Film
Independent Cinema for Everyone
We’re delighted to welcome the French Film Festival UK again this year for a selection of some of the finest new French cinema, with 3 one-off screenings, including a preview of critically-acclaimed Portrait of a Lady on Fire before its UK release in 2020.
Festival pass: Get tickets for all 3 films for £15 per person. (Offer valid if tickets are purchased under one transaction. To book online: put tickets for the 3 films in the basket and the offer will apply automatically).
Wednesday 13th November, 6pm: Someone, Somewhere (Deux Moi)
Dir. Cédric Klapisch, France, 2019, 109 mins, subtitled. Cast. Ana Girardot, François Civil, Camille Cottin, François Berléand, Eye Haïdara, Pierre Niney, Simon Abkarian.
Written by the director Cédric Klapisch and his faithful co-writer Santiago Amigorena, the screenplay centres on Rémy and Mélanie, two 30-year-olds who live in the same neighbourhood in Paris. She goes on hopeless date after hopeless date via social media accounts while he struggles to meet anyone at all. Both are victims of big city isolation, at a super-connected time, when meeting people should be simpler. Two individuals, two journeys. Without knowing it, they take two roads that will lead them in the same direction… but will it all end in love?
Saturday 16 November, 8pm: Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait d’une jeune fille en feu)
Dir. Céline Sciamma, France, 2019, 119 mins, subtitled. Cast. Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel, Luàna Bajrami, Valeria Golino.
Set in Brittany in 1760, Marianne, a painter, is commissioned to do the wedding portrait of Héloïse, a young lady who has just left a convent. Héloïse is a reluctant bride to be and Marianne must paint her without her knowing. She observes her by day and secretly paints her at night. Intimacy and attraction grow between the two women as they share Héloïse’s first and last moments of freedom, all whilst Marianne paints the portrait that will end it all. One of the biggest hits at this year’s Cannes Film Festival when it received a Queer Palm as well as best screenplay.
Wednesday 20 November, 6pm: The Swallows of Kabul (Les Hirondelles de Kaboul)
Dir. Zabou Breitman, Éléa Gobbé-Mévellec, France-Luxemburg, 2019, 81 mins, subtitled. Cast. Hiam Abbass, Simon Abarian, Swann Arlaud, Zita Henrot.
Based on the eponymous novel by Libyan writer Yasmina Khadra and directed by two women, The Swallows of Kabul is a very feminine endeavour in its gentle candour and colourful sensibility, portraying life under Taliban control in the Afghan capital. Violence is neither fetishised nor sanitised. The blood is seen as it soaks the burka, yet the fatal wounds are never graphically depicted. The directors portray a regime that relentless and sadistically castigates females and suggests that women are less worthy than men.