Sunday 13 April will be followed by an in-person or Zoom Q&A with director Sophia Exarhou.

It will be introduced by film critic Savina Petkova.

Synopsis:

Under the hot Greek sun, the animators at an all-inclusive island resort prepare for the busy touristic season. Kalia is the group leader. As summer intensifies and the work pressure builds up, their nights become violent and Kalia's struggle is revealed in the darkness. But when the spotlights turn on again, the show must go on.

Curator's note:

The program concludes with Animal (2023) by Sophia Exarchou, which offers the non-Instagrammable aspect of Greek summer by focusing on the working conditions of entertainment labour in tourist resorts. Filmed with a handheld camera, the viewer can almost smell the cigarettes and alcohol seeping from the screen - an experience in stark contrast to the meticulously composed cinema of Tsangari and Lanthimos.

Savina Petkova is a Bulgarian film critic and programmer based in London, UK with a PhD in Film Studies (King's College London) and a Film Studies Master's Degree (UCL). As a critic and journalist, she has written for Cineuropa, Variety, Sight and Sound, MUBI Notebook, Little White Lies, and many others. Since 2024, she has served as the Programming Panel Lead (features) at the Cambridge Film Festival and as a Features Programmer at the Sofia International Film Festival.  Savina mentors young critics in one of the European Workshops for Film Criticism, being an alumna of Berlinale (2020) and Sarajevo (2020) Talents Press, as well as the Locarno Critics Academy (2023).

The screening on Sunday 9 March the screening will be introduced by Savina Petkova.

Synopsis:

Marina, an emotionally stunted 23-year-old, lives with her dying architect father in a seaside factory town. Finding humans strange and repellent, she keeps her distance, watching David Attenborough nature documentaries instead. Then a stranger arrives and challenges her to a foosball duel.

Curator's note:

In 2009, as the financial crisis broke and Grexit fears loomed, the Greek film industry was rocked by two cinematic grenades. First came Dogtooth (2009), by Yorgos Lanthimos, followed by Attenberg (2010) from emerging director Athina Rachel Tsangkari. Tsangari and Lanthimos reimagined Greece through an unconventional lens, deploying a cool gaze and a deadpan sense of humor that sharply diverged from traditional depictions of Zorba-esque mediterranean exuberance.

Savina Petkova is a Bulgarian film critic and programmer based in London, UK with a PhD in Film Studies (King's College London) and a Film Studies Master's Degree (UCL). As a critic and journalist, she has written for Cineuropa, Variety, Sight and Sound, MUBI Notebook, Little White Lies, and many others. Since 2024, she has served as the Programming Panel Lead (features) at the Cambridge Film Festival and as a Features Programmer at the Sofia International Film Festival.  Savina mentors young critics in one of the European Workshops for Film Criticism, being an alumna of Berlinale (2020) and Sarajevo (2020) Talents Press, as well as the Locarno Critics Academy (2023).

A high-powered CEO (Nicole Kidman) puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much-younger intern (Harris Dickinson).

This film contains flashing images which may affect viewers who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy.

The Garden Cinema View:

Babygirl is a radical exploration of a woman’s desire through a distinctly female gaze, highlighting how rare such perspectives remain. Even in the most heated erotic moments, writer/director Halina Reijn's camera focuses on Ronny (Nicole Kidman) rather than her gorgeous young lover (Harris Dickinson), who - despite being a fully-fledged character - serves primarily as a conduit for her complex desires.

The film subverts expectations on multiple fronts. While drawing inspiration from classic sexual psychodramas like 9 1⁄2 Weeks, Secretary, and Fatal Attraction, it showcases a fresh take on power dynamics - the young intern dominates while the CEO submits - to create a compelling narrative. It  also avoids tired psychoanalytical tropes by neither over-explaining nor pathologising the couple's intense sexual chemistry, without sacrificing character depth.

Although it's now somewhat clichéd to say that Nicole Kidman delivers a brave, vulnerable performance in Babygirl, it is undeniable. Harris Dickinson stands his ground, giving a truly excellent performance that delicately balances assertiveness, insecurity, humour, and awkwardness.

Our screening on 20 February will be introduced by novelist and publisher Nicholas Royle, and will be followed by a post-film discussion in the cinema bar.

Bad Timing bookended a decade of extraordinary creativity for Nicolas Roeg that includes Performance, Walkabout, Don’t Look Now, and The Man Who Fell to Earth. In these films, Roeg experimented with montage and sound to explore aspects of identity, memory, trauma, sex and time. Bad Timing represents, perhaps, the purest exhibition of Roeg’s unique style, and thematic concerns.

The film is structured around two intercut timelines. The first unfolds in the present, and concerns the suicide attempt of a young women named Milena (Theresa Russell) and the subsequent investigation into her psychology teaching ex-boyfriend Alex (Art Garfunkel) by police Inspector Netusil (Harvey Keitel). The second timeline presents a series of roughly chronological scenes depicting the meeting between Milena and Alex, and the subsequent rise and fall of their relationship.

Decried (accurately) as 'a sick film made by sick people for sick people' by its own distributor, Rank, Bad Timing is an abrasive and pessimistic examination of sexuality; an erotic film that is curiously unsensual - in part due to Garfunkel's anti-charismatic performance. It is also, nonetheless, a stylistic tour de force, full of rich symbolic detail and playful combinations of sound/music and imagery.  

Content warning: contains a scene of graphic rape.

Bar Shorts presents a programme of films curated by the dynamic duo of Scottish animation - Will Anderson and Ainslie Henderson. Working together since they were students at Edinburgh College of Art in the early 2010s, their films have been described as 'inventive', 'emotional', 'hilarious' and 'fundamentally entertaining'. And they've won a bucket load of awards - BAFTAs, BAAs, MacLaren Awards to name but a few. Whether working together or individually, we think they're two of the most influential people working in UK film and animation today and we're hugely proud to have them at Bar Shorts. And they're dead funny.  

Will and Ainslie will be in conversation with Chris Shepherd after the screening.

The full programme will be confirmed shortly. It will include a selection of Will and Ainslie's award winning films and new work. And films that have influenced them:

Monkey Love Experiments

Shackle

Non-Fungible Therapy

One Little Thing

Skhizein by Jeremy Clapin

End Scene by Steffen Gebjerg

Brother by Adam Elliot

Mound by Alison Shulnik

Nuggets by Andreas Hykade

More to be confirmed soon

The Garden Cinema is partnering with Arena to present a series of documentaries about the world’s greatest artists and musicians, as captured by exceptional film-makers.

On Sunday, 9 February, we will screen two documentaries shown on BBC’s Arena about Ingmar Bergman, directed by Marie Nyreröd, who will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screenings.

Bergman and the Cinema (2007)

Ingmar Bergman, one of the world's most important and influential filmmakers, pays one final visit to Filmstaden, where many of his films were made.

Bergman and Fårö Island (2007)

Bergman discusses his career from his home on the desolate and mysterious Baltic island of Fårö. He talks about the childhood that shaped him, of how the art of film was often a comfort to him, of love and death, and of his worst demons.

Marie Nyreröd has worked at Sveriges Television, SVT, for forty years. She has been active as a reporter, director, editor, and producer. Marie interviewed Ingmar Bergman for the first time in 1983. After many years of conversations, persuasion, and planning, in 2002 she received permission to visit him at his home on Fårö, something no other journalist had been allowed to do. Thirty hours of filmed interviews and conversations were cut together in 2004 into three documentaries: Bergman and the Cinema, Bergman and the Theatre, and Bergman and Fårö Island.

Arena:

Described by Martin Scorsese as 'home to some of the greatest non-fiction film making of the last 40 years', Arena is the world's longest running arts documentary strand. Arena is dedicated to arts and culture high and low, from Visconti to Hip Hop, from Dylan and The Beatles to Nelson Mandela.

