Director Patricia Ramos sets this film, her second feature and also written by her, in 2016 Havana. It was a time when Cuba featured regularly in the international media with Obama’s visit, a Chanel fashion show and the historic Rolling Stones concert. This film is not about that historical concert, rather that moment. Middle-aged Rita navigates troublesome relationships with her teenage son who wants to leave Cuba, her aging mother, her married lover, and her lifelong friend who is ill. On the eve of the concert, Rita she takes decisions that begin to give her some independence, as she hopes that something interesting is about to happen.

Described in the Cuban press as 'a film that seems simple, but in the end is also a treatise on what has gone and what has been lost, about the unbreakable will to cling to certain values, on the part of people who stay in their place, who are not going anywhere, animated by the crazy idea that they may find, very close to their home, what they have always been looking for.'

PLUS SHORT: Blue Pandora / Pandora Azul | Alan Gonzalez |2023, Cuba, ICAIC- Crisálida Producciones | 13m|18

Compelling award-winning fictional short. The white youth Roy regularly shows up at the doorstep of Pandora, a middle-aged Black transgender woman, in an attempt to convince her of how much he’s in love with her. She wants to stay out of trouble, and is reluctant because of past experiences with men. An interaction that transcends itself in a subtle yet poignant way, in which thoughts not spoken live in the smallest gesture or the exchange of a glance. The film delves into the complexities of love, self-acceptance, and the weight of societal judgment.

Screen Cuba: Films to Change the World is a collaborative project of the charity Music Fund for Cuba, the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, the Cuban Embassy in the UK and the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC).

Proceeds from the Solidarity ticket will to go to Cuban film institute (ICAIC) projects including restoration of classic films.

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.

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

On January 5, 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young Jewish soldier, is degraded for spying for Germany and is sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. Among the witnesses to his humiliation is Georges Picquart, who is promoted to run the military counter-intelligence unit that tracked him down. But when Picquart discovers that secrets are still being handed over to the Germans, he is drawn into a dangerous labyrinth of deceit and corruption that threatens not just his honor but his life.

Please note, screenings taking place in our new Screen 3 will not yet have step-free access whilst we wait for our platform lift to be installed.

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).

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.

This precisely wrought, emotionally penetrating romantic drama from Jacques Demy, set largely in the casinos of Nice, is a visually lovely but darkly realistic investigation into love and obsession. A bottle-blonde Jeanne Moreau is at her blithe best as a gorgeous gambling addict, and Claude Mann is the bank clerk drawn into her risky world. Featuring a mesmerising score by Michel Legrand, Bay of Angels is among Demy’s most somber works.

Returning home from a shopping trip to a nearby town, bored suburban housewife Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) is thrown by happenstance into an acquaintance with virtuous doctor Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard). Their casual friendship soon develops during their weekly visits into something more emotionally fulfilling than either expected, and they must wrestle with the potential havoc their deepening relationship would have on their lives and the lives of those they love.

The screening on 8 March will be introduced by director Luka Yuanyuan Yang.

The screening on 16 March will be followed by in-person Q&A with the director and the launch of her new book about the making of the film and the Chinese diaspora, Dance in Herland.

To mark International Women's Day, the Chinese Cinema Project presents the debut documentary feature from visual artist and filmmaker Luka Yuanyuan Yang - a film that celebrates sisterhood, and the spirit of independent women.

Chinatown Cha-Cha originated from Yang’s research on Asian American women in show business. While tracing the films of Esther Eng, one of the earliest Asian American female directors, Yang discovered a group of former Chinatown nightclub dancers, who are deeply bonded by their passion for dancing.

As the second or third generation of Chinese immigrants in America (aged between 70-90) these dancers witnessed the rise and fall of the luminous nightclub era of San Francisco’s Chinatown. The film’s Chinese title, Women’s World, is itself a tribute to Esther Eng’s now lost 1939 film It’s A Women’s World, the world’s first all Chinese female cast movie.

The 92-year-old former owner of the illustrious ‘Forbidden City Nightclub’ and nightclub starlet Coby Yee decide to get back on stage again, after joining the senior dance troupe Grant Avenue Follies. Together they go on a final tour, bridging once isolated Chinese communities in the US, Cuba, and China.

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.

