Mavka: Lisova Pisnya

A beautiful Ukrainian animation based on a well-known story from Slavic mythology that celebrates the power of love, and the harmony between humankind and the natural world. Screened originally at the 2023 Chichester Film Festival, and brought back this season in support of the local Ukrainian community.

After a long-forgotten war between humans and the spirits of the forest that sees the mountains declared forbidden to humans, Lucas is tasked by the evil Kylina to find the tree of healing that caused the war. Young and naive forest nymph Mavka takes a shine to village artist Lucas, to the strong disapproval of the rest of the forest spirits and humans alike. There are strong ecological themes here, as well as some good old-fashioned fairytale morals about vanity and selfishness. This visually stunning film includes some beautiful Ukrainian folk music with striking close harmonies. (Subtitles)

Ukraine 2023 Oleh Malamuzh & Oleksandra Ruban 99m

Met Opera

Two-time Tony Award–winning composer Jeanine Tesori’s powerful new opera ‘Grounded’, commissioned by the Met and based on librettist George Brant’s acclaimed play, wrestles with the ethical quandaries and psychological toll of 21st-century warfare.

Sun 20 Oct 15:00

To complement our ‘Catching Fire’ special Q&A event and Rolling Stones talk, we present this career-spanning documentary on the band, with concert footage from their ‘A Bigger Bang’ tour.

Filmmaker Martin Scorsese documents the Stones' energetic performance at New York's Beacon Theatre. The concert, filmed in 2006, features Stones standards and favourites, plus guest appearances by Buddy Guy, Christina Aguilera and Jack White III. Scorsese takes note of the band's long career with music clips and interviews from previous decades. This is a masterful concert film, one that will appeal to movie lovers and hardcore Stones admirers alike.

USA 2008 Martin Scorsese 122m

This tense, touching and funny portrait of family dynamics follows three estranged sisters as they converge in a New York apartment to care for their ailing father.

Katie (Carrie Coon) is a controlling Brooklyn mother dealing with a wayward teenage daughter; free-spirited Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) is separated from her offspring for the first time; and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) is a sports-betting stoner who has never left her father's apartment. We follow the siblings over the course of three volatile days, as death looms, grievances erupt and love seeps through the cracks of a fractured home.

USA 2023 Azazel Jacobs 101m

Saoirse Ronan astounds as a young woman searching for grace in the face of addiction.

After living life on the edge in London, Rona (Ronan) attempts to come to terms with her troubled past. She returns to the wild beauty of Scotland's Orkney Islands (where she grew up but left more than a decade ago) hoping to heal. As she reconnects with the dramatic landscape where she grew up, memories of her childhood merge with the more recent challenging events that have set her on the path to recovery. This is that rare, effective addiction film with a potent, if simple, message: if you persevere with curiosity and awe of the world, you will open the door to loving yourself as a part of it all. Adapted from Amy Liptrot's bestselling memoir.

UK 2023 Nora Fingscheidt 118m

An architect wants to rebuild New York City as a utopia following a devastating disaster. This was the most polarizing film at this years’ Cannes Film Festival.

Francis Ford Coppola turns the fall of ancient Rome into a fable about the perils of American capitalistic greed. Caesar (Adam Driver) is a celebrity architect with aspirations to build a utopia in the ruins of New York City, here called New Rome. This is the battleground between Cesar, Mayor Frankyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) and Hamilton Crassus (Jon Voight), head of the national bank. The supporting cast also includes Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Shia LaBeouf and Dustin Hoffman. Premiered at Cannes 2024 to a mixed reception, and as is most often the case, the most interesting films are those that once seen, leave you not knowing if you have seen a stinker, or the best film ever made.

USA 2024 Francis Ford Coppola 138m

In this sharp, visceral and blackly humorous read on showbiz culture and society, a young actor in a cycle of nightmarish auditions takes it upon himself to find a new part to play.

Aden (Nabhaan Rizwan) is a young man who spends most of his time recording self-tapes for parts he never gets. After he receives multiple rejections for a series of terrible commercial auditions, he takes it upon himself to find a new part to play. This is a distressing metaphor for acting as a career, the ways in which we see other people, how we exploit what we see, and the harm that can cause. A seriously talented performer, Rizwan shines in a role that demands every shade in the spectrum from goofy comedy to dark contemplation. The varying characters he plays in auditions are vividly focussed and the layers of emotion Aden feels throughout each moment are easy to identify with.

UK 2023 Naqqash Khalid 95m

Gou Zhen

As part of a dog patrol tasked with clearing stray dogs before the 2008 Olympics, a newly released convict bonds with a black stray and the two lonely souls embark on a new journey together.

A warm-hearted crowd pleaser about an ex-convict - Land (Eddie Peng) - and the canine he befriends, this the latest picture from prolific Chinese director Guan Hu, which elevates the man and dog genre in this moving film in which a lost soul is redeemed by his bond with a trusty mutt. This is a beautiful film that, with few words, reveals a personal drama while reflecting a complex social situation that affects many communities in China. The film makes the most of its blighted Gobi desert backdrop. Cinematographer Gai Weizhe shoots in widescreen, the better to capture the intimidatingly bleak lunar expanses of rock and sand. One of two very good Chinese films in this season’s programme (see also ‘Only the River Flows’). (Subtitles)

China 2024 Hu Guan 110m

Failed comedian Arthur Fleck meets the love of his life, Harley Quinn, while in Arkham State Hospital. Upon release, the pair embark on a doomed romantic misadventure.

USA 2024 Todd Phillips 138m

A brilliant young man puts his bright future at risk to help his father.

This new drama, written and directed by, and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor (‘Twelve Years A Slave’), follows the true story of a brilliant young black man from New Jersey (a magnificent performance from Jay Will) raised by his devoted yet struggling mother (Mary J. Blige) following his father’s murder conviction. Having won a scholarship to Yale against all the odds, he puts everything at risk to free his imprisoned father (Ejiofor). Also starring Camila Cabello and based on the New York Times bestseller ‘The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace’ by Jeff Hobb. This is the second directing role for Ejiofor following his debut ‘The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind’ in 2019.

UK 2024 Chiwetel Ejiofor 119m

After undergoing a facial reconstructive surgery, a man becomes fixated on an actor in a stage production based on his former life.

Aspiring actor Edward (Sebastian Stan) undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare, as he loses out on the role he was born to play and becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost. This is as much a tale of outward appearance as it is inner anxieties, a balance director Schimberg strikes in careful ways as he crafts a stunning comedy-drama about seeing oneself. Think Aki Kaurismäki collaborating with David Cronenberg and that may get you close to having an idea to the originality of this film.

USA 2024 Aaron Schimberg 112m

Between Dream and Wakefulness

An Introduction to the Cinema of the Surreal

Following the screenings of the film ‘Lee’ (see above), with Kate Winslet as the photographer Lee Miller, this talk will take a look at Surrealist cinema, including Miller’s only film as an actor, Jean Cocteau’s ’The Blood of a Poet’.

Sat 26 Oct 10:30

ROH

Do not miss the return of this enchantingly staged family folk opera, following the triumphant, Olivier Award-winning run in 2021.

Sat 26 Oct 14:15