In 2000, Arena was given the Special Medallion at the Telluride Film Festival for its contribution to 'cutting edge film making'. It was there that Werner Herzog, a fellow medallion recipient, declared Arena to be 'the oasis in the sea of insanity that is television.' In 2019, Arena was given the Mel Novikoff Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival for its 'contribution to cinema'. Other awards include nine BAFTAS and twenty five nominations, six Royal Television Society awards, Primetime and International Emmys, the Peabody, the Prix Italia, and numerous honours from all over the globe.

Join us this Valentine's day for a special screening of romantic classic Moonstruck, which was proposed by our member Kirsty. The screening will be preceded by a cosy La bohème-scored cocktail hour, and tickets will include a 'Cher-ry cocktail' to set the mood.

Event timings:

18:45 - 19:45  'Cher-ry cocktail' hour

19:45 - 21:35  Screening of Moonstruck

The cocktail will be available in both an alcoholic and non-alcoholic version, and was created in collaboration with our friends at Luxardo, who are providing their Sour Cherry Gin and iconic Maraschino Cocktail Cherries for the occasion.

£16.50 tickets are available now and are limited to 2 per member, meaning you can bring a date or mate, even if they're not a member. A complimentary cocktail (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) will be included, and seating for the screening will be unallocated.

About the film:

A full moon, a New York City night, and love and music in the air... One of the most enchanting romantic comedies of all time assembles a flawless ensemble cast for a tender and boisterously funny look at a multigenerational Italian American family in Brooklyn, wrestling with the complexities of love and marriage at every stage of life. At the centre of it all is a radiant Cher as Loretta, an unlucky-in-love bookkeeper whose feelings about her engagement to the staid Johnny (Danny Aiello) are thrown into question after she meets his hot-blooded brother, Ronny (Nicolas Cage), and one night at the opera changes everything. Winner of the Academy Awards for best actress (Cher), supporting actress (Olympia Dukakis), and original screenplay (by playwright John Patrick Shanley), this modern-day fairy tale is swept along on passionate Puccini melodies, and directed by master storyteller Norman Jewison with the heightened emotion to match.

To launch our Greek Contemporary Cinema season in style, we're thrilled to be partnering up with our friends & neighbours at The Life Goddess, just a short walk away on Store Street. For the occasion, they will be providing a sampler platter of their most delicious & authentic Greek treats, as well as a fantastic glass of wine - all included in your ticket. You'll have the chance to mingle with fellow members over these nibbles, and to purchase some of their excellent deli products in the pop-up shop in our bar area.

After this, we'll head into the screen for Alps, Yorgos Lanthimos' second and last Greek-language feature, that solidified his reputation as an auteur with a unique, absurdist vision, for which he is now globally known. 

The film will be followed by a panel discussion, with Dr Tonia Kazakopoulou, Dr Eleftheria Rania Kosmidou, Dr Eddie Falvey, and season curator Erifili Missiou. They will dive into Lanthimos' work and the development of Greek cinema since the turn of the century.

Event timings:

15:00 - 16:30  Greek wine, nibbles & pop-up shopping

16:30 - 16:40  Introduction by season programmer Erifili Missiou

16:40 - 18:15  Screening of Alps

18:15 - 19:00  Panel discussion

Tickets are available for £18.50, which includes a glass of Greek wine, a sampler plate, and an unallocated seat for the screening and panel discussion. They are restricted to 2 per member, meaning you can bring a friend along and introduce them to the cinema.

Important info:

The team behind The Life Goddess will provide a variety of tasty nibbles, all of which are suitable for vegetarians. If you have any dietary restrictions or allergies, please notify us by emailing membership@thegardencinema.co.uk at least 72 hours in advance, so we can try to cater for them. Although we will do our best, we may not be able to provide substitutes for certain dishes.

About the film:

The Alps is a secret society including a nurse, a gym coach, a gymnast and a paramedic. They offer a unique service: the recently bereaved can hire them to act as surrogates for the deceased loved ones - wearing their clothes, adopting their mannerisms, etc. - in order to help them adjust to their loss.

About the panellists:

Dr Tonia Kazakopoulou is a Lecturer in Film & Television at the University of Reading. Her research interests include women's cinema of small nations, and particularly of Greece; contemporary European and world cinemas; the politics of representation in film and television. She has been the curator of the international standing conference Contemporary Greek Film Cultures, and she has also published on women's cinema, on Greek women screenwriters, on contemporary Greek cinema and motherhood, as well as on the female characters in Yorgos Lanthimos' films.

Dr Eleftheria Rania Kosmidou is a Lecturer in Film Production at the University of Salford. In her work Rania studies European civil war films, cultural memory, Brechtian cinema and cinematic modernisms, the cinema of Theo Angelopoulos and contemporary Greek cinema. She has published on the above subjects in journals, edited collections and in her monograph European Civil War Films: Memory, Conflict and Nostalgia (Routledge 2013; 2016). Her most recent work (Routledge, in production) is a book on intangible cultural heritage. She is currently writing her second monograph on Yorgos Lanthimos’s films, and editing a special journal issue on film and realisms.

Dr Eddie Falvey is an independent film scholar. He completed his AHRC-funded PhD in Film Studies at University of Exeter in 2018 and his work mostly focuses on industrial film histories and the diversities of cult cinema. He is author of Re-Animator (2021) and New York on Early Films: The Archive and the City (forthcoming), as well as editor of ReFocus: The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn (with Kate Moffat and Thomas Joseph Watson, forthcoming), The Cinema of Yorgos Lanthimos: Films, Form, Philosophy (2022), and New Blood: Critical Approaches to Contemporary Horror (with Joe Hickinbottom and Jonathan Wroot, 2020).

Erifili Missiou is a writer/ director from Greece, with extensive professional experience in Film and Fine Arts. She currently serves as Head Programmer at The Garden Cinema and Artistic Director of EFN Short Film Festival. She is the curator of Women Aren't Funny, Who is Luis Buñuel, Ealing Comedies, Contemporary Greek Cinema and Queer Cinema at The Garden Cinema. She has a track record of curating disability-focused film programs that promote inclusivity and accessibility and facilitating events tailored to the needs of neurodivergent, Deaf, and hard-of-hearing communities.

About The Life Goddess:

The Life Goddess, greek deli divine, is a genuine cuisine project aiming to become a reference of new hellenic kitchen to the world. The cooking philosophy is based on a rustic tradition, so unrefined and simple that is deeply friendly and relaxing. The journey of the senses starts from mother-earth and finishes at a feast on a table where all the family, friends and companions share the same nourishment and enjoy the sublime result of their efforts. For Greeks preparing a meal for someone is the ultimate token of respect, gratitude, friendship and love. Our philosophy is that good quality sustenance is the epitome of a healthy and happy life!

Synopsis:

A father and a son long lost. Love and hate. Digging deep into mud to find their roots. Revenge and Redemption. A Western, revisited.

Curator's note:

Digger (2020), produced by Rachel Athina Tsangari, is another brilliant tragicomedy, set in the stunningly pictured damp woodlands of Northern Greece. Reminiscent of Rodrigo Sorogoyen's The Beasts, though distinctly its own film, conflict is at its core: between nature and machine, local community and so-called progress, and a father and his long-estranged son.

The first-ever feature documentary on acclaimed London-born artist Chris Gollon (1953 - 2017), Life in Paint explores his pioneering use of music to create new imagery; from lyrics by Bob Dylan, Neil Young or Talk Talk, to direct collaborations with musicians such as Yi Yao, Eleanor McEvoy and Thurston Moore, who has hailed Gollon’s “creative and modest genius”.