In this lovingly crafted, wildly eccentric adaptation of a classic French fairy tale, Jacques Demy casts Catherine Deneuve as a princess who must go into hiding as a scullery maid in order to fend off an unwanted marriage proposal—from her own father, the king (Jean Marais). A topsy-turvy riches-to-rags fable with songs by Michel Legrand, Donkey Skin creates a tactile fantasy world that’s perched on the border between the earnest and the satiric, and features Delphine Seyrig in a delicious supporting role as a fashionable fairy godmother.

A special screening of films by animator and animation director Emma Calder who passed away in 2024.

The event, presented by London Animation Club’s Martin Pickles, will be a celebration of Emma’s work and her legacy as both an animator and a fierce advocate for independent animation.

Emma was born in London and studied Graphic Design at the Royal College of Art. Her RCA animated films, Ilkla Moor Baht Hat (1981) and Madame Potatoe (1983) went on to screen at ICA New Contemporaries, Tate Gallery and on Channel 4. In 1989 she set up Pearly Oyster Productions with long-term collaborator Ged Haney and went on to produce numerous commercial, commissioned and personal projects.

Her short The Queen’s Monastery (1998) was distributed in cinemas throughout the UK and North America and won numerous prizes, including a Silver Hugo at Chicago International Film Festival, second prize at Filmfest Dresden, Best Professional Film at Bradford International Film Festival and Special Jury Prize at Animafest Zagreb.

In 2022 Emma directed BFI-funded Beware of Trains, which has played at dozens of festivals and won prizes at the British Animation Awards, London International Film Festival, Brighton International Animation Festival and Tricky Women/Tricky Realities, where it won the Maria Lassnig Golden Film Reel prize.

Emma was a teacher, lecturer, campaigner and activist for animation and animation filmmakers and an early and active supporter of London Animation Club. Her lively, enthusiastic and positive contributions to club nights will be sorely missed. Tonight’s programme is based upon work which Emma screened there from 2012 onwards and certain films are introduced by Emma herself.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with special guests.Some of the films are preceded by a short video introduction by Emma herself.

Ilkla Moor Baht Tat + introduction (Emma Calder, UK, 1981)

Madam Potatoe (Emma Calder, UK, 1983)

The Queen's Monastery (Emma Calder, UK, 1998)

Random Person: Quantum Cloud + introduction (Emma Calder, UK, 2012)

Boudica + introduction (Emma Calder, UK, 2014)

Random Person: Vasectomy (Emma Calder, UK, 2014)

Everyone Is Waiting For Something To Happen + introduction (Emma Calder, UK, 2014)

Skateboard Heaven/Strung Out - Animation Tests (Emma Calder, UK, 2017)

Random Person: Random Walk (Emma Calder, UK, 2019)

Not Daft Intro Trailer + introduction (Emma Calder, UK, 2023)

Beware Of Trains (Emma Calder, UK, 2022)

London Animation Club is a monthly event for animators and people interested in animation in the capital, created and curated by Martin Pickles. Club members and regular guests meet and present their work in informal surroundings conducive to talking and sharing ideas. Our guests range from well-known figures, such as Phil Davies, the producer of Peppa Pig, and Peter Firmin, the co-creator of Bagpuss, through to award-winning independent animators like Emma Calder, along with experimental filmmakers and academics, with much in between.

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)

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Eva Aridjis Fuentes.

An intimate journey through the life of singer Diane Luckey aka Q Lazzarus, narrated through her own words and music. The exceptionally talented but vastly underappreciated Q, who sang the cult hit song 'Goodbye Horses', reveals the reason behind her mysterious 25-year-long disappearance and paves the way towards her re-emergence, with stories heartbreaking, hilarious, and moving.

Please note, this screening will take place in our new Screen 3, which will not yet have step-free access whilst we wait for our platform lift to be installed.

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. And whilst Hollywood still attracts criticism for photography standards which favour white actors, 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.

Walter Salles (Central Station, The Motorcycle Diaries) makes a triumphant return with an emotionally layered, visually rich account of family life under an oppressive regime.

It's 1971, Brazil faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship. Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres), a mother of five children, is forced to reinvent herself after her family suffers a violent and arbitrary act by the government.

I’m Still Here is based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva's biographical book and tells the true story that helped reconstruct an important part of Brazil’s hidden history.

Golden Globe winner for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama, and shortlisted for Best International Feature Film at this year's Academy Awards.

