A widower from Japan travels with his estranged son to England in order to fulfil his late wife’s dying wish.

After the death of his wife, Kenzaburo (Lily Franky) and his son Toshi (Ryô Nishikido) receive an unexpected letter from beyond the grave. Akiko (Yuri Tsunematsu), their wife and mother, asks them to scatter her ashes at the place she loved most as a child - Lake Windermere in England. Surprised by this unexpected request, the two men, along with Toshi's wife Satsuki (Rin Takanashi) and young daughter Emi, travel together to England from Tokyo to fulfil Akiko's final wish. With little knowledge of where he is going and barely any English, Kenzaburo abandons his family in London and heads to the Lake District on his own with Akiko's ashes, where he stumbles onto the doorstep of a farmer, John (Ciarán Hinds), and his daughter Mary (Aoife Hinds). With their help, Kenzaburo is finally able to set course once again toward Lake Windemere. But his true journey toward forgiveness and reconciliation will prove the hardest of all. Some beautiful cinematography and a great lead performance from Franky make this a very satisfying watch. (Some subtitles)

UK/Japan 2023 Patrick Dickinson 94m

Met Opera

Beethoven’s only opera tells a powerful story of love, courage and justice. Leonore, disguised as prison guard Fidelio, risks everything to rescue her husband Florestan from tyranny.

Sun 16 Mar 14:30

From renegade auteur Jacques Audiard (‘A Prophet,’ ‘The sisters Brothers’) comes this audacious fever dream that defies genres and expectations.

In Mexico, a lawyer receives an unexpected offer to help a feared cartel boss retire from his business and disappear forever by becoming the woman he's always dreamed of being. Through liberating song and dance and bold visuals, this odyssey follows the journey of four remarkable women in Mexico, each pursuing their own happiness. The fearsome cartel leader Emilia (Karla Sofía Gascón) enlists Rita (Zoe Saldaña), an unappreciated lawyer stuck in a dead-end job, to help fake her death so that Emilia can finally live authentically as her true self. ‘Emilia Peréz; is art, theatre, narco-thriller and social commentary, all wrapped up into one. It's an award-worthy masterpiece and easily one of the best films of the year. Paul Guilhaume’s cinematography is masterful. (Subtitles)

France 2024 Jacques Audiard 130m

Ainda Estou Aqui

A mother is forced to reinvent herself when her family's life is shattered by an act of arbitrary violence during the tightening grip of a military dictatorship in Brazil.

Rio de Janeiro, 1970. The Paiva family lives in a rented house near the beach which is always full of friends. They are comfortable rather than rich, but they enjoy a different kind of wealth: an intellectual freedom and curiosity that feels increasingly precious as the Brazilian military dictatorship flexes its muscle on the streets outside. One day, men with guns come to take the father, Rubens (Selton Mello), in for questioning. In his absence, his wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) must find a way to protect her five children and reinvent herself. Walter Salles’ (‘The Motorcycle Diaries’) superb factually-based film – he was a real-life friend of the Paiva family as a teenager – is an engrossing, affecting tribute to a formidable woman and her family. Nominated for best foreign film at the Baftas and Oscars. (Subtitles)

Brazil/France 2024 Walter Salles 136m

Nozomi

What would be worse - your son being a murderer or the murdered? This tense drama skilfully navigates a family through this very dilemma.

Architect Ishikawa Kazuto (Tsutsumi Shinichi) and his proofreader wife Kiyomi (Ishida Yuriko) live peacefully in a stylish luxury home with their high school son Tadashi (Okada Kenshi) and daughter Miyabi (Kiyohara Kaya). One day, Tadashi leaves home and doesn’t return, news breaks that one of Tadashi’s classmates has been murdered and the police suspect Tadashi’s involvement. The family dynamic is placed under intense strain – Kazuto desperately wants to believe in his son’s innocence, while Kiyomi is determined to protect him at any cost, even if he’s guilty. This suspenseful drama meticulously dissects and reassembles the thought processes of an ordinary family torn to shreds by juvenile crime and the ensuing ruthless media frenzy that purports to represent social justice. (Subtitles)

Japan 2020 Tsutsumi Yukihiko 108m

A beautifully made drama exploring the complex dynamics of a sprawling family near the wartime border with Germany.

The lush and breathtaking beauty of the Alps, filmed with painterly grace under natural light from frigid winter to redemptive spring, provides the physical and emotional backdrop for Maura Delpero’s visionary film. In the last days of WWII, we see a series of dramatic, consequential events after the arrival of deserting Sicilian soldier (Giuseppe De Domenico). Including a romance with Lucia (Martina Scrinzi). This was a richly deserving winner of the 2024 Grand Jury prize at the Venice film festival. It is a richly compassionate, emotional and detailed drama of family secrets in wartime Italian countryside, in the manner of Ermanno Olmi or the Taviani brothers. It is wonderfully acted with unaffected naturalism by its cast of professionals and newcomers and plays an extravagant pizzicato on the audience’s heartstrings. (Subtitles)

Italy 2024 Maura Delpero 119m

To complement ‘The Brutalist’ we present this King Vidor classic based on the bestseller by Ayn Rand about a visionary architect struggling to maintain his integrity despite personal, professional and economic pressures.

Unconventional and arrogant architect Howard Roark (Gary Cooper) sees himself as misunderstood, having been openly criticized by writer Ellsworth Toohey (Robert Douglas). Taking a job at a quarry in lieu of compromising his vision, Roark becomes involved with rich, married socialite Dominique Francon (Patricia Neal). As he struggles to preserve his ideals and projects while competing for the heart of a married woman, Roark's reactions become increasingly complex and dramatic. This is a dazzling film, shot in a fascinating German Expressionist style, and rarely screened in cinemas.