A sensitive and innovative painter of women, Gollon also expressed a powerful common humanity via his androgynous figures, and there has been a surge of interest in his work since his untimely death just seven years ago. Via found footage and BBC clips, the film shows Gollon disarmingly revealing his creative process and innovative techniques. Moving montages of Gollon’s images, combined with music by artists including The Skids, Gavin Bryars, Sleaford Mods, Yi Yao and Eleanor McEvoy, provide insights into how Gollon fused the two art forms, and how each energised and changed the other.

The film will be followed by a Q&A with the film's director Mark Calderbank.

Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie mesmerise as a British married couple on an extended trip to Venice following a family tragedy. While in that elegantly decaying city, they have a series of inexplicable, terrifying, and increasingly dangerous experiences. A masterpiece from Nicolas Roeg, Don’t Look Now, adapted from a story by Daphne du Maurier, is a brilliantly disturbing tale of the supernatural, as renowned for its innovative editing and haunting cinematography as for its naturalistic eroticism and its unforgettable climax and denouement.

Cinema Mentiré present a selection of shorts from the BOMBA  Animada Collective in Bolivia. The shorts are in Spanish with English subtitles.

A collection of shorts by BOMBA Animada, a Bolivian animation studio showcasing female animators’ work. Created in 2023 to make their work visible, BOMBA seeks to develop alliances inside and outside Bolivia to strengthen the voices of both individuals and as part of a united group. Their diverse techniques range from stop motion and drawing to pixelling and digital animation. Their films often reflect their cultural identity, folk stories, and imaginative storytelling. Their members organise workshops, talks, and screenings, also offering fundraising guidance and financial support. They share their experience to inspire and demonstrate to Bolivian women that making a career in animation in the country is possible.

This screening is part of Cinema Mentiré's season of recent Bolivian films in partnership with The Garden Cinema - Echoes and Horizons: Contemporary Bolivian Cinema.

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

Films:

AJLLA UMILLA, dir. Alexandra Ramirez, 2min.

DUBICEL, dir. Yashira Jordán, 12min.

THE JIPIJAPA WEAVERS | LAS TEJEDORAS DE JIPIJAPA, dir. Clara Chacón, 4min.

GRAVITY | GRAVEDAD, dir. Matisse Gonzalez, 10min.

CHILLINA, dir. Andy Garnica, 2min.

PASKAY, dir. Andrea Estéfany Caballero, 14min.

THE TUNNEL AND THE COB | EL TÚNEL Y LA MAZORCA, dir. Alexandra Ramirez, 2min.

WATERSHED TALES | CUENTOS DE LA CUENCA, dir. Andy Garnica, 7min.

Cinema Mentiré presents the UK premiere of Chaco.

Set in 1934, during the Chaco War fought between Bolivia and Paraguay, this spare historical drama follows a small regiment made up of Aymara and Quechua Indigenous soldiers commanded by a retired, gruff German officer fighting for the Bolivian Army. The troop is in a limbo, looking fruitlessly for the enemy, and wandering through the hostile, semi-arid lowlands in extreme weather. Isolation, despair and hunger grow with every day, every hellish march and hastily erected camp. Pitched somewhere between the bone-dry absurdism of Lucrecia Martel’s Zama and the minimalist drone of Lisandro Alonso’s Los muertos, and inspired by the experiences of his grandfather, director Diego Mondaca’s debut feature is a powerful meditation on the futility and absurdity of war.

The screening will be introduced by the Cinema Mentiré team.

This film is part of Cinema Mentiré's season of recent Bolivian films in partnership with The Garden Cinema - Echoes and Horizons: Contemporary Bolivian Cinema.

Cinema Mentiré presents the UK premiere of Puerto Escondido.

In 1879, Bolivia lost its access to the sea in a war. When the director Gabriela Paz was a child, she did not understand how Bolivia had lost the sea – she thought the Chileans had taken it in buckets, but at the end of the day, they felt lazy and left a piece, which is nowadays Lake Titicaca. Puerto Escondido is a travel itinerary towards interior landscapes, myths, characters and contradictions in a country that every day remembers this loss. It is also a kind of letter to a sibling country, offering a current perspective on the aftermath of the Pacific War and how it was experienced in private and public spaces, mixing family archives and official sources. In this film, many extraordinary, peculiar stories will not go unnoticed and reflect Bolivia’s insatiable thirst for the sea.

The screening will be introduced by film researcher Laís Lorenço (University of Campinas - UNICAMP, Brazil & University College London - UCL, UK).

This film is part of Cinema Mentiré's season of recent Bolivian films in partnership with The Garden Cinema - Echoes and Horizons: Contemporary Bolivian Cinema.

The Fashion Film Club in collaboration with Doc'n Roll Film Festival are delighted to present a screening of Pauline Black: A 2 Tone Story, followed by a Q&A with Pauline and director Jane Mingay.

Pauline Black, lead singer of 2-Tone hit band The Selecter, tells her extraordinary life story in the same frank manner that helped shape her as an iconic, era-defining female musician. Pauline had a difficult upbringing and joining the 2-Tone music movement in 1979 was the perfect catalyst; enabling her to explore and express all sides of herself.

Looking back at her own ground-breaking experience in this feature documentary, Pauline traces how her legacy came about and how it is relevant to the world today, especially where society pushes the boundaries of gender, politics, race and identity.

Pauline, of mixed Nigerian and Jewish heritage, was adopted into a white family in Essex in the 50’s. Her upbringing was defined by casual racism from within her own family. Pauline went on to find her own identity in the Coventry 2-Tone music scene and The Selecter was a reflection of working-class life in Thatcher's Britain, their music as social reportage and with an ethos of anti-racism and anti-sexism.

This is a cinematic and visceral documentary mixing intimate actuality, archive and interviews and a storming soundtrack. Contributors include Arthur ‘Gaps’ Hendrickson, Don Letts, Skin, Damon Albarn, Rhoda Dakar, Lynval Golding, Mykaell Riley, Sonia Boyce and Jools Holland.

The annual London Mountain Film Festival collection of shorter films to amaze, enlighten, surprise and inspire you! There really is something for everyone in this collection, so if your interest in adventure reaches far and wide then this is for you. Buckle up!

Many Small Steps 3’ (Rob Waugh) A young boy's passion for nature leads him to conquer his first Munro, offering a heartwarming metaphor for life's challenges and triumphs.

Eliot Jackson - Drop The Mic 2’ (Scott Secco) A thrilling ride with Eliot Jackson, a mountain biking legend with hidden superpowers.

Concrete Summer 14’ (Jacob Watson) We follow Robbo as he tries to reignite the fixed-gear scene in Liverpool, showing the sweeter side of the illegal sport of alleycat racing.

Wild Aerial 16’ (Trixie Pacis) Blending techniques from the disparate worlds of mountaineering and acrobatics, adventure aerialist Sasha Galitzki performs gravity-defying routines in subzero temperatures.

The Smoke That Thunders 4’ (Caleb Roberts) Brave the untamed Zambezi with Ben Marr as he battles upstream to conquer the legendary Minus rapids.

Tether 12’ (Laura Basil Duncan) From skateparks to sheep pastures, UK skateboarder Lois Pendlebury navigates an unplanned transition to shepherding.

Unplugged 4’ (Samuel McMahon) Liam Rivera carves through untouched snow in a breathtaking black-and-white free-ride film with only the mountains' ambient sounds.

The Road to No Man’s Land 7’ (Solomon Olsen) Will's quest for freedom leads him into the Sahara's heart, where a deteriorating motorbike tests his limits.

Defensoras 4’ (Eilidh Munro, Bethan John) A defiant and resilient collective of Bolivian indigenous female defenders risk their lives standing up to power.

My Wilderness 4’ (Rupert Shanks, Ana Norrie-Toch) Ana's passion for Scotland's wild terrains shapes her art, blending bikepacking and choreography.

