4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days was proposed by our members Joe Lovell-McNamee and Tania Sendroiu, who writes: 'Without revealing too much, it’s a film set in the late years of Communist Romania, but it feels all too relevant today. It’s quiet but powerful, and the realism of the scenes puts you right there in the room with the characters. I’d really love to rewatch it.'

The courage and friendship of two Romanian college students is tested when Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) discovers that she is pregnant by her boyfriend (Alex Potocean), and seeks an illegal abortion with the help of her classmate Otilia (Anamaria Marinca). Enlisting the services of the shady Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), the two girls find themselves in extremely tense and uncomfortable situations and must rely on their mutual support to get them through the ordeal.

Please note, the screening on Wednesday 14 January is our free members' screening, while the one on Tuesday 20 January is a regular screening, which is open to the general public.

To mark the start of LGBT+ History Month, the Royal Anthropological Institute, in partnership with Spectra, Queer Non-Fiction Films, presents a special screening of Avant-Drag! followed by a Q&A with writer and film collaborator Foivos Dousos moderated by Dieter Deswarte

Avant-Drag! Radical Performers Re-Imagine Athens offers an exhilarating look at ten Athenian drag performers who deconstruct gender, nationalism, belonging, and identity, while facing police brutality, transphobia, and racism. As entertaining as it is thought-provoking, Avant-Drag! challenges societal norms and reshapes perceptions of LGBTQ+ culture by capturing the intimate lives of a tightly knit group of drag performers, proving that being othered has never felt so familiar.

The film captures the vibrancy of Athens’ underground drag scene and its role in pushing boundaries and expressing dissident identities, going beyond mainstream drag representations to focus on the more radical, explicitly political, and raw performances. Influenced by the Greek ‘Weird Wave’ cinema movement, Avant-Drag! aims not to be just another ‘pride’ documentary of pensive talking heads, but to juxtapose magical realism, political commentary, and outrageous performances. It is also a love song to the Greek capital, a city that can be as oppressive as it is a refuge for art freaks and a hotbed of creativity. Examining the use of public space and street performance as acts of visibility and protest by the drag community, the doc also addresses the problem of gentrification and the effects of more than a decade of austerity and extreme financial hardship.

Screened at over 50 international festivals, Avant-Drag! has received widespread acclaim, including the Critics’ Choice Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Best Documentary at the Berlin Porn Film Festival and Wicked Queer Boston, the Youth Jury Award at EDOC Ecuador, and Special Mentions at the Taiwan International Documentary Festival and MixNYC, among many others.

“a precious film… it might be considered the Greek Paris Is Burning” Anreas Kyrkos, Avgi

“visionary... a cinematic journey like no other” Martin Schlutt, Kaltblut

“creative, weird and, above all, combative and highly political… outstanding”, Thomas Abeltshauser, Taz

The forest comes alive with Bambi, the critically acclaimed coming-of-age story that has thrilled and entertained generations of fans.

This grand adventure is full of humour, heart, and some of the most beloved characters of all time: Bambi, the wide-eyed fawn, his playful pal Thumper, the lovable skunk Flower, and wise Friend Owl. Featuring breathtakingly beautiful artwork and Academy Award nominated music, Bambi's story unfolds from season to season as the young prince of the forest learns valuable lessons about friendship, love, and the miracle of life.

Into Film age recommendation: 5+

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

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

On the evening of 31 March, 1943, legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart confronts his shattered self-confidence in Sardi’s bar as his former collaborator Richard Rodgers celebrates the opening night of his ground-breaking hit musical Oklahoma!

The Garden Cinema View:

This tremendously witty and wordy chamber piece from Richard Linklater feels like a play. It isn’t, but is surely inspired by the stage worlds inhabited by Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers, and Oscar Hammerstein. Effectively a one-location, bar film, Blue Moon follows the cigar-smoked, whisky-drenched afterparty of the Broadway premiere Oklahoma!. Ethan Hawke is a ferocious ball of energy as the Capote-esque Hart. Bitter, quick, cutting, open, rude, and always the most talented person in the room, Hart is spiralling and close to crashing out, but is fascinating to listen to and watch. The film feels stagey, but Linklater imbues the action with a seamless flow, and ultimately Blue Moon is a pleasurable and very funny character study.

There's something going on behind the white picket fences of Lumberton, North Carolina. And after stumbling upon a severed human ear in a field, mystery-loving college student Jeffrey Beaumont is determined to find out what. Teaming up with the daughter of a local police detective, Jeffrey's investigation leads him into a strange world of sensuality and violence, with the intrigue of the missing ear seemingly stemming from the relationship between a troubled nightclub singer and a sociopathic sadomasochist.

Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the tragic passing of David Bowie (January 2026), this film will reveal how Bowie’s last chapter became a resurrection, culminating in the haunting and transformative Blackstar, an album that redefined his legacy and offered a profound metaphor for his life, death, and the mysterious power of creativity. The film traces his journey from the professional challenges of the 1990s, to delivering Glastonbury’s most legendary headline set at the turn of the millennium, to crafting Blackstar - the final breath of one of the world’s greatest artists, released just two days before his passing. With it, Bowie cemented his place in history, both as Lazarus rising from the dead and a star blazing with mystery - both an ending and a beginning.

The Garden Cinema View:

Any documentary about David Bowie tends to be compelling due to the inexhaustible creativity, intelligence, and bold risk taking of its subject. What makes Bowie: The Final Act particularly distinctive is its willingness to present him as human - defined by both genius and vulnerability, rather than the typically hagiographic approach of such profiles.

Watching Bowie navigate his post Berlin years, consumed by self-doubt, while searching for purpose and artistic redefinition, reveals a deeply human dimension that enriches our understanding of his work. Even more thrilling (and moving) is his final decade: an artist ‘resurrecting’ himself to create his best music in years while privately battling terminal cancer.

Through rare interviews with long term friends and musicians, we witness Bowie's artistic experiments not as myth but as lived experience. The Final Act allows us not just to admire Bowie, but to understand him.

A magical journey through sound and vision, Disney's classic Fantasia consists of eight pieces of classical music, each set to its own piece of animation. More than 60 years after the film was made, each section has its own appeal, with moods ranging from charming to awe-inspiring - but the highlight is still the much-loved Sorcerers' Apprentice, with Mickey Mouse frantically battling endless brooms and buckets of water. As an introduction to both animation and classical music, it would be hard to ask for more.

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 14 February will be followed by an online Q&A with the director Lu Qingyi.

Four Springs is a documentary film that presents a family’s daily life in the remote town in southern Guizhou. From a subjective angle, the camera introduces the flow of life out of the screen: the quotidian toils, singing, excursions in nature, visits among friends and extended families, funerals, reunions, and separation. It presents the state of being of the two main characters, the director’s own parents, and their attitude when facing irretrievable loss in life.

This special screening celebrates Chinese New Year 2026 (Year of Horse). It is the fourth 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 and screening of Bi Gan’s Kaili Blues in 2025.

The royal ice-drama phenomenon that spawned a franchise, it is no surprise it went on to become the fifth highest-grossing film of all time and the Oscar-winner for Best Animated Feature (it also won Golden Globe and Bafta for the same category). With some critics dubbing Frozen the best animated feature to come out of Disney since its Snow White heydey, the Oscar-winning songs - which were a huge part of the movie and will probably never leave you - were written by husband and wife duo Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez.

Elsa and Anna are two young princesses of the mountainous kingdom of Arendelle. They were once very close, until an accident caused by Elsa's ice-making powers pushed them apart. Now soon to become Queen, Elsa's worry over her powers has built so much that an emotional outburst causes her to cast the whole kingdom into eternal winter. With the help of gung-ho mountain man Kristoff and friendly snowman Olaf, Princess Anna must find her sister and save Arendelle. Inspired by the 19th century fairy tale The Snow Queen by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, Frozen is a musical adventure that puts an inventive twist on the fairytale tradition while carrying the original tales message of the power of love over evil.

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.

1580 England. Impoverished Latin tutor William Shakespeare meets free-spirited Agnes, and the pair, captivated by one another, strike up a torrid affair that leads to marriage and three children. Yet as Will pursues a budding theatre career in far-away London, Agnes anchors the domestic sphere alone. When tragedy strikes, the couple’s once-unshakable bond is tested, but their shared experience sets the stage for the creation of Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet.

The Garden Cinema View:

Chloé Zhao roars back to form with this handsome (not just Paul Mescal) and heartfelt tale of Tudor romance, witchcraft, theatre, and grief. The establishing scenes are magical. As is Zhao’s signature style, the natural landscapes seem to breathe with life. Interior sequences are shot in painterly geometrical framings, with cinematographer Łukasz Żal bringing some of visual sensibility of his work on The Zone of Interest (don’t worry, similarities end there). The narrative sags a little in the middle, heavy with loss, and feeling the absence of the playwright, even as Jessie Buckley’s performance remains impressive. The conclusion soars, however, and proves that the play is truly the thing.

Our screening on Thursday 19 February will be introduced by season curator George Crosthwait, and will be followed by a post film discussion group in the Atrium Bar.

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

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

Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, It Was Just an Accident is a fearless tour-de-force from cinematic luminary Jafar Panahi. Both urgently political and deeply humane, this new moral classic confronts truth and uncertainty, revenge and mercy, head-on.

When auto mechanic Vahid unexpectedly encounters the man who may have been his torturer in prison, he kidnaps him with the intention to exact vengeance. But since the sole clue to Eghbal’s identity is the distinct squeak of his prosthetic leg, Vahid turns to a loose circle of other now-freed victims for confirmation. And the danger only escalates. As they deal with their past and diverging worldviews, the group struggles to decide: Is this him, without a doubt? What would retribution mean, in actuality?