Agnès Varda’s tender evocation of the childhood of her husband, Jacques Demy - a dream project that she realised for him when he became too ill to direct it himself - is a wonder-filled portrait of the artist as a young man and an enchanting ode to the magic of cinema. Shot in Demy’s hometown of Nantes (including the house he grew up in), this imaginative blend of narrative and documentary traces his coming of age as he finds escape from the tumult of World War II in puppet shows, fairy tales, opera, and, above all, movies - the formative aesthetic experiences that would fuel his vivid Technicolor imagination and find unforgettable expression in his exuberant New Wave masterworks. Interspersing intimate footage of the older Demy reflecting on his life’s journey, Jacquot de Nantes is a poignant love letter from one visionary artist to another.

Chantal Akerman’s landmark second feature follows the meticulous daily routine of its titular lead over the course of three days. Voted Sight and Sound’s Greatest Film of All Time in 2022, marking the first time a female filmmaker has taken the number one spot, Jeanne Dielman is revolutionary in its bold

experimental approach to narrative subject and structure. Charting the breakdown of its protagonist, a bourgeois Belgian housewife, mother and part-time sex worker over the course of three days, the film rigorously records her everyday life in extended time and hypnotic detail.

Our screening on 20 February is introduced by playwright, singer, and former tightrope artist, Hermine Demoriane, who plays Chaos in the film.

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.

The screening on Monday February 24 will be introduced by film programmer Nathasha Orlando Kappler.

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."

Nathasha Orlando Kappler is a Mexican-German freelance film programmer based in London, with a Master’s Degree in Film Studies, Programming, and Curation at the National Film and Television School. She has previously served as a programmer for Cambridge Film Festival, Irish Film Festival London, Berlin Film Society, Deptford Cinema, and Reverie Cineclub. As a writer, she has contributed to publications such as Sight and Sound Magazine and Photogénie.

Le Mépris is screening to celebrate the centenary of the great Georges Delerue, and will be introduced by Oscar nominated composer Gary Yershon.

Jean-Luc Godard’s subversive foray into commercial filmmaking is a star-studded Cinemascope epic. Le Mépris stars Michel Piccoli as a screenwriter torn between the demands of a proud European director (played by legendary director Fritz Lang), a crude and arrogant American producer (Jack Palance), and his disillusioned wife, Camille (Brigitte Bardot), as he attempts to doctor the script for a new film version of The Odyssey.

Please note, this screening will take place in our new Screen 3, which will not yet have step-free access whilst we wait for our platform lift to be installed.

Jacques Demy’s crystalline debut gave birth to the fictional universe in which so many of his characters would live, play, and love. It’s among his most profoundly felt films, a tale of crisscrossing lives in Nantes (Demy’s hometown) that floats on waves of longing and desire. Heading the film’s ensemble is the enchanting Anouk Aimée as the title character, a cabaret chanteuse who’s awaiting the return of a long-lost lover and unwilling to entertain the adoration of another love-struck soul, the wanderer Roland (Marc Michel). Humane, wistful, and witty, Lola is a testament to the resilience of the heartbroken.

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.

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.

Content warning: The film contains intense scenes of verbal abuse and violence some viewers might find upsetting.

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.

Nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 2025 Academy Awards.

Winner Best Film at London Film Festival 2024

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

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, Assistant Director, Strategy & Delivery, 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.

Set against a landscape dominated by an algorithm-driven gig economy, in a world designed to keep us apart, On Falling explores the silent, vital struggle to find meaning and connection. It tells the story of Aurora, a Portuguese migrant working as a warehouse picker in Edinburgh, Scotland. Trapped between the confines of a vast distribution centre and the solitude of her own bedroom, Aurora seeks out every opportunity to resist the alienation and isolation that threaten her sense of self.

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.

Followed by a Q&A with the Brothers Quay.

Gareth Evans, series co-curator for Kinoteka writes: ‘Surely the world’s greatest practising stop-motion artist animators, the Brothers Quay have been painstakingly crafting their own unique, interlinked universe of astonishingly imagined animated worlds for over 45 years. Creating across the short, medium and long form, as well as in production design for opera, ballet and theatre, theirs is a startling cosmology, one informed and inhabited by the mystery and melancholy dreaming of Central and Eastern European artists, writers and wayward wanderers, most notably from the Polish constellation.'