Salt 12’ (Alice Ward) Unusually salty at birth, Alice is diagnosed for Cystic Fibrosis before becoming the first woman in Ireland to shoot surf films in water from a female perspective.

Travelling Home 5’ (Juliet Klottrup) A retired farrier’s heartfelt annual pilgrimage to the Appleby Horse Fair, capturing the essence of tradition and community in Cumbria.

Wolf of Wingsuit 4’ (Aaron Garcia) The beautiful and towering mountains of Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland - an off-season paradise for Wingsuit professionals.

(This programme may change)

Housewife Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is not happy. She is agoraphobic, a hypochondriac, and paranoid about animals, birds, insects, plants, and flowers. She is confrontational with everyone, especially her plumber husband Curtley and her unemployed son Moses, whom she thinks is wasting his life. Her sister Chantelle (Michele Austin) runs a thriving hair salon. A single mum, she enjoys life, and lives harmoniously with her daughters Kayla, who works in cosmetics, and Aleisha, a trainee lawyer.

Leigh’s new film explores family relationships in the post-pandemic world. After over a decade spent making his two epic period films Mr. Turner and Peterloo, Mike Leigh returns to his ongoing exploration of the contemporary world with this tragi-comic study of human strengths and weaknesses.

The Garden Cinema View:

Mike Leigh’s return to contemporary social drama is a late career triumph, and one of the best British films of recent years. The cast, led by an astonishing performance from Marianne Jean-Baptiste, have emerged from Leigh’s improvisational workshop process with deeply authentic characters. This tactile sense of realism opens up the film into extremely funny, and also difficult and emotional spheres. Cinematography from the late, great, Dick Pope presents a flat and sterile North London. Such high-key lighting also serves to bring out the skin tone contrasts in the predominantly British-Caribbean cast.

There is a tender approach to even the most difficult of characters that feels particular to Leigh, and Hard Truths reminds us of his unique talents in chronicling British lives.  

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Adriana Brownlee

DREAM AGAIN with Adriana Brownlee

Directed by Mathis Decroux

Adriana Brownlee is the youngest woman to climb all 14 of the world's tallest mountains that are over 8,000m high. The 23-year-old British mountaineer made history with her achievement. In this film she faces the formidable challenges of Gasherbrum I and Gasherbrum II. These two peaks, her 10th and 11th summits, mark her final climbs in Pakistan on this extraordinary journey.

In this phase, Adriana evolves her climbing style by striving for minimal assistance and forgoing supplemental oxygen, climbing alongside her trusted partner, Geljen Sherpa. This not only brings her incredible encounters, powerful emotions and painful moments, but it also opens her eyes on the 8000 industry.

This story is about more than reaching summits. It’s about a young woman chasing her dreams, rediscovering the joy and wonder of her childhood passion, and inspiring others to pursue their own aspirations. Adriana’s journey captures the essence of resilience, the power of dreaming big, and the drive to push beyond limits in pursuit of something extraordinary.

EVEREST REVISITED 1924-2024

Directed by John Porter and Dom Bush

Everest Revisited 1924-2024 explores the characters on the 1924 expeditions, both the British and those they hired to support the expedition - Sherpa, Bhotia and Tibetans. It uses extensive historical film and photographic material as well as interviews with Everest scholars and mountaineers. Moving from the past to the present, the film asks: What the mountain means to climbers and Nepalis 100 years on from this famous expedition that lost a Bhotia, a Ghurkha and of course Mallory and Irvine on the mountain.

Julie Summers, the great niece of Sandy Irvine and mountaineer Matt Sharman seek insights from many well-known climbers including Sir Chris Bonington, Rebecca Stephens, Krish Thapa, Stephen Venables, Dawson Stelfox and Leo Houlding. Observations on historical and social impacts are provided by Dr. Jonathan Westway and Ed Douglas, while Dr. Melanie Windridge talks about the beginnings of the science of Everest.

As The Garden Cinema members community is not just made up of cinema enthusiasts, but also covers a large range of film creatives, we like to help connect our members working across all departments of the industry.

For our regular industry panels, we invite knowledgeable speakers to discuss their specific branch of the industry, leaving plenty of time for asking questions. After the discussion, we all head into the Garden Bar, to network with fellow members.

On Monday 17 February we will be joined by editors Kate Miller and Dan Noall, who will discuss their experiences and approaches to editing trailers, and their role within the promotional campaigns of both film and tv productions, as well as curated cinema programmes.

Tickets are restricted to 1 per member, and available for just £5, which includes a token for a complimentary house wine, beer or soft/hot drink.

About the speakers:

Kate Miller

Kate Miller is a London based Film Editor and Musician. Over the past decade Kate has worked both freelance and in-house composing and more recently editing. She is currently working in-house at Silk Factory, a specialist entertainment marketing agency. Kate edits trailers for Film, TV and branded content.

Kate Miller is a Central Saint Martins Alumni with a degree in Fine Art. She works for both independent film makers and produces works in-house for clients such as Disney, HBO, BFI and Netflix.

LinkedIn

Dan Noall

Dan Noall is a trailer editor based in London, and has worked on campaigns for Curzon, BFI, Dogwoof, Park Circus and Picturehouse, among others. His trailers strive to capture the unique qualities of each release in the most creative way possible. His love of classic film has lead him to specialise in re-release and film season trailers, most recently for Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles and the accompanying Chantal Akerman season at BFI Southbank. In 2024 he set up Fade Out, a boutique trailer agency specialising in independent, art-house and classic film.

Website | Instagram

Check out our Youtube channel for videos of our previous industry panels, which have included:

• Screenwriting, with Luna Carmoon (Hoard) and Daniel Kokotajlo (Starve Acre)
• Casting, with Rebecca Wright (Chuck Chuck Baby) and Lucy Jordan (Kinds of Kindness, Poor Things)
• Animation, with Michaël Dudok de Wit (The Red Turtle) and Alexandra Sasha Balan (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse)
• Cinematography, with Evelin van Rei (Passenger), Bebe Dierken (Midas Man) and Nanu Segal (Hoard)
• Costume, with Joanna Johnston (Lincoln) and Charlotte Finlay (Barbie)
• Documentary, with Edward Lovelace (Name Me Lawand) and Tom Howson (Dogwoof)
• Film festivals, with Christina Papasotiriou (Raindance Film Festival) and Philip Ilson (London Short Film Festival)
• Film journalism, with Jacob Stolworthy (The Independent) and Jack Shepherd (Total Film)
• Production, with Georgia Goggin (Pretty Red Dress) and Susan Simnett (Fadia's Tree)

Inland Empire is playing in tribute to the great David Lynch, who will be missed by all of us at The Garden Cinema.

Lynch’s first digitally shot feature makes visionary use of the medium to weave a vast meditation on the enigmas of time, identity, and cinema itself. Featuring a tour de force performance from Laura Dern as an actor on the edge, this labyrinthine Dream Factory nightmare tumbles down an endless series of unfathomably interconnected rabbit holes as it takes viewers on a hallucinatory odyssey into the deepest realms of the unconscious mind.

Our screening on 13 February is introduced by BFI artist's moving image Curator William Fowler, and will be followed by a post-film discussion group in the cinema bar.

When Queen Elizabeth I asks her court alchemist to show her England in the future, she’s transported 400 years to a post-apocalyptic wasteland of roving girl gangs, an all-powerful media mogul, fascistic police, scattered filth, and twisted sex. With Jubilee, legendary British filmmaker Derek Jarman channeled political dissent and artistic daring into a revolutionary blend of history and fantasy, musical and cinematic experimentation, satire and anger, fashion and philosophy. With its uninhibited punk petulance and sloganeering, Jubilee brings together many cultural and musical icons of the time, including Jordan, Toyah Willcox, Little Nell, Wayne County, Adam Ant, and Brian Eno (with his first original film score), to create a genuinely unique, unforgettable vision. Ahead of its time and often frighteningly accurate in its predictions, it is a fascinating historical document and a gorgeous work of film art.