The Garden Cinema View:

Often classified by the media as a thriller or action film, the Palme d'Or 2025 winner It Was Just an Accident is closer to absurdist comedy - an intriguing fusion of Samuel Beckett and slapstick.

Through characters debating opposing viewpoints, Panahi offers a Socratic dialectical debate unfolding in real time: when we seek revenge, do we become like our predators? Should we interrupt the chain of violence by abstaining from it, or strike back, given that bad people will remain unchanged? If we show empathy, will it be reciprocated? Is forgiveness the right path, or does it enable further harm? Is our malice shaped by systemic dysfunction, or do we bear individual responsibility?

A deeply philosophical piece that also deftly functions as a comedy, It Was Just an Accident is filmmaking of the highest order.

When a warlord dies, a peasant thief is called upon to impersonate him, and then finds himself haunted by the warlord’s spirit as well as his own ambitions. In his late colour masterpiece Kagemusha, Akira Kurosawa returns to the samurai film and to a primary theme of his career - the play between illusion and reality. Sumptuously reconstructing the splendour of feudal Japan and the pageantry of war, Kurosawa creates a historical epic that is also a meditation on the nature of power.

A curated selection of artists films that explore how language, communication and meaning circulates around disability, deafness, and chronic illness.

Shifting between experimentation and mistranslation, transparency and legibility, these films interrogate modes of speaking and listening. Here, access is a practice: negotiated in dialogue, shaped by communications technology and examined intimately. Crossed wires, soap-opera fragments, military exercises, and captioning labour collide, as lip-reading becomes a mode of resistance and play.

Mascara Film Club will be joined by artists for a post-screening discussion.

This programme is curated by Mascara Film Club.

Receiver, dir. Jenny Brady, Ireland 2022, 14 mins

All-around Feel Good, dir. Jordan Lord, USA 2024, 25 mins

The Extra’s Ever Moving Lips, dir. Lucy Clout, UK 2019, 8 mins

I Can Hear My Mother’s Voice, dir. Jordan Lord, USA 2021, 5 mins

Nurses II, dir. Lucy Clout, UK 2019, 5 mins

Protection, dir. Leah Clements, UK 2018, 7 mins

All films in this programme include descriptive subtitles. BSL interpretation will be provided for the introduction and post-screening discussion.

A programme inviting young audiences to imagine worlds both vast and small, where empathy and curiosity shape what comes next.

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

Across claymation forests, floating whale islands, and moonlit skies, these films explore how imagination helps us make sense of change, from the everyday to the extraordinary. A boy learns to let go of his whale companion; a squirrel turns from hoarding to helping and a woman crosses the globe to save a sprout.

Each story begins in wonder but expands into care - for friends, for the planet, for the connections that hold our worlds together - reminding us that imagination is not just play, but a practice of hope.

Loading Nouns Gets Down, dir. Chris Ullens, UK 2024, 4mins

A Clayful Adventure, dir. Florrie Macleod, UK 2025, 4mins

Lena's Farm: Full Nest, dir. Elena Walf, Germany 2025, 6mins

I Have Not Considered the Lilies, dir. Blake Hunter and Mia Saines, US 2025, 4mins

Leave The Island, dir. Chen Wu, Taiwan 2025, 11mins

Tuu Tuu Til, dir. Veronica Solomon, Germany 2024, 5mins

Gravity Bound, dir. Frankie Lasley, US 2025, 3mins

The Mystery of the Missing Sock, dir. Anouk Witkowska Hiffler and Tomás Felício Oliveira, UK 2025, 3mins

Film Film, dir. Artūrs Vobļikovs, UK 2025, 12mins

Please note: The film “Film Film” includes a brief scene depicting tobacco use. The film is subtitled and contains moments that may be unsettling for very young viewers.

Winner of many awards, including at Annecy Film Festival, the largest animation film festival in the world, Living Large is an honest exploration of puberty, first love and the difficult relationship with our bodies.The film’s gorgeous visual world is created using stop-motion puppet animation combined with 2D animation.

12-year-old Ben has just hit puberty and suddenly his weight's a problem - for him  and for everyone else. The other kids bully him, his divorced parents don't know

what to do... Even the school nurse is worried about him. So, despite his love of food and his emerging talent as a chef, Ben decides to take drastic action. He starts to diet.

Maybe that can turn things round. And even win the heart of Klara, the girl of his dreams... Finally, Ben will learn that what truly matters isn't how you look - it's how you feel.

Living Large is an adaptation of a short novel by French author Mikaël Ollivier. It is one of Ollivier’s most signifcant works, having won numerous literary prizes, including the Prix des Incorruptibles, awarded annually by French children.