Programme 1:

Stille Nacht I, 1’40’’

Street of Crocodiles ,21’30’’

Stille Nacht II, 3’30’’

In Absentia, 19’

Stille Nacht III, 3’30’’

Kinoteka Ident I, 30’’

Alice in Not so Wonderland, 3’30’’

Q&A with the Brothers Quay.

In a London premiere – and a world first for an assembly at this scale – 23 of their immaculately hand-crafted puppet film sets by the Brothers Quay will be on display in Bloomsbury’s Swedenborg House.

Organised by the Polish Cultural Institute in London and supported by the Polish Film Institute, the Kinoteka Polish Film Festival is an annual celebration of Poland’s rich cinematic output that showcases not only the best of contemporary filmmakers but also classics that make up Poland’s rich filmography. Kinoteka will return to celebrate its 23rd year from 6 March - 25 April 2025, featuring over 30 cinema screenings in leading venues around London. Alongside New Polish Cinema, Documentaries and Polish Cinemas Classics, this year's edition will also feature a retrospective of films by Wojciech Has as well as exciting Special Events and screenings of selected films from the Kinotkea programme in 8 UK cities as part of Kinoteka On Tour.

Gareth Evans, series co-curator for Kinoteka writes: ‘Surely the world’s greatest practising stop-motion artist animators, the Brothers Quay have been painstakingly crafting their own unique, interlinked universe of astonishingly imagined animated worlds for over 45 years. Creating across the short, medium and long form, as well as in production design for opera, ballet and theatre, theirs is a startling cosmology, one informed and inhabited by the mystery and melancholy dreaming of Central and Eastern European artists, writers and wayward wanderers, most notably from the Polish constellation'.

Programme 2

The Calligrapher, 1’

Kinoteka Ident II, 30’’

This Unnameable Little Broom, 11’

Unmistaken Hands, 26’

The Comb, 18

In a London premiere – and a world first for an assembly at this scale – 23 of their immaculately hand-crafted puppet film sets by the Brothers Quay will be on display in Bloomsbury’s Swedenborg House.

Organised by the Polish Cultural Institute in London and supported by the Polish Film Institute, the Kinoteka Polish Film Festival is an annual celebration of Poland’s rich cinematic output that showcases not only the best of contemporary filmmakers but also classics that make up Poland’s rich filmography. Kinoteka will return to celebrate its 23rd year from 6 March - 25 April 2025, featuring over 30 cinema screenings in leading venues around London. Alongside New Polish Cinema, Documentaries and Polish Cinemas Classics, this year's edition will also feature a retrospective of films by Wojciech Has as well as exciting Special Events and screenings of selected films from the Kinotkea programme in 8 UK cities as part of Kinoteka On Tour.

To really set the tone for our mini celebration of Jacques Demy's films, join us on Sunday 9 March for a colourful, sweeping & refreshing members' event.

From 15:00, we will wait for you in the Garden Bar, where we'll be serving suitably themed cocktails, the first of which will be complimentary. Meanwhile, you'll be able to enjoy the uplifting tunes composed by Demy's favourite musical collaborator, Michel Legrand. 

Following the cocktail hour we'll head into the screen, where friend of the cinema Ariane will delight us with a live music performance, which of course will feature the film's iconic theme song. After this, please have your tissues at the ready, and prepare yourself to be swept away by the screening of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Possibly Demy's most renowned feature, it's a great entry-point into his work if you're not familiar already, and you'll be sure to recognise its phenomenal visuals if you've previously perched down in the cinema's 'Den', also lovingly referred to as the 'Deneuve room'.

Event timings:

15:00  Cocktail hour in the Garden Bar

16:00  Screen doors open

16:15  Live music performance

16:30  Screening of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

18:10  Expected finish

Tickets can be booked by members only, but you are welcome to purchase up to 2, meaning you can invite along a compagnon, even if they're not a member. They are available for £18 each, and include a complimentary (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) themed cocktail, as well as an unallocated seat for both the live music performance and the film screening.

About the performance:

Ariane is a versatile singer and choir leader with a passion for exploring a range of genres, from jazz to Balkan music, with a special love for Chanson Française. Inspired by the music of Michel Legrand, she grew up singing his songs and immersing herself in the Demy/Legrand musicals time and again.

When a bomb endangers the Pha Tang temple, 'Satu' an orphan child laborer decides to head north through the rich and feral landscape of Laos in search of his long lost mother with his new photojournalist friend 'Bo'.