A new digital restoration, presented by Cheng Cheng Films and Focus Hong Kong.

Widely regarded as one of the best works of modern Hong Kong cinema, the multiple award-winning July Rhapsody stars Anita Mui in her final role before her tragic death in 2003. Directed by Ann Hui, the film is a deeply affecting character-driven exploration of broken relationships, destructive yearning and lost dreams, drawing on Chinese poetry and with an impressive ensemble cast that also includes Jackie Cheung and Karena Lam.

The story revolves around high school teacher Lam Yiu-kwok (Cheung) and his wife Chan Man-ching ( Mui), who initially seem to be living the perfect family life. However, tensions lurk in the shadows, and when a student (Karena Lam) falls in love with Yiu-kwok and a figure from Man-ching’s past reappears, the cracks in their relationship start to show, throwing them into emotional turmoil.

In anticipation of Bi Gan’s third feature Resurrection (following his Long Day's Journey Into Night), the Chinese Cinema Project revisits his aesthetically remarkable and poetry-filled debut Kaili Blues. The film follows a small-town doctor who finds himself interacting with people from his past and future, whilst travelling the countryside to locate his nephew. Shot primarily in Kaili, Guizhou Province, Bi Gan’s hometown, using local dialect, the screening will have both Chinese and English subtitles.

This special screening also celebrates Chinese New Year 2025, and which is the third successive Garden Cinema CNY special event, following the UK Premiere of Kong Dashan’s Journey to the West in 2023, and an immersive screening of Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love in 2024.

'The intense blues and greens, the saturated, tangibly thick light and shade of the settings, the impossible visions of twirling, ever-present disco mirror balls, defying space, are conjured into light and sound, and, via poetry, into cinema.' -  Cinema Scope

This film was proposed by our member Evelyn Griffiths, who writes: 'Miranda July has many talents- director, screenwriter, actress and author. Following on from the success of her latest book All Fours which topped many book charts last year, it would be great to see her film Kajillionaire on the big screen!'

From acclaimed writer/director Miranda July comes a profoundly moving and wildly original queer comedy. Con-artists Theresa (Debra Winger) and Robert (Richard Jenkins) have spent 26 years training their only daughter, Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood), to swindle, scam, and steal at every opportunity. During a desperate, hastily conceived heist, they charm a stranger (Gina Rodriguez) into joining their next scam, only to have their entire world turned upside down.

Evan Rachel Wood in an interview with Pride.com:

"One of the things I absolutely loved about this movie that really made me emotional was the fact that there was that element, and there was a love story in the film, but the film is not a queer love story. They just happen to be queer. It's never talked about. Gender is never discussed, sexuality is never discussed. It just is. And that in itself is the statement."

“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing.” – E.B White, Charlotte’s Web

Friends can come in many forms; both real and imaginary. Some are there to help us in a moment of need, some live alongside us, some are very small, and some are there to simply bring us a can of soda.

Whimsical hand-drawn animation, stop-motion, live-action and magical adventures await in our now-annual selection of short films for younger film fans. A loyal pet, an inquisitive creature in the forest, and a very large frog are all here to make your acquaintance in a programme that explores the different ways that we find and make friends; in the park, sharing a packed lunch, or as part of an experimental study into new and inventive ways to communicate with one another.

Suitable for children aged 7+ and their parents/guardians.

Films

Rice Ball, dir. Kristina Pringle, UK 2023, 1min

Wider Than The Sky, dir. Philip Taylor, UK 2023, 11min

Lose voice toolkit, dir. Adele Dipasquale, Netherlands 2024, 19min

Finding Play, dir. Dan Castro, UK 2024, 3min

Amy and Frog, dir. Paul Williams, China 2023, 11min

The Night Boots, dir. Pierre-Luc Granjon, France 2024, 12min

Cold Soda, dir. Huayi Yu, USA 2024, 3min

tenderfold, dir. Jun Chen, UK 2023, 3min

Mû, dir. Malin Neumann, Germany 2023, 6min

Image credit: Lose voice toolkit, dir. Adele Dipasquale

London pulses with stories of connection found in unexpected places. A programme exploring the lives of those who brush past each other daily: two neighbours, close yet unaware of each other's private struggles; a man recalling his last night with a friend lost to hardship; a young boy weaving through the city’s high-energy streets with a backpack of cash; a British-Filipino discovering the cultural depth of Ube.

From Albanian workers finding camaraderie by a London canal to a girl connecting to her Yoruba roots through music, these films reveal the human resilience and hidden bonds within London’s mosaic.

This event has descriptive subtitles and BSL interpretation.

Lost Highway is playing in tribute to the great David Lynch, who will be missed by all of us at The Garden Cinema.

A mesmerizing meditation on the mysterious nature of identity, Lost Highway, David Lynch’s seventh feature film, is one of the filmmaker’s most potent cinematic dreamscapes. Starring Patricia Arquette and Bill Pullman, the film expands the horizons of the medium, taking its audience on a journey through the unknown and the unknowable. As this postmodern noir detours into the realm of science fiction, it becomes apparent that the only certainty is uncertainty.

The screening on Sunday 23 February will be followed by a Zoom Q&A with director Yannis Economides.

It will be introduced by season curator and Garden Cinema head programmer, Erifili Missiou.

Content Warning: This film contains explicit language.

Synopsis:

Dimitris, a grumpy middle-aged man, is having a hard time with his business partner on a particular decision as to opening a new business; and he’s also having a hell of a time with his family members. He has a really short temper, and the unpleasant behaviour of his nasty wife and his disrespectful children don’t contribute much to his health.

Curator's note:

Matchbox viscerally portrays the dark side of the Greek family. Taking the Greek audience by surprise, and now a cult classic, it was an outright slap in the face in 2002, and its heightened realism continues to shock audiences to this day.

Are you the most adored person in your friend group who everyone asks for film recommendations? Do you know your Emma from your Clueless, and your How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days from your 10 Things I Hate About You? These skills you've been honing might just make you the much-beloved winner in our Valentine's themed Members' Film Quiz! 

Join us for an evening of (loosely) Valentine's themed trivia questions, as well as a range of picture, audio & video rounds - don't worry if romcoms aren't your genre, there will be plenty of variety! There will be prizes up for grabs for the top 3 teams, including:

• A range of rose bouquets and scented candles from our friends and neighbours at Bloomsbury Flowers, just one street over from us on Great Queen Street
• Free cinema tickets to be claimed for any film of your choice

There will also be an aphrodisiacal liquid bonus for the best team name.

We have space for 9 teams of max. 5 contestants each. Tickets are £5 and restricted to 1 per member, so please make sure to be logged in and book quickly once ticket sales open on Thursday 30 January at 13:00.

Important info before booking:

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

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

If you're joining by yourself, you will be placed on a Garden Cinema All Stars team - a great opportunity to meet fellow members!

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

Grace Pudel is a lonely misfit with an affinity for collecting ornamental snails and an intense love for books. At a young age, when Grace is separated from her fire-breathing twin brother Gilbert, she falls into a spiral of anxiety and angst. Despite a continued series of hardships, inspiration and hope emerge when she strikes up an enduring friendship with an elderly eccentric woman named Pinky, who is full of grit and lust for life. From Academy Award-winning animation writer and director Adam Elliot, Memoir of a Snail is a poignant, heartfelt, hilarious chronicle of the life of an outsider finding her confidence and silver linings amongst the clutter of everyday life.

