The history of the Merchant Ivory partnership, featuring interviews with James Ivory and close collaborators detailing and celebrating their experiences of being a part of the company.

This is the first definitive feature documentary to lend new and compelling perspectives on the partnership, both professional and personal, of director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant and their primary associates, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and composer Richard Robbins. Footage from more than fifty interviews, clips, and archival material gives voice to the family of actors and technicians who helped define Merchant Ivory’s Academy Award-winning work of consummate quality and intelligence. With six Oscar winners among the notable artists participating, these close and often long-term collaborators intimately detail the transformational cinematic creativity and personal and professional drama of the wandering company that left an indelible impact on film culture.

USA 2024 Stephen Soucy 112m

Plus optional Indian Taster Menu!

The light, the lives and the textures of contemporary, working-class Mumbai are explored and celebrated by writer/director Payal Kapadia, who won the Grand Prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival for her revelatory fiction feature debut.

Centring on two roommates who also work together in a city hospital - head nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and recent hire Anu (Divya Prabha) - plus their coworker, cook Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), Kapadia's film alights on moments of connection and heartache, hope and disappointment. Prabha, her husband from an arranged marriage living in faraway Germany, is courted by a doctor at her hospital; Anu carries on a romance with a Muslim man, which she must keep a secret from her strict Hindu family; Parvaty finds herself dealing with a sudden eviction from her apartment. Kapadia captures the bustle of the metropolis and the open-air tranquillity of a seaside village with equal radiance, articulated by her superb actresses and by the camera with a lyrical naturalism that occasionally drifts into dreamlike incandescence. (Subtitles)

India 2024 Payal Kapadia 118m

On sale from 1 Nov:

After two decades as one of the most beloved and enduring musicals on the stage, ‘Wicked’ makes its long-awaited journey to the big screen as a spectacular, generation-defining two-part cinematic event this holiday season.

The untold story of the witches of Oz, stars powerhouse Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, a young woman, misunderstood because of her unusual green skin, who has yet to discover her true power, and Grammy-winning recording artist Ariana Grande as Glinda, a popular young woman, gilded by privilege and ambition, who has yet to discover her true heart. The two meet as students and forge an unlikely but profound friendship. Following an encounter with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, their friendship reaches a crossroads and their lives take very different paths, ultimately seeing them fulfil their destinies as Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West.

USA 2024 John M. Chu

Set against the gritty urban scenescape of Berlin and a pounding techno soundtrack, this is a frenetic, inventive existential thriller that explores the life-altering impact of seemingly inconsequential actions.

Beautiful, hip and young, poor Lola has but 20 minutes to locate a missing bag containing 100,000 Deutsche Marks or come up with the money some other way - if she can't, gangsters are going to kill her boyfriend. A pulse-raising race against time, the film employs a startling array of innovative techniques to present three separate scenarios, all departing from a single split-second decision Lola makes. Franka Patente, who also sings on the soundtrack, is mesmerizing as Lola. (Subtitles)

Germany 1998 Tom Twyker 78m

Oscar-winning director Chris Sanders (‘How to Train Your Dragon’) returns with a visually stunning adaptation of Peter Brown’s beloved novel. The film follows a robot’s adventure through the wilderness as it learns to survive, make friends, and find its place in a world untouched by technology.

Roz (Daisy Ridley) awakens alone on an island, where she must adapt to her unfamiliar surroundings and form unlikely bonds with the animals around her, including a curious goose named Brightbill (Jacob Tremblay). As Roz navigates the island’s challenges, she faces an unexpected enemy who threatens her new friends and her growing understanding of life itself. With breathtaking animation and a heartfelt narrative, Sanders crafts a story that celebrates resilience, friendship and self-discovery, making ‘The Wild Robot’ a family-friendly epic and a visual treat for all ages.

When a pacifist is called to a political act that could change the course of history, a man of honour responds. This is the true story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a man who preached love while plotting the assassination of an evil tyrant.

As the world teeters on the brink of annihilation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Jonas Dassler) is swept into the epicentre of a deadly plot to assassinate Hitler. With his faith and fate at stake, Bonhoeffer must choose between upholding his moral convictions or risking it all to save millions of Jews from genocide. Will his shift from preaching peace to plotting murder alter the course of history or cost him everything?

Belgium/Ireland 2024 Todd Komarnicki 132m

The story of photographer Elizabeth 'Lee' Miller, a fashion model who became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II.

The film portrays a pivotal decade in the life of American war correspondent and photographer, Lee Miller (Kate Winslet). Miller's singular talent and unbridled tenacity resulted in some of the 20th century's most indelible images of war, including an iconic photo of Miller herself, posing defiantly in Hitler's private bathtub. Miller had a profound understanding and empathy for women and the voiceless victims of war. Her images display both the fragility and ferocity of the human experience. Alexander Skarsgård portrays her husband Roland Penrose, while Andy Samberg takes a dramatic turn as her partner in the field (and sometimes in the bedroom), David E. Scherman, a war correspondent for Life. Winslet shines in this biopic with a superbly powerful performance. She remains one of our most treasured actors and she brings a fierceness to this role.

USA 2023 Ellen Kuras 116m

A screening both to commemorate Dame Maggie Smith who lived locally and sadly passed away in late September, and a companion piece to the new Merchant Ivory documentary.

In this British drama based on the novel by E.M. Forster, Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham-Carter), a young Englishwoman, is touring Italy with her older cousin (Maggie Smith). At a hotel in Florence, Lucy meets the charming and free-spirited George Emerson (Julian Sands). Although intrigued by George, once she's back in England Lucy ponders settling down with the wealthy, staid Cecil Vyse (Daniel Day-Lewis). When George reappears in her life, Lucy must decide between him and Cecil. This is a thoroughly entertaining screen adaptation of Forster's comedy of manners, distinguished by superb ensemble acting, intelligent writing and stunning design.

UK 1985 James Ivory 117m

The leaders of seven wealthy democracies get lost in the woods while drafting a statement on a global crisis, facing danger as they attempt to find their way out.

Ricocheting between comedy, apocalyptic thriller and swooning soap opera, ‘Rumours’ follows the seven leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies at the annual G7 summit. With unexpected, uproarious performances from a brilliant ensemble cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Alicia Vikander and Charles Dance, these so-called leaders become spectacles of incompetence, contending with increasingly surreal obstacles in the misty woods as night falls and they realize they are suddenly alone. A genre-hopping satire of political ineptitude, this is a journey into the absurd heart of power and institutional failure in a slowly burning world. A wickedly funny, surreal, cerebral and ‘Buñuelian’ political satire.

USA 2024 E. Johnson, G. Johnson & G. Maddin 103m

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Choose a warming drink, a glass of wine or beer at Brasserie Blanc.

TICKETS ARE FREE, but bookings are essential as we have limited numbers.

Brasserie Blanc, Chichester

Soy Cuba

Four vignettes about the lives of the Cuban people set during the pre-revolutionary era. 60 years on, this is still invigorating and unmissable cinema!

A study in contrasts set in and around Havana that explores Cuba's 1959 revolution. A young woman's fascination with the excess of an American-owned casino leads to her downfall in the eyes of her street vendor boyfriend. A tenant farmer revolts the only way he knows how, attacking the land he works. University students gain first-hand knowledge of political upheaval. And, in the hills outside the city, the members of a poor peasant family are patriotically swept up into the burgeoning revolt. Visually absorbing and formally audacious, ‘Soy Cuba’ opens a long-buried time capsule that has lost none of its captivating power.

Cuba/USSR 1964 Mikhail Kalatozov 141m