The film is dubbed in english & recommended for ages 10+

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.

Marty Mauser, a young man with a dream no one respects, goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness.

The Garden Cinema View:

There's no time to rest in this angsty 2.5 hour saga made with exceptional filmmaking craft by Josh Safdie. The obsessive pursuit of a ping-pong career becomes launchpad to explore a charismatic yet grating character, and to immerse us in the atmosphere of a long-lost era.

Similarly to Uncut Gems, there is towering suspense amongst the organised chaos, and the plot pushes aggressively forward, demanding full attention for the hefty runtime. But Marty Supreme also revels in its sense of place - a vivid depiction of 1950s New York Jewish community is captured in exquisite detail, and is populated with big, idiosyncratic characters, all of whom feel lived in. The anachronistic use of 80s music blends in seamlessly, never feeling pretentious or like a stylistic gimmick.

Marty Supreme is noisy and, although very engaging, it sometimes makes you wonder to what end - much like its protagonist, moving forward without clear direction. Yet therein lies its charm: in the journey itself rather than any revelatory outcome.

Our Members' Scratch Night returns on Friday 23 January to help more of the creatives in our membership community develop their WIP projects. This is an opportunity to test out material - be it unfinished films, scripts, pieces of writing, or other art forms - in front of a supportive audience, who will then be able to provide you with their thoughts and feedback in a casual setting. The event will take place in the Atrium Bar, and will be hosted by fellow cinema member Roberto Prestia.

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

Tickets for the event are £5, and include a token for a complimentary glass of house wine, a beer or a soft drink at the bar. They are restricted to 2 per member, so you're welcome to bring along a +1 for the occasion.

The schedule on the night will be as follows:

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

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

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

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

Please ensure you select the right option when booking a ticket:

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

About Roberto:

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

To celebrate our trip to 1980s Japan with our Lost Decade season, we're delighted to welcome back the team from Sake Collective for a sake tasting including cheese pairings. 

Sake Collective are an online sake shop, dedicated to creating a new community of people around sake and other traditional Japanese drinks. They have also been supplying The Garden Bar with a variety of rotating sakes.  

Satoshi Hirasaki from Sake Collective will be showcasing five sakes, taking us through a range of styles, while also teaching us about the history of Japan’s national beverage. Each sake will be paired with a complementary cheese serving provided by Soho Dairy.

There will be a pop-up sake shop after the tasting, so you can buy a bottle of your favourite variety to take home.

Tickets for the sake tasting are £30, and are restricted to 2 per member, meaning you can bring a +1 along. Remember to log into your membership account before booking.

We're offering a multi-buy discount for any members purchasing tickets for the sake tasting and the screening of Nobuhiko Obayashi's His Motorbike, Her Island that follows later in the evening: when both tickets are in the shopping basket, the ticket price for the film will automatically be reduced to just £8.00.

Our screening on Wednesday 21 January will be introduced by film journalist James Balmont.

David Bowie stars in Nagisa Oshima's 1983 Palme d'Or-nominated portrait of resilience, pride, friendship and obsession among four very different men confined in the stifling jungle heat of a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Java during World War II.

In 1942, British officer Major Jack Celliers (Bowie) is captured by Japanese soldiers, and after a brutal trial sent, physically debilitated but indomitable in mind, to a POW camp overseen by the zealous Captain Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto). Celliers' stubbornness sees him locked in a battle of wills with the camp's new commandant, a man obsessed with discipline and the glory of Imperial Japan who becomes unnaturally preoccupied with the young Major, while Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence (Tom Conti), the only inmate with a degree of sympathy for Japanese culture and an understanding of the language, attempts to bridge the divide through his friendship with Yonoi's second-in-command, Sergeant Hara (Takeshi Kitano), a man possessing a surprising degree of compassion beneath his cruel façade.

Produced by Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky), it was the first English-language film by Oshima (Death by Hanging, In the Realm of the Senses, Gohatto), a leading light of Japanese New Wave cinema, and provided breakthrough big-screen roles for comedian Takeshi Kitano and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, who also composed the film's hauntingly memorable BAFTA-winning score.

In 1974, famed photographer Peter Hujar describes the routines and rituals that define an artist's life, capturing a single day's activities from interactions with cultural icons of the day, including Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Susan Sontag, and the texture and energy of downtown New York in its heyday.

Elegant and intimate - and a dazzling showcase for the two performers at its center - Peter Hujar's Day is both a masterful portrait of a time and place, and a captivating film about the way art emerges from the intimate details of everyday life.