The Garden Cinema View:

This delightful stop-motion feature contends with difficult subjects with easy going charm and idiosyncratically Aussie humour. Featuring a life narrated in (predominantly) flashback, Memoir of a Snail presents a bleakly hilarious vision of 1970s Melbourne and Canberra. Exploring surprisingly raw material, including suicide and child abuse, this is not a film for children. Nonetheless, the inventive Claymation evokes a kind of childlike wonder which channels a direct emotional response from the audience. The slimy trail of despair is addressed in an amusingly matter-of-fact tone, which is both funny and relatable. Eventually, its all quite moving.  

Moana 2 is the thrilling sequel to Disney's beloved 2016 animated musical. This time, Moana, now a seasoned wayfinder, receives an unexpected call from her ancestors that leads her on a daring new adventure beyond the familiar shores of Motunui.

Accompanied by the ever-powerful demigod Maui and a fresh crew of unlikely seafarers, Moana embarks on a journey deep into the far seas of Oceania. Their mission: to break an ancient curse that threatens a long-lost island once vital to her ancestors. Along the way, Moana and her companions must face dangerous waters, hidden islands, and mysterious foes—including a formidable sea monster.

Featuring returning stars Auli’i Cravalho as Moana and Dwayne Johnson as Maui, Moana 2 promises a heart-pounding voyage filled with new songs, vibrant animation, and the signature Disney magic.

Moana 2 contains several sequences with flashing lights that may affect those who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy or have other photosensitivities.

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 Morocco Marlene Dietrich plays Amy Jolly, a wandering cabaret singer with a shady past who ends up on the shores of North Africa and falls for legionnaire Tom Brown, played by Gary Cooper. In one of Dietrich's iconic screen moments, she performs one of the first ever female-to-female kisses on a Hollywood screen. Morocco was also one of her most famous collaborations with auteur Josef von Sternberg.

Sam Mills will introduce the film and discuss how Dietrich's bisexuality influenced her acting, how the famous kiss made it past Hollywood censors, and how Dietrich's creative partnership - and tussles - with her director von Sternberg flavoured her performance.

Sam Mills

Sam Mills is the author of numerous works of non-fiction and novels, including Uneven: On Bisexuality, which explores bisexuality across the last two centuries through the lives and lives of various cultural figures such as Oscar Wilde, Colette, Bessie Smith, Susan Sontag, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Madonna and Marlene Dietrich. Her previous publications include the novels The Watermark (Granta) and The Quiddity of Will Self (Corsair) and the memoir The Fragments of My Father (4th Estate), which was shortlisted for the Barbellion Prize. She has written for a number of publications, including The Guardian, The Independent, The Spectator and The London Magazine. She is the co-founder of indie press Dodo Ink, a publisher dedicated to publishing daring and difficult fiction.

Pablo Navarrete's parents were forced to leave Chile after a military coup on 11 September 1973. They arrived in the UK as political refugees after spending time in the Pinochet dictatorship’s torture centres. They didn’t know it then, but Britain would be where they would settle, have a family, and still live, nearly 50 years later.

Filmed over more than three years, Mother, Country is a deeply personal film that follows the director as he travels to Chile with his parents in 2020 to witness a people’s uprising and finally confront their past.

The screening will be followed by a live Q&A with director Pablo Navarrete and his mother, Cristina Godoy-Navarrete, hosted by Mariela Kohon, Senior International Officer at the Trade Union Congress (TUC).

Click here to listen to a Q&A with them chaired by journalist Matt Kennard, after a sold-out September 2024 screening of the film at the Garden Cinema.

Matt's new book The Racket will be available to buy at the cinema.

'Pablo Navarrete focuses on his family in a simple yet poignant story about Chile’s traumatic past' Dmovies.org

Told in flashbacks, the story introduces Mufasa as an orphaned cub, lost and alone until he meets a sympathetic lion named Taka - the heir to a royal bloodline. The chance meeting sets in motion an expansive journey of an extraordinary group of misfits searching for their destiny - their bonds will be tested as they work together to evade a threatening and deadly foe.

Blending live-action filmmaking techniques with photoreal computer-generated imagery, Mufasa: The Lion King is directed by Barry Jenkins and features songs by Grammy Award-winning songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda.

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 screening on Sunday 30 March will be introduced by ethnomusicologist Ed Emery.

Synopsis:

The story of songwriter Eftyhia Papagiannopoulou (1893-1972), who escaped the burning of Smyrna and journeyed to Athens, Greece, where she became a major figure in Greek popular music and the beloved lyricist of the country.

Curator's note:

My Name is Eftuxia (2019) is the most "sane" film in this program. An engrossing biopic of Rebetiko genre songwriter Eftihia Papagianopoulou, it traces the life of this feisty woman whose life challenged societal norms, against the backdrop of tumultuous challenges - both the country’s and her own.

Ed Emery is an ethnomusicologist and Research Associate in the Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies [SOAS, London]. For 25 years he has been engaged with Rebetiko Studies both in London and in Greece (the annual Hydra Rebetiko Gathering). He is the organiser of the famous SOAS Rebetiko Band, where his chosen instruments are tzoura and baglama. In January 2025 he completed the editing of the SOAS Rebetiko Reader. Copies will be on display at the film showing. The book is freely downloadable from www.geocities.ws/soasrebetikoreader.

This screening will be introduced by John Wischmeyer (City Lit).

Nothing and nobody is spared from Lindsay Anderson and writer David Sherwin’s caustic gaze in their inexhaustibly inventive and sometimes horrifying satire, the second in their ‘state of the nation’ trilogy. Sparked by an idea proposed by star Malcolm McDowell, it follows the continuing adventures of the Mick Travis character, now an ambitious coffee salesman, as he travels around a Britain of Kafka-esque bureaucracy and absurdity, his exploits commented on throughout by Alan Price’s musical interludes.

Content warning: Contains scenes of blackface and racist stereotyping.

The screening on Sunday 16 March will be followed by an in-person or Zoom Q&A with director Filipos Tsitos.

It will be introduced by Dr. Tonia Kazakopoulou.

Synopsis:

The title of Plato’s Academy is a little misleading because no Greek sages are in sight. Rather the film’s Greeks are four scruffy lay-abouts, three of whom own convenience stores at the same quiet Athens intersection. This allows them to sit and guzzle coffee or beer all day while studying the hard-working foreign laborers who have invaded “their” neighborhood.

Curator's note:

A hilarious satire, Plato's Academy (2009), is the purest comedy in this assembly. Released at a time when Albanian and Chinese immigrants flooded the country to take on low-paid jobs, it skewers Greeks’ xenophobic attitudes, and exposes their existential fears.

Tonia Kazakopoulou is a Lecturer in Film & Television at the University of Reading. Her research interests include women's cinema of small nations, and particularly of Greece; contemporary European and world cinemas; the politics of representation in film and television. She has been the curator of the international standing conference Contemporary Greek Film Cultures, and is the co-editor of the book Contemporary Greek Film Cultures form 1990s to the Present (Peter Lang, 2017). She has also published on women's cinema, on Greek women screenwriters, on contemporary Greek cinema and motherhood, as well as on the female characters in Yorgos Lanthimos's films.

Our screening on Thursday 30 January will be introduced by writer and filmmaker Adam Scovell, and will be followed by a post-film discussion in the cinema bar.

Directed by John Mackenzie (The Long Good Friday), this acclaimed and long-unseen BBC TV Play for Today from 1978 is adapted by Alan Garner from his own complex and enthralling sci-fi fantasy novel.

Red Shift takes the viewer on a beguiling voyage through English history, spanning three distinct time periods: Roman Britain, the English Civil War and 1970s modern day. Garner’s play tells the story of three troubled young men, Tom, Thomas and Macey, who occupy these different eras and are haunted by shared visions. They are connected through a shared location (Mow Cop in south Cheshire) and by the discovery of mystical talisman: an ancient axe-head.

