Autumn Season 2008

Happy-Go-Lucky (15)
Dir: Mike Leigh (2006, 118 mins)

As part of the Nunhead Festival we're screening Mike Leigh's comedy drama starring Sally Hawkins.

"A charming character study starring Sally Hawkins as a quirky, chirpy primary school teacher, Poppy, who delights in teasing her new driving instructor and living life to the full. An improvisational comedy drama, it's very funny and establishes Hawkins as a major talent to watch." BBCi

Piccadilly (UK 1929, 92 mins)

Free screening for people aged 60+

Your chance to see one of the greatest British silent movies. Piccadilly is a murder mystery about a dancer from China who finds herself caught up in a crooked liaison between the owner of London’s Piccadilly Club and another dancer. Made in 1929, Piccadilly is still guaranteed to entertain!

Refreshments provided. Screened in partnership with BFI.

Persepolis  (12A)
Dir: Vincent Paronnaud Marjane Satrapi (France 2007, 96 mins)

Moving, perceptive and extremely funny film based on Marjane’s comic-strip autobiography about growing up in Iran under the Shah and the ayatollahs. Spirited and funny, Persepolis deftly combines the personal and the political as the history of a feisty Iranian from childhood to adulthood takes place with a background that includes a revolution and a war. The basic style is simple, like an animated woodcut; it is highly effective and the black and white suits the country's latterday austerity.

Honeydripper (PG)
Dir: John Sayles (USA 2007, 118 mins)

John Sayles piles on loads of atmosphere in a very relaxed drama set in 1950 Alabama. Danny Glover is the owner of a bar featuring an elderly blues singer, rapidly being upstaged by a nearby juke joint. Deeply in debt, he plans a Saturday night show with new guitar sensation Guitar Sam. Honeydripper is a warm-hearted celebration of communal life, but it is far from being an exercise in nostalgia. It is in effect a story of continuity and social change, an allegory that combines realism and fantasy in showing the way rock 'n' roll emerged from jazz, gospel music and the blues.

The Orphanage (15)
Dir: Juan Antonia Bayona (Mexico/Spain 2007, 105 mins)

Haunting and heartbreaking, The Orphanage delivers a double whammy of chills both real and supernatural. Set in a crumbling children's home recently reopened by ex-resident Laura, this Spanish haunted house movie begins its assault after Laura's son Simón vanishes on a sunny afternoon. For the most part it's more suspense than horror, but it's full of a fetid atmosphere that seeps into the consciousness.

“A truly unexpected, emotionally draining finale” BBCi

Caramel (PG)
Dir: Nadine Labaki (France/Lebanon 2007, 95 mins)

If its title and mainly female cast suggest a sugary concoction, nothing could be further from the truth. Caramel is what beauticians use in Lebanon as a depilatory. It's a bitter-sweet metaphor for the lives of four women cutting hair, tending skin and hanging out together at beauty salon in Beirut. Caramel is a feisty, funny and rather rude look at their lives. The film is very relaxed and confident in its style - a happy halfway house, marrying social realist style with soap opera content.

The Darjeeling Limited (15)
Dir: Wes Anderson (USA 2007, 91 mins)

In Wes Anderson's latest portrait of a dysfunctional family three American brothers embark on a railway journey through India in an attempt to rediscover the shared camaderie of their youth. But the plan veers off course and the brothers are left stranded. The brothers come to realize that it's all about the journey not the destination, and there are plenty of entertaining diversions along the route. A series of fun but unfortunate events includes a stolen loafer, an escaped cobra and the reckless use of pepper spray.

“A wonderful creation.” Observer