The film was self-funded and shot on location in Laos in Southeast Asia in January 2022, right in the middle of the pandemic, in just 26 days over six weeks. Of those, the crew had to spend ten days in quarantine. Shot on 16mm, the visuals capture Laos’ vibrant beauty, adding depth to this warm, heartfelt narrative.    

The film was nominated at the British Independent Film Awards and the Raindance Film Festival, and won the Grand Prix at the Nara International Film Festival in Japan, as well as two awards at the Cambodia International Film Festival.

'Trigg beautifully captures the beauty and simplicity of Laos' - Film Threat.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Joshua Trigg.

This celebrated film won multiple awards, having started out as a movie-workshop for a group of students in Havana. With echoes of Ken Loach’s Kes, 11-year-old Chala keeps pigeons and illegally trains fighting dogs in order to support himself and his alcoholic mother. Chala is understood by his teacher Carmela, but when a new less experienced teacher sends him to a school for children with behavioural problems, controversy breaks out. Broader issues are exposed when intolerance and bureaucracy overtake the wellbeing and needs of the child. The movie kindled an intense social debate and the Ministry of Education promoted its discussion in schools.

 'A restrained portrayal of the tenderness between Chala and Carmela, who care for each other when family members who should cannot.” '

PLUS Short: An adventure of Elpidio Valdes | Una Aventura de Elpidio Valdes | Juan Padron | 1974, Cuba, ICAIC | animation | 7m |

Juan Padrón is the godfather of animation in Cuba and also revered across Latin America. Elpidio Valdés is a famous and much loved cartoon character in Cuban culture, who entertained generations of Cuban children as a symbol of rebellion against colonialism and imperialism. Recently restored by ICAIC in collaboration with Screen Cuba.

Screen Cuba: Films to Change the World is a collaborative project of the charity Music Fund for Cuba, the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, the Cuban Embassy in the UK and the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC).

Proceeds from the Solidarity ticket will to go to Cuban film institute (ICAIC) projects including restoration of classic films.

Please bear in mind that the age and rarity of this film means that the quality may not be what you are used to, however this is the last remaining version and a rare opportunity to see a hugely important and influential Cuban film of the 1970s.

A crisis between husband and wife in a working class marriage is the focus for a dramatic examination of the changes generated by the Revolution as many more women entered the workforce. This film sparked a widespread debate throughout Cuban society. The Family Code (1975) had declared household chores and childcare should be shared equally. The film depicts Teresa’s exhausting double shift and when she takes on extra duties as a factory union delegate, her husband berates her for neglecting her family. Yet she persists in her quest for control over her life.

Today an unmissable classic, at the time a very controversial film, it showed the Revolution was an ongoing struggle against entrenched attitudes for everyone. It also marked a turning point in filmmaking, shifting away from the fast moving close-ups of the 1960s to more documentary-style shots.

Screen Cuba: Films to Change the World is a collaborative project of the charity Music Fund for Cuba, the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, the Cuban Embassy in the UK and the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC).

Proceeds from the Solidarity ticket will to go to Cuban film institute (ICAIC) projects including restoration of classic films.

In 2018 an exciting historic artistic exchange took place hosted by the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC. For the first time, up to 400 Cuban artists (living on and outside the island) were set to perform together in a festival. Planning began when Obama was US president and talks were taking place between the US and Cuba. By the time of the festival, Trump was president and busy increasing the unilateral US blockade against the island. When Inti and his team finally arrived they were refused permission to film so instead delved into the artistic ties that connect the two countries. The resulting documentary is a moving collective testimony of artists and musicians, historians and politicians. As the hopeful director says 'In the future, what unites us will prevail over what separates us'.

Includes interviews with Cuban musicians Arturo O’Farril, Aymée Nuviola, Yissy García, Aldo López-Gavilán, Yosvany Terry, artists José Parlá and Manuel Mendive and many more.

Screen Cuba: Films to Change the World is a collaborative project of the charity Music Fund for Cuba, the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, the Cuban Embassy in the UK and the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC).

Proceeds from the Solidarity ticket will to go to Cuban film institute (ICAIC) projects including restoration of classic films.

Please bear in mind that the age and rarity of this film means that the quality may not be what you are used to, however this is the last remaining version and a rare opportunity to see a hugely important and influential Cuban film of the 1980s.