Exploring themes of mysticism, folklore and geography that are common in Alan Garner’s fantasy novels, Red Shift is a uniquely compelling Play for Today from the golden age of BBC drama.

Contains scenes of implied rape.

Italian maestro Luchino Visconti’s epic drama follows a mother and her five sons who move from a small town to Milan, changing their lives forever. This hypnotically beautiful tale of relocation, loss and sacrifice became a huge influence on the work of Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese. Starring the legendary Alain Delon in one of his most iconic roles, Rocco and His Brothers is considered one of the last neo-realist films and bridges the gap wonderfully between the old and the new in terms of both story and artistry

The screening on Sunday 2 March will be introduced by Prof. Dimitris Papanikolaou.

Synopsis:

Yorgos is released from prison after 14 years of incarceration for a murder he committed. He meets Strella, a young trans sex worker. They spend the night together and soon they fall in love. But the past is catching up with Yorgos.

"I think that Strella is perhaps the most important cultural contribution in recent years to thinking about oedipalization within queer kinship, as well as about contemporary challenges to understandings of sexuality and kinship, all through a meditation on very contemporary modes of living and loving that nevertheless draw on ancient norms." - Judith Butler, Dispossession: The Performative in the Political (with A. Athanasiou, 2013)

Dimitris Papanikolaou is Professor of Modern Greek and Comparative Cultural Studies and Fellow of St. Cross College, University of Oxford. He studied Classics, Modern Greek and Comparative Literature at the University of Athens and University College London (London).

Synopsis:

Kostis is a 40-year-old doctor that finds himself in the small island of Antiparos, in order to take over the local clinic. His whole life and routine will turn upside down when he meets an international group of young and beautiful tourists and he falls in love with Anna, a 19-year-old goddess.

Curator's note:
A brilliantly idiosyncratic film that sits slightly outside of the Weird Wave constellation, SUNTAN (2016), resists classification. Half uproarious comedy, half thriller, the film shares the bleak satirical undertones of Dogtooth and Attenberg whilst turning expectations for a typical Greek island holiday story on their head.

When visionary architect László Toth and his wife Erzsébet flee post-war Europe in 1947 to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern America, their lives are changed forever by a mysterious and wealthy client.

Nominated for 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Directing.

The Garden Cinema View:

Starting with an overture and a strikingly unique credits sequence, The Brutalist boldly presents itself as a monumental work of cinema. This is an immigrant story and an exploration of American capitalism that can be compared to Citizen Kane, The Godfather Part II, and There Will Be Blood (time will tell whether it belongs alongside such luminous company). Undoubtedly, there is something indelibly energising about watching this attempt at serious, epic drama. A series of committed and intense performances play out across a sprawling canvas made cohesive by the production design and Lol Crawley’s cinematography, that moves from claustrophobic intimacy to massive images which rival the work of Victor Kossakovsky. Embelishing and guiding the experience is Daniel Blumberg’s extraordinary, and partially improvised, score.

Watching The Brutalist is exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure, and is a viewing experience that feels pulled from an older age of film.

Includes a 15 minute intermission

This film was proposed by our member Alan Divito, who writes: 'An overlooked film I think fits to be screened at The Garden Cinema.'

Young Moonee and her mother Halley live in a motel close to Disney World, but they can only dream of going there. Instead Moonee turns her world into a theme park, while Halleey finds ways to make money.

Sean Baker’s (Anora, Tangerine) dazzlingly colourful drama explores the flipside of the American Dream, and cements his position as one of cinema’s most exciting filmmakers. Featuring an Oscar-nominated performance from Willem Dafoe as motel manager Bobby.

Please note, the screening on Wednesday 22 January is our Free Members' Screening, while the regular screening on Wednesday 29 January is open to the general public.

Both eerie and exquisite, writer-director Magnus von Horn's latest film tracks young factory worker Karoline as she struggles to survive in post-WWI Copenhagen. When she ends up unemployed, abandoned and pregnant, the charismatic Dagmar takes her in to help run an underground adoption agency for unwanted children. The two women form an unexpected bond, until a sudden revelation changes everything. Based on a chilling true story, The Girl with the Needle presents a masterful gothic vision with profound contemporary resonance.

Nominated for Best International Feature at the 2025 Academy Awards

The Garden Cinema View:

The Girl with the Needle - Denmark's entry for the 2025 Academy Awards - is an unsettling fairy tale based on one of the country’s darkest chapters. Writer-director Magnus von Horn transforms this piece of Danish crime history into a bleak meditation on those marginalised by society. The eerie effect is aided by some uncanny and grotesque sequences exquisitely crafted by cinematographer Michał Dymek (EO). Faces and surfaces are seedily textured and the imagery veers towards the abject, evoking the work of Francisco Goya, Joel-Peter Witkin, and early David Lynch. For those who appreciate forms of art that explore alienation and the macabre, this is an essential, singular vision. For maximum impact, viewers are advised to experience the film's shocking narrative without prior research.

A gang of kids try to stop ruthless property developers from building a golf course on their beloved den - and somehow get mixed up in an adventure involving treasure maps, human skulls, crazy gadgets, snogging, murderous crooks and a pirate king called One-Eyed Willie! Can the Goonies survive Willie's booby traps and get their hands on the old rogue's hidden riches? Or will the scheming Fratelli gang get there first - and make our heroes walk the plank?

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 film was proposed by our member Seraphina Bewick, who writes: 'I would love the opportunity to see the animated film The Last Unicorn on the big screen.'

In this animated musical, the villainous King Haggard (Christopher Lee) plots to destroy all the world's unicorns. When a young unicorn (Mia Farrow) learns that she's in danger and that she may soon be the last of her kind, she leaves the safety of her protected forest and enlists the help of Schmendrick (Alan Arkin), a gentle, albeit clumsy, sorcerer. Together, they embark on a long and dangerous journey with one goal: to defeat Haggard and save the unicorns from extinction.

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

As the city of Chengdu changes, the future of Funky Town, a beloved queer-friendly techno club, is unclear. For a vibrant group of DJs, drag performers, artists, lovers, ravers, and skaters, the club is a sanctuary for underground partying and allows them to thrive after the sun sets. It’s the one place that accepts them for who they are, while during the day they battle depression, question their sexuality, and struggle to make a living. But with construction cranes looming as a metro station encroaches, the partygoers are forced to face what brought them to the club in the first place - and make the most of their remaining time there. A love letter to the Chengdu underground scene, The Last Year of Darkness is a coming-of-age documentary that celebrates the ephemerality of youth.

Queer East is a cross-disciplinary festival that showcases boundary-pushing LGBTQ+ cinema, moving image work and live arts from, and about, East and Southeast Asia and its diaspora communities.

We’ve dug deep into the LIAF archives and have selected 7 of the best short animated films full of visually dazzling joy from all around the world, for kids of all ages and the whole family.

Here you will meet charismatic characters such as a group of bonkers playful singing children, a frog in a school class of rabbits and the mysterious Burry Man - in a series of stunning visuals mixed with captivating storylines, showing that animation is the best tool to transform the everyday into the magical.

Animation is the most imaginative and engaging of all art forms and is the perfect platform to enthral and inspire the wide-open imaginations of kids. This programme, carefully selected with our youngest audience in mind, is always popular, and not a toy ad in sight.

For more information about the London International Animation Festival and our programmes please look at the website at www.liaf.org.uk

Films Screening:

Latitude du printemps

An abandoned dog by the side of the road, a young astronaut wannabe and a professional cyclist and the connection between all three.

France 2020 Dir: Various 7min

The Most Boring Granny in the World

Greta has the most boring grandma in the world. When she falls asleep on the sofa, Greta gets the idea to play ‘funeral’ with her, initiating a sensitive conversation about death and memory.