The Garden Cinema View:

This touching, free-flowing, chamber piece is a tight actor’s showcase for Ben Wishaw and Rebecca Hall, and is moreover an uncanny reconstruction of a particular time and artistic scene (think Patti Smith’s Stray Kids). Ira Sachs, to a degree, encapsulates the experimental drive of ‘70s NYC, with an exploration of mundanity that might be profound, or pretentious, depending on your mood. While a single New York apartment might conjure the spectre of structuralist film, Sachs does aim for something more humane, especially with the hindsight of Hujar’s tragic AIDS related death. Wishaw hints at sadness and suffering in subtle intonations and glances. This may just be one day, but it encapsulates a career, a life, and a city.  

The film will be followed by a Q&A with director Den Edelstyn.

Two artists in Walthamstow set out to take their street off the grid, kickstarting a solar-powered energy revolution.

Inspired by lockdown mutual aid initiatives, artist-activists Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn decided to turn their street into an energy-generating powerhouse – a prototype for a new way of living, with the hope of galvanising a wider push towards sustainable alternatives.

Directed by the duo, POWER STATION charts their turbulent journey, from pitching the idea to their neighbours and sleeping on the roof of their home, to raising finance and launching a bid for a Christmas number one single.

By turns funny and heartwarming, Powell and Edelstyn’s film is a vibrant portrait of their local neighbourhood, and a charming testament to the power of art in changing minds about what could be possible.

You can follow the film's journey on the official website.

The UK film industry has historically and systemically failed to represent people from working-class backgrounds. This is the focus of Scottish filmmaker Mark Forbes’ new documentary Quiet On Set: The Class Division in the Film Industry?

Through interviews and testimonies, Mark examines the barriers that working class people have faced accessing and maintaining a career in film. We hear from well known champions of this issue: Paul Laverty, Maxine Peake, Vicky McClure. He also delves into its natural consequence: the dearth of working class representation and storytelling on film. The result is an engaging and eye-opening documentary that paints a comprehensive picture of the systemic nature of exclusion. (The Canary)

After half a year in 2025 with Quiet on Set: The Class Division in the Film Industry? Appearing in four film festivals of 2025, The Galway Film Fleadh gave me the support to cotinue, when so many film festivals opposed what I was championing for.  "Working-class inclusivity for everyone who is working in the film and TV industries". The BFI, BBC, SKY, BECTU, BAFTA, FILM LONDON, DIRECTORS UK, EQUITY, and all the production companies because if they do not support, they are actually weakening the film and TV industry.  

The film will be followed by a Q&A with filmmaker, Mark Forbes.

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

A young warrior princess named Raya (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran) tries to reunite her kingdom by finding the last survivor of the race of dragons that used to protect her people. This computer-animated fantasy adventure is a visual feast inspired by Southeast Asian cultures and legends, whilst telling an engaging, accessible story of teamwork and overcoming our prejudices in order to succeed. Nominated for the 2021 Animated Feature Film Oscar, Raya and the Last Dragon was created largely by filmmakers working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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

Members are invited to join us on Saturday 17 January to help us serve up our new season of 1980s Japanese cinema: The Lost Decade.

To celebrate in style, we'll be raising a glass of sake (or sparkling jasmine tea from Saicho) in the Atrium Bar, prior to the screening of Juzo Itami's very nourishing ode to revisionist Westerns, Luis Buñuel, and Jacques Tati: Tampopo. We're also delighted to welcome Professor Jennifer Coates from the University of Sheffield, who will introduce the film.

As we are aware that this particular feature will be quite hunger-inducing, we are partnering up with the wonderful team behind Onigiri KOME, who will be providing their delicious Japanese rice balls to enjoy alongside your drink.

Tickets for the event are £16.50 each, and are limited to members and their +1s. They include a complimentary glass of sake, sparkling jasmine tea, or soft drink, a tasty onigiri, and an unallocated seat for the screening.

Not-included (but recommended), are reservations at the closest ramen shop to sate your inevitable post-film appetite.

Event timings:

16:00  Doors open for mingling with sake & onigiri

17:15  Screen doors open

17:30  Introduction by Jennifer Coates

17:45  Screening of Tampopo

19:45  Expected finish

About Onigiri KOME:

At Onigiri Kome, we handcraft onigiri with the same care and warmth as a homemade bento. We use high-quality Japanese rice and ingredients, rotating rice varieties from different prefectures and freshly milled in London, so you can enjoy the true and fresh flavours of Japanese rice here in London. Each onigiri is shaped by hand using traditional techniques to achieve the ideal balance of taste and texture, offering a comforting and flavourful snack enjoyed any time of day. You can find us at our Izakaya restaurant near London Bridge, as well as at one Onigiri Pop-ups in cafés around London, including partners like Nagare Coffee.

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Following the success of global phenomenon The Worst Person in the World, Academy Award-nominee Joachim Trier reunites with BAFTA nominee Renate Reinsve for their universally acclaimed follow-up, Sentimental Value. Winner of the prestigious Cannes Grand Prix award, and featuring career-best performances from Golden Globe winner Stellan Skarsgård and Elle Fanning.