It’s Havana, a year before the 1959 revolution, and a group of young people are fighting against President Batista's tyranny in a clandestine action cell. A dramatic story of love, solidarity, illusions and sacrifice based on real events. An incredible first film, with a tight script like a thriller, by the most important current Cuban director. The fictional characters of Nereida and Ernesto made the actors, Isabel Santos and Luis Alberto García, an inseparable part of the history of Cuban cinema.

Pérez commented on his multiple award winning feature: 'I always knew that my first film was going to be about [this], because at the age of fifteen, when I was discovering cinema, I discovered that people my age were fighting for the Revolution. I felt that there was an epic that I had to tell…I did not participate in the armed struggle…but my memory was what most marked the film. I always tried to make every image alive, credible.'

Content Warning: Contains some scenes of violence

Screen Cuba: Films to Change the World is a collaborative project of the charity Music Fund for Cuba, the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, the Cuban Embassy in the UK and the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC).

Proceeds from the Solidarity ticket will to go to Cuban film institute (ICAIC) projects including restoration of classic films.

In his latest film Fernando Pérez, Cuba’s most important contemporary director, has created a dark comedy drama exploring perception and imagination through the eyes of a disabled autistic teenager with little means to communicate. When Nelsito is involved in an accident he observes life from his hospital bed, and imagines the dark, hidden and sometimes humorous sides of those around him - wicked children, murderous women, runaway grandmas, a swindler. Characters like these feature in five stories in the film that play with melodrama, absurdity, and black humour, and the director ensures that the spectator is never able to differentiate what is reality or the imagination of the protagonist-narrator.

Cuba selected the film for the 96th Academy Awards (2024).

Screen Cuba: Films to Change the World is a collaborative project of the charity Music Fund for Cuba, the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, the Cuban Embassy in the UK and the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC).

Proceeds from the Solidarity ticket will to go to Cuban film institute (ICAIC) projects including restoration of classic films.

This film was proposed by our member Lily Paisner, who writes: 'I can’t find it available to watch anywhere online, and it has been on my watchlist for ages! Would love the chance to watch it at The Garden Cinema.'

An expert observer of unembellished humanity, writer-director Mike Leigh reached new levels of expressive power and intricacy with this exploration of the deceptions, small and large, that shape our relationships. When Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a Black optometrist who was adopted as a child, begins the search for her birth mother, she doesn’t expect that it will lead her to Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn, winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s best actress award), a lonely white factory worker whose tentative embrace of her long-lost daughter sends shock waves through the rest of her already fragile family. Born from a painstaking process of rehearsal and improvisation with a powerhouse ensemble cast, Secrets & Lies is a Palme d’Or–winning tour de force of sustained tension and catharsis that lays bare the emotional fault lines running beneath everyday lives.

Please note, the screening on Wednesday 26 February is our Free Members' Screening, while the one on Wednesday 5 March is a regular screening, which is open to the general public.

Sisters July and September are thick as thieves, though very different - September is protective and distrustful of others, while July is open to and curious about the world. Their dynamic is a concern to their single mum, Sheela, who is unsure what to do with them. When September is suspended from their school, July is left to fend for herself and begins to assert her own independence - which does not go unnoticed by September. Tension among the three women builds when they take refuge in an old holiday home in Ireland, where July finds her bond with September shifting in ways she cannot entirely understand or control - and a series of surreal encounters test the family to their limit.

The Garden Cinema View:

Ariane Labed's directorial debut initially bears comparison to the Greek Weird Wave, particularly Athina Rachel Tsangari's Attenberg. The balanced compositions, animal mimicry and mirroring between the two protagonists seem to be, at the least, an homage to the film that launched Labed's acting career. It also has clear references to Kubrick’s The Shining as well as a variety of British folk horror classics.

Adapted by Labed from Daisy Johnson's novel Sisters, it features a talented single mother (Rakhee Thakrar), and twins July (Mia Tharia) and September (Pascale Kann). As the story unfolds, Labed examines with honesty this all-female family dynamic, embracing its darker aspects: the sisters' co-dependency, their mother's emotional withdrawal and the intense sisterly bond that both unites and divides them.

Where the film excels though is in its third act, where Labed executes a masterful narrative shift that recontextualises everything that came before. As grief becomes the central focus, what initially seemed like Greek Wave aesthetics are revealed as clever misdirection. The ending is fantastic and elevates the entire piece. Labed is a new directorial voice to watch.

