A crowd-pleasing warm-hearted comedy that has an eccentric lottery winner who lives alone on a remote island dreaming of getting his favourite musicians back together.

Kind and chatty Charles (Tim Key) lives alone on the remote Wallis Island. Beautiful and serene with white cliffs and rocky shores (it was shot in Wales), it is not the kind of place where there is a lot of socializing. He dreams of getting his favourite musicians, McGwyer Mortimer (Tom Basden & Carey Mulligan) back together. His fantasy turns into reality when the bandmates and former lovers accept his invitation to play a private show at his home the Island. Old tensions resurface as the artists reunite now at different phases in their lives. Mulligan and Basden are sublime together, naturally exuding the awkward chemistry of artist exes, with Key thoroughly entertaining as the adorable comedic foil. This is the sort of film that oozes mood and warmth (like the folk songs performed in the film) and is very easy to recommend to anyone.

UK 2025 James Griffiths 100m

En Fanfare

This French spin on Mark Herman’s ‘Brassed Off’ (the British comedy-drama about colliery bands) has a beating emotional pulse of its own. Originally screened as a preview in our Autumn French Film Festival UK.

Thibaut (Benjamin Lavernhe) is an internationally renowned conductor of the Lille Symphony Orchestra who travels the world. He discovers he was adopted - then also finds out he has a younger brother, Jimmy (Pierre Lottin), who works in a school cafeteria and plays the trombone in a school marching band. While they seem to be worlds apart, their unwavering love of music unites them in difficult circumstances. The third feature film by screenwriter, actor and director Emmanuel Courcol emerges as an immensely touching and melodious work, bringing relationships and music to the fore. (Subtitles)

France 2024 Emmanuel Courcol 103m

Italian Cinema and Neo-Realism

During and after WW2, Italy produced one of the key movements in the history of world cinema. We join the Friends of Ravenna for this special event looking back at one of the most influential movements in world cinema

120m inc Q&A

Tickets £7.50

Tue 17 Jun 18:30

A sublime tale of a government pensioner by the name of Umberto Domenico Ferrari (played brilliantly by Carlo Battisti) in the post-war Italy.

One of the most poignant and moving stories ever told on film, with an unusual theme - what happens to an old man who is left destitute by circumstances (war, inflation) in post-war Italy. Terribly sad and sentimental, yet filled with the visual poetry for which De Sica ('Bicycle Thieves') is deservedly famed. A superb film - withering in its critique of uncaring capitalism - It is hard-edged - there is no solution to Umberto's plight, and the depiction of war-damaged Rome is completely convincing. (Subtitles)

Dane-ye Anjir-e Ma'abed

A mesmerisingly gripping and controlled parable-thriller in which the paranoia, misogyny and rage of the Iranian state are mapped seamlessly onto an ordinary family unit.

Iman (Missagh Zareh) is a judge who sees the benefits for his family in his career’s rapid advancement, but his student daughters (Setareh Malek and Mahsa Rostami) are suspicious of his increasing collaboration with the regime. He is warned not to confide in his wife (Soheila Golestani) as he is encouraged to wave through death sentences without considering the evidence. Iman’s divided loyalties are exposed when his government-issued handgun goes missing, and suspicion falls on the women in his home. Having debuted at Cannes following Rasoulof fleeing Iran in fears for his safety, this film was many critics’ picks for best of the festival. It combines an electrifying generational battle with real-life footage of Iran’s protest movement, and reveals the reasons why people accept toxic regimes and the courage it takes to resist them. (Subtitles)

Germany/France 2024 Mohammad Rasoulof 168m

During a weekend backpacking trip in the beautiful Catskill Mountains, 17-year-old Sam navigates the clash of egos between her father and his oldest friend.

In India Donaldson's insightful, piercing debut, 17-year-old Sam (Lily Collias) embarks on a three-day backpacking trip in the Catskills with her dad, Chris (James Le Gros) and his oldest friend, Matt (Danny McCarthy). As the two men quickly settle into a gently quarrelsome brotherly dynamic, Sam, wise beyond her years, attempts to mediate. But when lines are crossed and Sam's trust is betrayed, tensions reach a fever pitch, as Sam struggles with her dad's emotional limitations and experiences the universal moment when the parental bond is tested. Selected in both Sundance and Cannes' Directors' Fortnight, ‘Good One’ is an emotionally expansive work that probes the limits of familial trust, understanding, and ultimately, forgiveness. Out of a tight, terrific cast, it’s Collias’ performance – so potent and contained – that gets under your skin. With echoes of the stylish US Indie cinema that Kelly Reichhardt has made so brilliantly.

USA 2024 India Donaldson 89m

50th Anniversary Restoration. Light the Rock n' Roll spark with a Flame in the guise of Dave, Noddy, Jim and Don and their showcase of the rise and demise of rock band Flame.

Set in the hardships of North England's seventies working class society and music scene, this is a fictional tale but based on true experiences and starring the band themselves as the members of Flame. We follow the rise and fall of a pop group at the end of the 1960s – from bold beginnings in seedy clubs to booze-addled endings in spectacular stadiums – this darkly cynical, warts-and-all portrait of a band in freefall amidst the music-industry suits who want a piece of the pie was not what anybody was expecting.

UK 1975 Richard Loncraine 91m

Two parents enter a race against time when they receive a distressing late-night phone call from their daughter after she caused a tragic car accident.

When two distraught parents (Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys) receive a call from their teenage daughter telling them that she has just accidentally hit a pedestrian, they jump in their car, racing to get there before anyone else stumbles across the scene. As they head deeper into the night, disturbing revelations threaten to tear the family apart as they soon realize they might not be the only ones driving down Hallow Road. How far will ordinary parents go to protect their offspring? This suspense thriller features high-intensity performances from Pike and Rhys in what is essentially a close-quarters two-hander set on the anxious journey, bringing comparisons to 2013’s brilliant ‘Locke’ starring Tom Hardy.

UK/Ireland 2025 Babak Anvari 80m

Not only a cinematic journey into the mind of Eileen Gray, but a story about the power of female expression and men's desire to control it.

Delicate, white and ship-like, E1027 is a house, or rather, a work of art, which is perched above a bay on the Cote d’Azur whose wildness was, when it was finished in 1929, the opposite of the worldly charms of nearby Monte Carlo.  Behind it isn’t only the magic of an architectural body come to life, but also the complexity of a trio of brilliant minds, namely the architects Eileen Gray, Jean Badovici and Le Corbusier. Structured like a docufiction which brings together archive images, reenactments and a voice over that gently accompanies the images (mostly that of Eileen Gray speaking in the first person), the film shows moments of intimacy that we can only imagine. Rather than a historical reconstruction based on meticulous analysis the co-directors put architecture in dialogue with cinema in order to bring to life the sensibility of a woman who was a visionary yet is too rarely celebrated. (Some subtitles)

Switzerland 2024 Beatrice Minger/Christoph Schaub 89m