Reinsve plays Nora, a successful stage actress who, along with her sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), reunites with their estranged father Gustav Borg (Skarsgård) – a once-renowned film director planning a major comeback with a script based on his family. When Gustav offers Nora the lead role, which she

promptly declines, he turns his attention to Rachel Kemp (Fanning), an eager young Hollywood starlet primed for her big breakthrough. With their fraught dynamics made even more complex, Nora, Agnes and Gustav are each forced to confront their difficult pasts.

The Garden Cinema View:

Joachim Trier cements has status as the most successful Norwegian filmmaker of all time with an ambitious and self-reflexive family portrait. As any self-respecting auteur will do at some point, Trier has made a film about filmmaking. This is a subject that, although quite indulgent, opens up Sentimental Value for poignant reflections on creativity, performance, and the meaning of (a broken) home.

Although Trier is a very different filmmaker, there is something faintly Bergman-esque in Sentimental Value. The excavation of family history, the merging of identity, a problematic father, and simply the presence of actors (performing Ibsen no less), all help to conjure the ghost of the Swedish master. Actually the film that Sentimental Value evokes most strongly is Mia Hansen-Løve’s Bergman Island, although with less metatextual contortions.  

This is confident and powerful filmmaking, carried off by a superb cast, and is the is best film about a film director since Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory.

Sátántangó is screening in tribute to Bela Tarr, who sadly passed away this month.

Bela Tarr’s epic rendering of László Krasznahorkai's novel, about the decline of Communism in Eastern Europe, is a unique and visionary masterpiece that defies classification and transcends genre.

Set in a struggling Hungarian agricultural collective, a group of lost souls reeling from the collapse of their Communist utopia face an uncertain future, until the arrival of a charismatic stranger in whom they believe lies their salvation. The collective’s individual experiences and fates are gradually revealed in Tarr’s immaculately composed, brilliantly photographed and bleakly comic tour-de-force, which confirmed his place as one of contemporary cinema’s few genuine auteurs.

Content note: contains scenes of unsimulated animal cruelty and death.

Please note, there will be two 10 minute intermissions.

The tale of an eccentric band of culinary ronin who guide the widow of a noodle-shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe, this rapturous 'ramen western' by Japanese director Juzo Itami is an entertaining, genre-bending adventure underpinned by a deft satire of the way social conventions distort the most natural of human urges-our appetites. Interspersing the efforts of Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto) and friends to make her café a success with the erotic exploits of a gastronome gangster and glimpses of food culture both high and low, the sweet, sexy, and surreal Tampopo is a lavishly inclusive paean to the sensual joys of nourishment, and one of the most mouthwatering examples of food on film ever made.

London Breeze Film Festival is delighted to present the winner of its Best Feature Documentary award for 2025 at The Garden Cinema.

Here's what our jury member, Curtis Gallant of The Whickers awards, had to say about the film:

“The winning documentary highlights how the past can echo across generations. This highly personal story confronts concealed history on both sides of the Atlantic. It poignantly captures the power of both hate and love, and its title character fills the screen with his big-hearted personality.”

Terry Harrison MBE is on an emotional quest to trace his GI dad, whom he never knew, and learn about the lives of African American soldiers based in Britain during WW2. This epic journey takes him to South Carolina, Washington DC and the Northern Beaches of France. Former Royal Marines Commando, a keen gardener and proud Leicester City fan, Terry has been on a lifelong quest to find out more about his dad until his journey takes a very unexpected new turn.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director, Jonathan Beamish, Terry Harrison and other guests to be confirmed.

Our screening on Thursday 26 February will be introduced by Mark Player, author of Japanese Cinema and Punk, and will be followed by a post film discussion group in the Atrium Bar.   

A strange man known only as the 'metal fetishist', who seems to have an insane compulsion to stick scrap metal into his body, is hit and possibly killed by a Japanese salaryman, out for a drive with his girlfriend. The salaryman then notices that he is being slowly overtaken by some kind of disease that is turning his body into scrap metal, and that his nemesis is not in fact dead but is somehow masterminding and guiding his rage and frustration-fueled transformation.

Our screening on Thursday 22 January will be introduced by Alastair Phillips (University of Warwick), and followed by a post film discussion group in the Atrium Bar.  

Cinematic anthropologist extraordinaire Shohei Imamura won his first Palme d'Or at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival for The Ballad of Narayama, his transcendent adaptation of two classic stories by Shichiro  Fukazawa.

In a small village in a remote valley where the harshness of life dictates that survival overrules compassion, elderly widow Orin is approaching her 70th birthday - the age when village law says she must go up to the mythic Mount Narayama to die. But there are several loose ends within her own family to tie up first.

Creating a vividly realised inverse image of 'civilised' society with typical directness and black humour, Imamura presents a bracingly unsentimental rumination on mortality and an engrossing study of a community's struggles against the natural elements. Handled with a masterful control and simplicity, moving effortlessly between the comic and the horrific, The Ballad of Narayama is one of the legendary director's deepest, richest works, and ranks among the finest films of its decade.