Sicily, early 2000s. After serving several years in prison for Mafia-related crimes, Catello, a long-serving politician, has lost everything. When the Italian Secret Service “persuades” him to help capture Matteo, the last major Mafia boss still on the run, whom Catello has known since he was a boy, he sees an opportunity to stage a comeback. A shrewd man of a hundred masks, a tireless illusionist who turns truth into falsehood and falsehood into truth, Catello begins a correspondence with the fugitive, as unique as it is improbable, exploiting the younger man’s emotional emptiness. A gamble which, with one of the most wanted criminals in the world, is always going to involve a degree of risk…

World Premiere: Venice IFF - Official Competition 2024

From a small cabin deep in the Białowieża Forest Simona Kossak (1943 - 2007) studied nature and made history, largely on her own terms. Adrian Panek’s engaging dramatised biography of the pioneering scientist (played by Sandra Drzymalska, EO) centres on her journey from family misfit (her grandfather was artist Wojciech Kossak) to ecological activist. Jakub Gierszał (Doppelganger, Ultima Thule) is her freedom loving photographer companion Lech Wilczek. The natural landscape, especially the deer, plays a pivotal role, exposing issues still relevant today around the position of women in science and our need to take care of the planet.

Followed by a Q&A with actress Sandra Drzymalska (TBC)

Organised by the Polish Cultural Institute in London and supported by the Polish Film Institute, the Kinoteka Polish Film Festival is an annual celebration of Poland’s rich cinematic output that showcases not only the best of contemporary filmmakers but also classics that make up Poland’s rich filmography. Kinoteka will return to celebrate its 23rd year from 6 March - 25 April 2025, featuring over 30 cinema screenings in leading venues around London. Alongside New Polish Cinema, Documentaries and Polish Cinemas Classics, this year's edition will also feature a retrospective of films by Wojciech Has as well as exciting Special Events and screenings of selected films from the Kinotkea programme in 8 UK cities as part of Kinoteka On Tour.

A newly arranged marriage. An oddball couple shoved together in a small Mumbai shack with paper-thin walls. They are awkward and alone-together. Unpredictable Uma does her best to cope with the heat, her total lack of domestic skills, nosy neighbours and her bumbling spouse until the nocturnal world of Mumbai and its inhabitants lead her to face her own strange behaviours.

This event is followed by a post-screening discussion hosted by South Asian Sisters Speak. 

South Asian Sisters Speak creates spaces for South Asian women to connect, learn and share their experiences. They run regular workshops, panel events and are also the home of the Brown Girls’ Book Club – helping South Asian women find belonging and community so they feel empowered to be their whole selves.

The screening on Sunday 2 March will be followed by a Q&A with director Panos Koutras.

It 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)

Content warning: The film contains scenes of violence and dated transphobic language.

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).

The screening on Thursday 23 March will be followed by a live Zoom Q&A with director Argyris Papadimitropoulos.

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.

Content warning: The film contains scenes of violence some viewers might find upsetting.

Brother Marie-Victorin (Le Jardin Botanique, La Flore Laurentienne) was 46 when he met 23-year-old Marcelle Gauvreau. Both have been close to death and share the same love of God and Nature. He becomes her teacher, later she becomes his assistant. Their friendship evolves. Marie-Victorin offers Marcelle different readings on sexuality that she hastens to comment on from her own intimate experiences. In an epistolary exchange that will last until the death of Marie-Victorin, they explore human desires and "biology without a veil". This great chaste love, the love of Quebec's flora, pushes them to question their own relationship with love and Nature. The film is produced by Roger Frappier (The Decline of the American Empire).

Grand Prix winner at the 41st Abitibi–Tamiscamingue: International FF

Nominated, Canadian Cinema Editors Award

"Disconcerting in its form, but delicate, sensual, witty and joyful, Tell Me Why These Things Are So Beautiful is a gem that is both a period film and a poem."

Le Soleil

This screening will be the London premiere of the film and will be followed by a Q&A with director Lyne Charlebois.

We will be adding Quebec Old Fashioned cocktails to our menu on the night to mark the film's premiere.

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

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 story of a judge against the mafia, Cesare Terranova. The first magistrate to have sensed the dangers of organized crime and to have instructed the first trials against Mafia bosses, when the word mafia was still spoken in a whisper. Terranova was killed on September 25, 1979 with his collaborator, Marshal Lenin Mancuso.