USA 1949 King Vidor 114m

Royal Ballet & Opera

The greatest love story ever told – through ballet. An ancient family feud casts a long shadow over the town of Verona.

Sun 23 Mar 14:45

Suyoocheon

In this campus-life comedy/drama, a lecturer persuades her uncle to direct her school's theatrical skit due to his past experience. While sketching near a stream, a scandalous incident involving students occurs, implicating both of them.

In the wake of a scandal involving several of her students, Jeonim (Kim Minhee), an artist and lecturer at a women's university, asks her uncle Chu Sieon (Kwon Haehyo) to step in and direct a short play for the skit festival put on by her department. Her uncle is an actor-director, recently blacklisted after a scandal of his own. He decides to direct the short play because of a similar experience directing a play at the same university 40 years earlier. It doesn't take long before Sieon develops feelings for Jeonim's colleague, Professor Jeong (Cho Yunhee), a textile professor. This is a very enjoyable celebration of the creative process, and more specifically, of artists following their impulses when it comes to idea generation and collaboration. (Subtitles)

S. Korea 2024 Hong Sang-soo 111m

Pamela Anderson is a revelation in this poignant Vegas-set drama that sees a seasoned showgirl having to plan for her future when her long-running show abruptly closes.

A poignant film of resilience, rhinestones and feathers, stars Anderson as Shelley, a glamorous showgirl who must plan for her future when her show closes after a 30-year run. She has not just lost a job she adored, at an age when she is unlikely to get another like it; she has lost her very identity. Gia Coppola's (granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola) latest is an atmospheric and sympathetic drama about the showgirls on the Vegas strip, featuring sharply drawn characters and outstanding performances from Jamie Lee Curtis as Shelley’s friend Annette, and Pamela Anderson, who both play their roles with a lack of vanity that gives the film its enthralling power.

USA 2024 Gia Coppola 84m

Oscar favourite for Best Film. This is a visually arresting drama that tells the story of ambition, art and survival in the aftermath of World War II, exploring the life of a visionary architect as he seeks to leave his mark on postwar America.

László Toth (Adrien Brody) is a Hungarian architect who emigrates to America with his wife Erzsébet (Marion Cotillard), in search of a fresh start and creative freedom. As Toth’s career takes off, he faces the dark intersections of art and politics, grappling with personal sacrifice and ethical compromises. With stunning cinematography that mirrors the stark and monumental style of brutalist architecture, ‘The Brutalist’ is both a character study and a meditation on art’s power and cost. Corbet’s ambitious storytelling and the film’s haunting aesthetic make this an unforgettable cinematic experience.

USA/Hungary 2024 Brady Corbet 205m

A bittersweet memoir of a melancholic woman called Grace Pudel - a hoarder of snails, romance novels and guinea pigs.

In 1970s Australia, Grace's (Sarah Snook) life is troubled by misfortune and loss. After their mother dies during pregnancy, she and her twin brother, Gilbert (Mason Litsos), are raised by their paraplegic-alcoholic former juggler father, Percy (Dominique Pignon). After Percy passes away in his sleep, the siblings are forcibly separated and thrust into separate homes. Gilbert finds himself in the care of a cruel evangelical family, while Grace, grappling with intense loneliness, gradually withdraws into her shell, much like the snails she adopts. As the years pass, and despite new disappointments and sorrows, a glimmer of hope emerges when she strikes up an enduring friendship with an elderly eccentric woman called Pinky (Jacki Weaver). Adam Elliott - Australia’s answer to Aardman’s Nick Park – has created a beautiful film with a distinctive kind of lovability and an instinct for the underdog and outsider.

Australia 2024 Adam Elliot 95m

Glamour, Power, Lust and Tragic Death

This talk, for Women’s History Month, explores the often-lurid representation of Tudor Women in cinema.

Sat 22 Mar 10:30

The film traces the journeys of the four members of Led Zeppelin through the music scene of the 1960s and their meeting in the summer of 1968, culminating in 1970.

Interviews, performances and never-before-seen footage provide insight into the origins of Led Zeppelin and their meteoric rise to musical stardom. This is a guide that stops at the release of their second album, ‘Led Zeppelin II’, which may leave some fans disappointed that the film quits before the iconic ‘Stairway to Heaven’, but once you hear the colossal opening chords to ‘Whole Lotta Love’, no power on earth will stop you nodding along. The documentary is structured around archive clips and good-humoured interviews with the surviving members (Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones) of the band plus voice recordings of John Bonham who died in 1980.

UK 2025 Bernard MacMahon 121m

We screen this Stanley Kubrick classic as an accompaniment to the NT Live performance later this week. An unhinged American general orders a bombing attack on the Soviet Union, triggering a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop.

Starring Peter Sellers at the peak of his powers, this is a film about what could happen if the wrong person pushed the wrong button. U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper (Sterling Hayden) goes completely insane, and sends his bombers to destroy the U.S.S.R. He thinks that the communists are conspiring to pollute the water supply of the American people. Sellers plays stiff-upper-lipped RAF officer Lionel Mandrake and also the insidiously bland President Merkin Muffley, and, most shockingly of all, the ex-Nazi wheelchair-bound scientist Doctor Strangelove. The result of Kubrick’s work is scary, hilarious and nightmarishly beautiful, far more effective in its portrait of insanity and call for disarmament than any number of worthy documentaries.

USA 1964 Stanley Kubrick 95m