Set within a modest clinic in the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar, run by the married couple San San Oo and Aung Min – both doctors and artists –The Clinic (2023) opens with close observation of the space’s daily operations. Patients arrive at the crowded waiting room seeking relief from insomnia, auditory hallucinations, alcoholism and other conditions.

Ever dynamic, Midi Z’s camera then shifts to follow the husband Aung Min, a filmmaker, who is making a film exploring the lives of the Rohingya community in Myanmar. By documenting the process of filmmaking itself, Midi Z creates a nested structure in which the roles of patient, physician, and filmmaker are intertwined and personal ambitions, political realities, art and mental health coalesce in this delicate reflexive portrait.

Through these layers, the effects of living under chronic instability begin to emerge within the clinic. Decades of civil war, political violence and ethnic conflict in Myanmar have produced not only visible social fractures but also less tangible forms of psychological stress. Filmed across the years before and after the 2021 military coup, The Clinic attends to this quieter register of trauma – one that rarely presents itself as overtly political, yet is inseparable from political reality.

The Clinic was awarded the Grand Prize Visionary Award at Taiwan International Documentary Festival (TIDF) and was nominated for the Best Documentary Award at the Golden Horse Awards and has been shown at various international film festivals including IDFA.

Presented as part of Sine Screen’s Whose Homeland 25-26 film season, with the support of the BFI, awarding National Lottery funding.

Sine Screen is a London-based screening collective dedicated to showcasing independent cinema and moving-image works from across East and Southeast Asia. It aims to create space for critical dialogue around dominant representations of ESEA cultures and histories through diverse programming, and has received support from the British Film Institute and Arts Council England.

Our screening on Saturday 31 January will be introduced by Tom Cunliffe (UCL), and will be followed by a post film discussion group in the Atrium Bar.

The Kobayashi family finally are able to move out of their tiny, cramped Tokyo apartment to the suburban house of their dreams. But things are not as perfect as they seem: the house is infested by termites and the family starts going crazy. Son Masaki is studying so obsessively for his exams that he’s losing his mind; daughter Erika is oblivious of all but her forthcoming record company audition, grandfather Yasukuni starts getting World War II flashbacks and father Katsuhiko is so worried about his family’s 'sickness' that he thinks can only be cured by group suicide. As the Kobayashis’ house begins to crumble, so does the sanity of its inhabitants. Katsuhiko takes it upon himself to keep them from the asylum… at any cost.

Our screening on Thursday 5 February will be introduced by Irene González-López (Birkbeck), and will be followed by a post film discussion group in the Atrium Bar.

Conceived by Shohei Imamura, Kazuo Hara’s infamous and audacious documentary follows Kenzo Okuzaki, an ageing Japanese WW2 veteran, on a mission to uncover the truth about atrocities committed as the war in the Pacific reached its bloody end. Ultimately, Okuzaki blames Japan's Emperor Hirohito himself for these barbarities, and his obsessive pursuit of those he deems responsible soon escalates. Willing to confront the taboos of Japanese society in his fanatical quest for justice, Okuzaki is driven to unsettling acts of violence.

Harrowing and extraordinarily powerful, Hara’s film forces us to face the disturbing realities of war and, crucially, to question the complicity between filmmaker, subject and audience.

This screening will be introduced by Victor Fan (KCL), and will be followed by a post film discussion group in the Atrium Bar.

It’s death, Japanese style, in the rollicking and wistful first feature from maverick writer-director Juzo Itami. In the wake of her lascivious father’s sudden passing, a successful actor (Itami’s wife and frequent collaborator, Nobuko Miyamoto) and her husband (Tsutomu Yamazaki) leave Tokyo and return to their family house to oversee a traditional funeral. Over the course of three days of mourning that bring illicit escapades in the woods, a surprisingly materialistic priest (Yasujiro Ozu regular Chishu Ryu), and cinema’s most epic sandwich handoff, the tensions between public propriety and private hypocrisy are laid bare. Deftly weaving dark comedy with poignant family drama, The Funeral is a fearless satire of the clash between old and new in Japanese society in which nothing, not even the finality of death, is off-limits.

Our screening on Tuesday 13 January will be introduced by independent curator Yuriko Hamaguchi.

This lyrical adaptation of the beloved novel by Junichiro Tanizaki was a late-career triumph for director Kon Ichikawa. Structured around the changing of the seasons, The Makioka Sisters follows the lives of four siblings who have taken on their family’s kimono manufacturing business, in the years leading up to the Pacific War. The two oldest have been married for some time, but according to tradition, the rebellious youngest sister cannot wed until the third, conservative and terribly shy, finds a husband. This graceful study of a family at a turning point in history is a poignant evocation of changing times and fading customs, shot in rich, vivid colors.