Taormina Film Fest 2024

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

One day French filmmaker Armel Hostiou discovers he has a second Facebook account: a fake Armel who has photos of the real one and many, many female friends, all of whom live in Kinshasa. Fake Armel invites them to audition for his next film, which is supposedly set in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Faced with the impossibility of closing this account, the filmmaker decides to go looking for his double.

Part twisty surreal journey, part thorough investigative report into the murky world of online content creating, The Other Profile is Hostiou’s second feature-length documentary and picked up the Work in Progress Award at last year’s Visions du Reel documentary film festival in Nyon.

'A thrilling documentary that skewers our myths of uniqueness and authenticity' - Sight and Sound

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.

The Garden Cinema View:

Inspired by the events of the Iranian Woman Life Freedom movement, Mohammad Rasoulof's exquisitely crafted film serves as taut thriller, social commentary, and as a piece of activism. Rasoulof, like fellow Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, made this film in secret and smuggled it to European festivals. Appearing in the film without hijabs, three actresses have subsequently fled to Berlin to avoid persecution.

Despite a long running time, the narration never loses momentum with each action leading to irrevocable consequences and building to a grand, unpredictable finale. The direction is poised and controlled, never relying on elaborate production design, but rather allowing tension between parents and daughters to develop naturally. Rasoulof draws excellent performances from the entire cast, particularly Soheila Golestani, who delivers a compelling transformation from a submissive wife reinforcing regime attitudes to a radical ally of her awakened daughters.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the film is its ability to depict Iran's divided society without exterior scenes. In the family, each member represents one aspect of the revolution: the newly awakened young generation, those who work for the regime, and the initially complacent wife who slowly changes her attitude and understanding. In spite of this, The Seed of the Sacred Fig features nuanced characterisation; even the patriarch of the family, who represents the state and old values, is portrayed in a complex  manner.

An angelically beautiful Catherine Deneuve was launched to stardom by this dazzling musical heart-tugger from Jacques Demy. She plays an umbrella-shop owner’s delicate daughter, glowing with first love for a handsome garage mechanic, played by Nino Castelnuovo. When the boy is shipped off to fight in Algeria, the two lovers must grow up quickly. Exquisitely designed in a kaleidoscope of colors, and told entirely through the lilting songs of the great composer Michel Legrand, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is one of the most revered and unorthodox screen musicals of all time.

Our screening on 4 April will be introduced by Oscar nominated composer Gary Yershon.

Jacques Demy followed up The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with another musical about missed connections and second chances, this one a more effervescent confection. Twins Delphine and Solange, a dance instructor and a music teacher (played by real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac), long for big-city life; when a fair comes through their quiet port town, so does the possibility of escape. With its jazzy Michel Legrand score, pastel paradise of costumes, and divine supporting cast (George Chakiris, Grover Dale, Danielle Darrieux, Michel Piccoli, and Gene Kelly), The Young Girls of Rochefort is a tribute to Hollywood optimism from sixties French cinema’s preeminent dreamer.

Eliza Kubarska (The Wall of Shadows) returns to the mountains for this award winning exploration of the life and disappearance of mountaineering icon Wanda Rutkiewicz. The first woman (and the first Pole) to climb Everest, Rutkiewicz’s independent spirit drew antagonism and dissent from the media and set her apart from the largely male climbing community. Using previously unseen extensive archives alongside interviews with family, climbers and monks this film explores the price she paid for success, and asks if she might in fact still be alive. Her body was never found after she vanished in the Himalayas in 1992.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the film's producer Monika Braid.

Organised by the Polish Cultural Institute in London and supported by the Polish Film Institute, the Kinoteka Polish Film Festival is an annual celebration of Poland’s rich cinematic output that showcases not only the best of contemporary filmmakers but also classics that make up Poland’s rich filmography. Kinoteka will return to celebrate its 23rd year from 6 March - 25 April 2025, featuring over 30 cinema screenings in leading venues around London. Alongside New Polish Cinema, Documentaries and Polish Cinemas Classics, this year's edition will also feature a retrospective of films by Wojciech Has as well as exciting Special Events and screenings of selected films from the Kinotkea programme in 8 UK cities as part of Kinoteka On Tour.

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