Germany 2022 Dir: Damaris Zielke 7 min

A Film About a Pudding

Ronin’s dropped groceries start to mix and bubble, transforming into a small pudding. Over the next few days, the pudding grows bigger and bigger.

UK 2021 Dir: Roel Van Beek 9 min

Burry Man

When a Pictish farm is besieged by an endless winter, an adolescent girl must defy her father and his traditions to venture out beyond their family glen in search of a mysterious figure, the Burry Man.

UK 2022 Dir: Simon P Biggs 6 min

Migrants

Two polar bears are driven into exile due to global warming. They encounter brown bears along their journey, with whom they try to cohabitate.

France 2021 Dir: Various 8 min

A Stone in the Shoe

A student arrives in his new class. He is not a student like the others – he is a frog in a class of rabbits.

France 2020 Dir: Eric Montchaud 12 mins

Choir Tour

A world-famous boys’ choir goes on tour. In the hands of their conductor they are obedient but when he gets trapped in an elevator they become playful children.

Latvia 2012 Dir: Edmunds Jansons 5 mins

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 film was proposed by our member Mandy Russell.

Albert Lamorisse’s exquisite The Red Balloon remains one of the most beloved children's films of all time. In this deceptively simple, nearly wordless tale, a young boy discovers a stray balloon, which seems to have a mind of its own, on the streets of Paris. The two become inseparable, yet the world’s harsh realities finally interfere. With its glorious palette and allegorical purity, the Academy Award–winning The Red Balloon has enchanted film lovers, young and old, for generations.

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

On Sundays our family screenings are followed by a free activity for children.

Shot entirely in secret, Mohammad Rasoulof's award-winning thriller, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, centers on a family thrust into the public eye when Iman is appointed as an investigating judge in Tehran. As political unrest erupts in the streets, Iman realizes that his job is even more dangerous than expected, making him increasingly paranoid and distrustful, even of his own wife Najmeh and daughters Sana and Rezvan.

Nominated for Best International Feature at the 2025 Academy Awards.

Mr. Jeremy Fisher, Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, Jemima Puddle-duck, Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland – indeed all the delightful and famous Beatrix Potter characters – come to life in this colourful and imaginative musical interpretation of her tales, choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton, composted and scored by John Lanchbery, and danced by members of the Royal Ballet. Five of the famed Victorian author’s most well-known stories – with guest appearances of characters from other themes – have been linked to present an enchanting story-line that will thrill adults and children alike.

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 Wild Robot is nominated for Best Animated Film and Best Children's and Family Film at the 2025 BAFTAs, and Best Animated Feature at the 2025 Academy Awards.

From the co-director of How to Train Your Dragon comes an incredible journey of survival, love and selflessness, featuring gorgeous animation and stunning voice performances

Sentient robot Roz is marooned on an island and must learn from its animal inhabitants how to survive. When outside forces threaten the island’s ecosystem, she will do anything to protect her adopted environment and Brightbill, the young goose she has nurtured since birth. Funny, sweet and subtle in its messaging, this adaptation of Peter Brown’s book series is a treat for the whole family.

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

1944. In Vermiglio, a high mountain village of the Italian Alps where war looms as a distant but constant threat. The arrival of Pietro, a refugee soldier, disrupts the dynamics of the local teacher’s family, changing them forever. During the four seasons marking the end of World War II, Pietro and Lucia, the eldest daughter of the village teacher, instantly drawn to each other, leading to marriage and an unexpected fate. As the world emerges from tragedy, the family will face its own.

Winner of the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at Venice Film Festival and Italy’s Entry to the Oscars.

Jane Campion has written an open letter praising the film:  

"Vermiglio has put a spell over me... I feel deep appreciation for Maura Delpero’s formidable skills as a director."

The Garden Cinema View:

Set in a village beneath Mount Boai, Vermiglio's sophisticated cinematography and sound design immerses you in the wildly beautiful landscapes and sounds of the Alps, transporting us to a simpler era untouched by modern technology. Taking place during WWII in 1944, it's interesting to monitor the behaviours and interactions of people of this specific time and place. The characterisation of each member of this extended family is entirely convincing - not least due to the great performances from the cast. Through this journey, the film poses several questions. Should a military deserter be protected or condemned? Is the patriarch truly loving or deeply oppressive? Does the mother of numerous children find fulfilment in her role, or is she merely enduring it?

Despite the film's many merits, some of these themes could have been explored in greater depth. Nevertheless, Vermiglio has an engaging narrative, featuring fully fledged characters offering a powerful snapshot of a vanished era.

This film was proposed by our member Gregg Stone, who writes: 'I think showing the 1933 german film Victor /Victoria and the Blake Edwards /Julie Andrews musical of the same name, would be a great pick me up, along with some great 1920’s inspired Cocktails at the bar….'

In this dazzling musical romance, a young woman (Renate Müller), unable to find work as a music hall singer, partners with a down-and-out thespian (Hermann Thimig) to revamp her act. Pretending to be a man performing in drag, Victoria becomes the toast of the international stage. But she soon finds that her playful bending of genders enmeshes her personal and professional life in a tangle of unexpected complications.

Produced in the final days of the Weimar Republic, Victor and Victoria was the most successful film of its year at the German box office. Today it is best known by Blake Edwards’s 1982 remake and the 1995 Broadway production.

Please note, the screening on Tuesday 11 January is our Free Members' Screening. The screening on Tuesday 18 January is open to the general public.

Revel in the twisted side of romance with Video Bazaar this Valentine's Day, for a late night screening of Nikos Nikolaidis' legendary arthouse horror, Singapore Sling. This screening will also feature a video introduction from Annie Rose Malamet, host of the podcast Girls, Guts and Giallo.

Content Warning: This film contains explicit sexual content, violence and disturbing imagery

The film follows a nameless private detective's descent into a surreal nightmare as he searches for his lost love, only to become ensnared by a depraved mother-daughter duo who have a penchant for macabre and sadistic rituals. Forced into these disturbing acts, the detective's search for his lover spirals into a nightmarish ordeal. As disturbing as it is playful, this rarely screened transgressive masterpiece defies genre, blending eroticism, violence, noir, and black comedy into a surreal cocktail.

Nikolaidis himself, was a celebrated underground auteur whose films often explored themes of alienation, obsession and the darkest corners of human psychology. With Singapore Sling and its fragmented narrative, tormented characters and dreamlike atmosphere, Nikolaidis cemented his reputation as a fearless visionary who was not afraid to delve into taboo territory.

So to all lovers and sweethearts, join Video Bazaar this Valentines Day and celebrate love in all its darkest and most unsettling manifestations.

This screening is presented by the cult film collective, Video Bazaar, who are proud to show this rarely screened film, and are dedicated to bringing the weird and the obscure to London audiences at The Garden Cinema. Please note that this film will feature an introduction.

Nominated for 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actress.

After two decades, the beloved and enduring stage musical makes its journey to the big screen as a spectacular, generation-defining cinematic event. The untold story of the witches of Oz stars Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, a young woman, misunderstood because of her unusual green skin, who has yet to discover her true power, and Ariana Grande as Glinda, a popular young woman, gilded by privilege, who has yet to discover her true heart. As they forge an unlikely friendship, their extraordinary adventures will see them fulfill their destinies as Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West.

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

Wild at Heart is playing in tribute to the great David Lynch, who will be missed by all of us at The Garden Cinema.

After serving prison time for a self-defense killing, Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage) reunites with girlfriend Lula Fortune (Laura Dern). Lula's mother, Marietta (Diane Ladd), desperate to keep them apart, hires a hit man to kill Sailor. But he finds a whole new set of troubles when he and Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe), an old buddy who's also out to get Sailor, try to rob a store. When Sailor lands in jail yet again, the young lovers appear further than ever from the shared life they covet.