For this edition of Composing Cinema, we are delighted to welcome Academy Award nominated composer John Cameron who will be joining fellow Oscar-nominee Gary Yershon to discuss his score for Peter Medak's satirical epic, The Ruling Class. John and Gary will be in conversation before the screening.

Peter O’Toole gives a tour-de-force performance as Jack, a man 'cured' of believing he’s God - only to become Jack the Ripper incarnate. Based on Peter Barnes's irreverent play, this darkly comic indictment of Britain’s class system peers behind the closed doors of English aristocracy. Insanity, sadistic sarcasm, and black comedy - with just a touch of the Hollywood musical - are all featured in this beloved cult classic directed by Peter Medak.

A group of tiny blue creatures from a magical forest are accidentally transported to modern-day New York City, where they must find a way back home. With the help of a kind couple, they try to stay hidden while evading a determined wizard who wants to capture them. Their adventure becomes a light-hearted story about courage, teamwork, and friendship in an unfamiliar world.

The live action cast features well-recieved performances from Neil Patrick Harris, Hank Azaria and Sofía Vergara, while pop star Katy Perry takes on the voice of Smurfette.

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.

January 29, 2024. Red Crescent volunteers receive an emergency call. A 5-year old girl is trapped in a car under fire in Gaza, pleading for rescue. While trying to keep her on the line, they do everything they can to get an ambulance to her. Her name was Hind Rajab.

Our screening on 12 February will be introduced by Alexander Jacoby (Oxford Brookes), and will be followed by a film discussion group in the Atrium Bar.

Newly restored, Shinji Somai’s beloved cult film Typhoon Club is widely heralded as the director’s seminal feature and considered to be one of the greatest Japanese films ever made.

Offering a caustic immersion into the lives of disaffected junior high students on the cusp of adulthood, Typhoon Club features a lively cast of young talent including idol Youki Kudoh (The Crazy Family, Mystery Train) facing existential intrigues, budding sexuality, and rising social tensions in the days leading up to a typhoon’s arrival. Stranded in their schoolhouse as the storm settles in, the group undergoes an awakening as they dispel all insecurities, fear and desire under the swell of the tempest.

Content note: contains a scene of sexual assault

Two unemployed Chinese teenagers have trouble resisting the temptations of the Western world.

Burst City is an explosive Molotov cocktail of dystopian sci-fi, Mad Max-style biker wars against yakuza gangsters and the police, and riotous performances from members of the real-life Japanese punk bands The Stalin, The Roosters, The Rockers and INU.

In a derelict industrial wasteland somewhere on the outskirts of Tokyo, two rival punk bands and their unruly mobs of fans gather for a Battle of the Bands-style protest against the construction of a nuclear powerplant, bringing them head to head with the yakuza industrialists behind the development of their turf.

This extraordinary celebration of Japan's punk music scene of the early 1980s thrust Sōgo Ishii (now known by the name of Gakuryū Ishii), to the next level and is regularly cited as an early landmark in Japanese cyberpunk cinema.

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

What happens when you’ve created the worst hit song ever – at least according to the music press? What comes after fleeting fame, and what does it mean to grow old still chasing a dream?

Kim Hopkins’ moving and funny follow up to her documentary A Bunch of Amateurs features former pop star Dene Michael as he clings to the remnants of fame he once had as a member of 1980s novelty pop group Black Lace. The band’s universally known hit Agadoo – both beloved and hated by many, and the high or low point of any party – is what Dene’s best known for. Now, performing for a dwindling, ageing audience in some of the UK’s most deprived seaside towns and cities, he’s eager to press on with his music career and get out from under the legacy of the Black Lace songbook. Still Pushing Pineapples follows Dene, his spirited 89-year-old mum Anne, and his sassy girlfriend Hayley across Britain and the Costa del Sol in this unmistakably British road movie. En route they navigate love, family duty, and the relentless pursuit of one last chart success. But who needs an ’80s throwback in a loud pineapple shirt and oversized red specs, singing a tired earworm? Apparently, many do (doo doo).

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Kim Hopkins and Margareta Szabo

Kim Hopkins – Director & producer

Kim is an award-winning, working-class, queer British filmmaker, and one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary UK documentary. A highly skilled self shooting director, she brings an unparalleled visual world and deep intimacy to her films. She’s a graduate of the National Film and Television School and a co-founder of Labor of Love Films.

Margareta Szabo – Producer

Margareta is a BAFTA Elevate producer and co-founder of Labor of Love Films. Originally from Budapest and trained in film and theatre, Margareta began her career as an actor. An alum of Berlinale Talents, Sheffield DocFest’s Future Producer School, and Creative Enterprise’s Female Founders programme, Margareta is also a committed mentor and advocate for emerging talent. She is represented by Identity Agency Group.