Spring Season 2009

Saturday 10th January 2009 - Wall-E   (U)
FREE EVENT

Special autism-friendly screening

Open to children with autism, their parents/carers and siblings, with popcorn and drinks provided. In conjunction with the National Autistic Society Southwark Branch and Southwark Autism Support.

Tuesday 3rd March - Hunger   (15)
Dir: Steve McQueen (UK 2008, 96 mins)

Turner prize-winner Steve McQueen's harrowing account of the final days of the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. Icily brilliant and superbly acted, this powerful and provocative piece of work about Sands’ 1981 hunger strike in Northern Ireland's Maze prison for political status leaves a zero-degree burn on the retina.

Tuesday 10th March - El Bano del Papa (15)
Dir: Cesar Charlone/Enrique Fernandez (Uruguay 2007, 90 mins)

Although inspired by a Papal visit to the Uruguayan village of Melo in 1988, this wry drama is anything but reverential. The clue is in the title, which literally translates as 'The Pope's Toilet'. The villagers resolve to strike it rich by feeding the faithful who are expected to number over a hundred thousand. Beto, a sort of South American Del Boy, figures that so many chorizo stands warrant a public convenience  – pay-as-you-go, of course.

Tuesday 17th March - The Band's Visit (12A)
Dir: Eran Kolin (Israel 2007, 87 mins)

An Egyptian police orchestra is stranded overnight in a quiet Israeli settlement after having taken the wrong bus. Thrown on the mercy of their Israeli hosts, awkwardness evolves into mutual affection. It's powered by excellent performances – just the right side of deadpan – and never gets remotely preachy. A beautifully controlled piece, it marks the impressive debut of director and screenwriter Eran Kolin, who handles the delicate shades of politics with subtle tones.

Tuesday 24th March - My Winnipeg (12A)
Dir: Guy Maddin (Canada 2007, 79 mins)

The director, an independent Canadian film-maker noted for his obscure fables, celebrates his home town, the large, blank rail, farming and industrial capital of Manitoba. This idiosyncratic, oddly likable and extremely camp documentary exhibits that outlandish tone usually described as camp sensibility.

Tuesday 31st March - Bes Vakit (Times and Winds) (15)
Dir: Reha Erden (Turkey 2006, 110 mins)

Focusing on two boys and a girl in a remote Turkish mountain village, the film ticks along to the sober rhythms of rural life – herding goats, saying prayers – while an ominous mood takes root. "Man hands on misery to man" seems to be its theme; men who bully their sons are in turn bullied by an old farmer who rages against their inadequate care of the land. The faces of these adolescents haunt and hold us throughout this often remarkable drama.

Tuesday 7th April - In Bruges (18)
Dir: Martin McDonagh (UK 2008, 107 mins)

A couple of Dublin hitmen have been ordered by their paymaster to lie low and await instructions – in Bruges. The city itself becomes a continuous, mute running gag in this stylish, funny and exciting thriller as they engage in philosophical conversations about life and their bizarre profession, which are even funnier and more scabrous than the exchanges between Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction.