Films -2025/26 Season
12 September 2025
Blackbird, Blackbird Blackberry
Georgia 2023 110 minutes
Directed by Elene Naveriani
A near-death experience provides a startling new lease of life for single, middle-aged Etero in her remote Georgian village. There’s suddenly a man in her life, and passion where routine once held sway. But will settling into a relationship stifle the independence that she has prized for decades?
26 September
Missing
USA 1982 122 minutes
Directed by Costa-Gavras
This engrossing thriller highlights the true story of conservative American businessman Ed Horman’s efforts to find his journalist son, who disappeared in the aftermath of Chile’s 1973 coup. It’s a study of a straight-as-a-die patriot losing faith in his government’s moral compass. Jack Lemmon shines in the role.
10 October
Fallen Leaves (plus AGM)
Finland 2023 81 minutes
Directed by Aki Kaurismäki
Set against a backdrop of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine (and Finns’ awareness that they could be next), director Kaurismäki contrives a charmingly deadpan romantic comedy. Newly unemployed Ansa and construction worker Holappa “meet cute” in a Helsinki karaoke bar but encounter a series of mishaps and obstacles (most of their own making).
24 October
Room at the Top
UK 1959 115 minutes
Directed by Jack Clayton
Britain’s first “kitchen sink” film, Jack Clayton’s adaptation of the John Braine novel captures the shifting attitudes towards class in the Fifties. Laurence Harvey plays Joe, determined to break free of his stifling mill-town existence by wooing the daughter of an industrialist. Things fall into place – or do they?
7 November
Lingui (The Sacred Bonds)
Chad 2021 87 minutes
Directed by Mahamat Saleh Haroun
Amina, a feisty single mother living on the outskirts of N’Djamena, is upended when her teenage daughter falls pregnant and wants an abortion – outlawed by Islam and Chad’s civil code. Perhaps she can call on Chad’s underground sisterhood to outflank “mosque and state”?
21 November
Certified Copy
France/Italy 2010 106 minutes
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami
A British writer on a book tour in Tuscany encounters a French woman (an alluring Juliette Binoche) who’s fascinated by the book’s premise – that even art forgeries are “originals” – or is it the author himself who has sparked her interest? The pair become involved, but in what? An affair? A copy of a marriage? Are they really married, and this is a playful game? The mystery deepens against the lovely Tuscan countryside.
12 December
Babette’s Feast
Denmark 1987 102 minutes
Directed by Gabriel Axel
Escaping the chaos after the fall of the Paris Commune in 1871, acclaimed chef Babette chose to work as housekeeper for a pair of devout Lutheran sisters in Denmark. For years she’s worked without mentioning her culinary past as she prepared the sisters’ spartan meals. A chance windfall lets her cut loose and serve up a seven-course banquet for the astounded villagers. Wry and moving, the film will have us checking our Christmas supplies of caviar, foie gras, goose and turtle soup.
9 January 2026
My Favourite Cake
Iran 2024 97 minutes
Direction: Maryam Moghaddam, Behtash Sanaeeha
Mahin, widowed for three decades, has a solitary existence in her Teheran apartment, connecting via FaceTime with her grown children, now living abroad. Like the film’s directors (who have faced police raids and travel bans), she is happy to flout the regime’s strictures. Tired of endless (but hilarious) conversations centring on ailments with her female friends, she sets out to find romance…and succeeds. Her gentle new beau, Faramarz, is also something of a maverick, inspiring Mahin to “round up the usual ingredients” to bake in celebration.
23 January
The Old Oak
UK 2023 113 minutes
Directed by Ken Loach
“I have a friend who calls hope obscene,” confides Syrian refugee Yara to publican TJ in a Yorkshire village which was hollowed out by the Miners’ Strike and is now shaken by newer Brexit divisions. TJ appreciates her comment, while at the same time stoically listening to the casual anti-immigrant comments of his Old Oak regulars. But the connection between the pair gradually finds echoes in the community, even if Loach – as usual – refuses to indulge in Hollywood endings.
6 February
Cinema Paradiso
Italy 1988 123 minutes
Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore
At the risk of being arrested for insider trading, we advise you to invest in tissues, because they’ll be in short supply by the end of this elegiac study of childhood, innocence, romance, and the magic of the Silver Screen. Successful film director Salvatore is summoned back to his Sicilian village, where a remarkable offering – and a torrent of nostalgia – await him.
20 February
Luzzu
Malta 2021 95 minutes
Directed by Alex Camilleri
Jesmark inherits the family’s fishing boat, expected to carry on with the livelihood that has served his family for generations. Squeezed on all sides – by a leaking boat, mounting bills and a son with special needs – he faces a moral dilemma. Should he get short-term relief by entering the fisheries black-market that’s likely to sound the death knell for fishers like himself?
6 March
All We Imagine as Light
India 2024 123 minutes
Directed by Payal Kapadia
A surprise gift of a rice cooker puzzles a pair of nurses living together in Mumbai. Could it be from Prabha’s arranged-marriage husband, whom she hasn’t seen for a year? Or perhaps Anu’s Muslim lover Shiaz? A hastily arranged stay in a rural village seems to settle the matter – or does it?
20 March
Crossing
Georgia 2024 105 minutes
Directed by Levan Akin
Determined to find her long-lost niece, retired teacher Lia sets out from her Georgian village for Istanbul, having found a possible address of her niece there. Crossing the border into Turkey leads to a much deeper crossing – into the world of Istanbul’s trans community.
27 March
Rams
Iceland 2015 92 minutes
Directed by Grímur Hákonarson
Two sheep-farming brothers living next to each other on a remote homestead haven’t spoken to each other for four decades – until an outbreak of scabies leads to a widespread sheep cull. One of them saves and hides some of his flock, prompting a fraternal thaw…and a conclusive reconciliation.
