Tuesday 8th March - Made in Dagenham (15)
Dir: Nigel Cole, UK 2010, 113 mins

The film pays loving tribute to the striking machinists at Ford's motor plant. Rita is a cash-strapped seamstress, adrift in a late-60s era of rayon, crimplene and rampant male chauvinism. Outraged when she and her fellow workers are dismissed as unskilled labour, she sparks a mass walk-out that electrifies the media and exposes the cosy relations between an intractable management and the blustering union officials.

Tuesday 15th March - The Illusionist (PG)
Dir: Sylvain Chomet, France 2010, 83 mins

Based on an unproduced script written by Jacques Tati in 1956, this film is both an act of homage and of cinematic love. A semi-silent movie about an old-fashioned variety-turn conjuror at the end of the 1950s, specialising in rabbits and hats, paper flowers and coins. An old style, hand drawn animation, the film is utterly distinctive and beguiling, with its own language and grammar of innocence: gentle, affectionate, whimsical, but deeply felt and with an arrowhead of emotional pain.

Tuesday 22nd March - The Secret in their Eyes (18)
Dir: Juan Jose Campanella, Argentina 2009, 129 mins

A romance / thriller about a retired legal counsellor who, in writing a novel, hopes to find closure for one of his past unresolved homicide cases and for his unreciprocated love for his superior – both of which still haunt him decades later. While delivering star-crossed lovers, a gruesome murder, parallel love stories and entertaining narrative twists across two time periods, the film is also about memory and modes of remembering. Winner of the 2010 Best Foreign Language Oscar.

Andrea Dunbar, the dramatist and author, whose work chronicled her grim existence in the Bradford housing estate where she grew up, died at the age of 29 of a brain haemorrhage. This groundbreaking study of her troubled life merges documentary and performance to mesmerising effect. Using a technique only previously used in the theatre, the actors lip-synch the words of real life interviewees. Although a deliberate distancing device it nonetheless serves to draw the viewer in closer. A modernist, compassionate biopic; a tribute to the memory of its subject and her embattled community.

Tuesday 5th April - Winter’s Bone (15)
Dir: Debra Granik, US 2009, 100 mins

An unflinching Ozark Mountain girl hacks through dangerous social terrain as she hunts down her drug-dealing father while trying to keep her family intact. The volatile and horrific material is handled with unblinking ferocity and feeling. The director’s use of authentically barren locations pays chilly dividends. The film walks a thin line between downbeat rural realism and mythological gothic horror while eschewing hillbilly cliché to create a moving drama of love and fortitude. Four 2011 Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Actress.

Tuesday 12th April - Chico and Rita (15)
Dirs: Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal, Spain/Cuba, 93 mins

Chico is a young piano player with big dreams and Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them but their journey brings heartache and torment. This funny, and historically accurate story of the on-and-off love affair between Chico and Rita looks back over 60 years from the dilapidated Havana of 2008 to the frantic, swinging pre-revolutionary city of 1948. ‘The year’s best musical and one of the year’s finest animated films.’ The Observer.

Sunday 17th April - Belleville Rendez-Vous (12) ***FREE***
Dir: Sylvain Chomet, France, 80 mins

8.30pm start @ Herne Hill Velodrome, Burbage Road, SE24 9HE as part of the 2011 Free Film Festival season (see more details)

Free bike-powered outdoor screening of this classic cycling movie at the Herne Hill Velodrome. Bike-powered cinema courtesy of Electric Pedals - volunteers will be needed to pedal! This is an outdoor event so bring whatever you need to stay warm and dry. 'A single viewing can barely do justice to this richly detailed and often playfully macabre adventure.' BBCi.