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international cinema

ROJO [ARGENTINA], THU 6 FEBRUARY, 8PM

By archive, Season 22 films

Set in 1970s Argentina just before the coup that installed the military junta.  The life of a seemingly honest lawyer unravels as middle-class society turns a blind eye to the brutality of an emerging dictatorship.

The life of esteemed lawyer Claudio begins to unravel when Chilean private detective Sinclair starts asking questions about the disappearance of a mysterious stranger. Sinclair proceeds to lift the veneer of respectability under which Claudio, like many of the town’s other apparently honest citizens, operates.

Part mystery, part thriller, Rojo swiftly escalates from the intriguing to the alarming. It simmers with malevolence.

Shame and fury in the land of the disappeared… a disturbing parable of iniquity. – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian ★★★★

A South American Colombo in a bravely staccato film. – The Irish Times ★★★★

A society manoeuvers to stay at the dinner table while getting its unsavoury elements thrown out, and finding ways to stop them ever coming back. – The Telegraph ★★★★

When neighbours disappear… An elegant but disjointed thriller unravels a tale of personal guilt in the political dark days of 70s Argentina. – Wendy Ide, The Guardian ★★★★

98% from Rotten Tomatoes.

Argentina, 2018 | Language: Spanish | 109 minutes | Cert: CLUB

Director: Benjamín Naishtat

Cast: Darío Grandinetti, Andrea Frigerio, Alfredo Castro

SO LONG, MY SON (CHINA – DI JIU TIAN CHANG), THU 27 FEBRUARY, 6PM

By archive, Season 22 films

Event cinema!  We show this film in two parts on one night, starting at 6pm.  There will be a 20-minute interval during which we’ll serve wine and a nibble. Total running time including the interval is 3 hours and 20 minutes.

 A sprawling yet personal portrait of human resilience that traces the lives of two interconnected Chinese families over three decades from the 1980s to the present.

The epic story of two married couples enduring personal tragedy and state-imposed suffering is an almost unbearably poignant, profound masterpiece. – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian ★★★★★

A gorgeous, melancholy masterpiece. So measured is the pacing, so sinuous the timeline, so understated the subtle ache of the performances that you don’t immediately realise that Wang Xiaoshuai’s exquisite three-hour drama has been performing the emotional equivalent of open-heart surgery on the audience since pretty much the first scene. – Wendy Ide,  The Guardian  ★★★★★

Intimate in focus yet epic in size and scope, So Long, My Son sets a heartbreaking saga of family tragedy against the changing face of modern China. – 100% from Rotten Tomatoes ★★★★★

Wang Xiaoshuai’s expansive drama contains phenomenal central performances. – Irish Times ★★★★

China, 2019 | Language: Chinese | 185 minutes | Cert: CLUB

Director: Wang Xiaoshuai

Cast: Wang Jingchun, Yong Mei

cancelled: PAIN AND GLORY (SPAIN – DOLOR Y GLORIA), THU 19 MARCH, 8PM

By archive, Season 22 films

CANCELLED

Life meets art in this wistful film about a director whose physical powers are in decline as he recalls the passions that gave him meaning and hope.  Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz reunite with Pedro Almodóvar in his most personal movie to date.

The latest, wonderful film from Pedro Almodóvar asks what a director does when he runs into a creative blockage…Banderas excels in Almodóvar’s personal drama…a take on Fellini’s 8½.Irish Times ★★★★★

The director delivers another sensuous and deeply personal gem as Antonio Banderas’s ageing film-maker faces up to death.The Guardian.★★★★

97% from Rotten Tomatoes.

Spain, 2019 | Language: Spanish | 113 minutes | Cert: 16

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, Asier Etxeandia

cancelled: MONOS [COLOMBIA], THU 26 MARCH, 8PM

By archive, Season 22 films

CANCELLED

Huge critical acclaim for this thriller about a group of South American teenage guerrilla soldiers who have guns, rituals, and a hostage. Their dangerous shifting dynamics propel an overwhelmingly tense and gripping film.

Easily one of the best films of 2019…Alejandro Landes’s thrilling tale of child guerilla soldiers is a must-see. – Irish Times ★★★★★

This overpoweringly tense and deeply mad thriller from Colombian film-maker Alejandro Landes is the best thing I have seen at Berlin this year: something between Apocalypse Now, Lord of the Flies and Embrace of the Serpent. – Peter Bradshaw for The Guardian ★★★★★

Inspired by the upheaval in his native Colombia, Alejandro Landes’s story of teenage guerrillas descending into anarchy is a hypnotic triumph. – Mark Kermode for The Guardian ★★★★★

Colombia, 2019 | Language: Spanish | 102 minutes | Cert: 15A

Director: Alejandro Landes

Cast: Sofia Buenaventura, Moisés Arias, Julianne Nicholson

cancelled – SOMETIMES ALWAYS NEVER [U.K.], THU 2 APRIL, 8PM

By archive, Season 22 films

His son is missing, his family is lost, but his dress sense is immaculate. Bill Nighy is spellbinding as a Scrabble obsessive searching for his estranged son in this elegant, off-beat drama-comedy.

A triple-word score of a movie…the presence of Bill Nighy, funeral-faced national treasure, will no doubt be a key selling point for this tragicomic drama. But the real star is behind the scenes. Screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce, who adapted the film from his own short story, has crafted a joy of a script, which seeds its themes as elegantly as Nighy’s character, Alan, a Scrabble-obsessed tailor, wears his suits.The Guardian ★★★★

U.K., 2018 | Language: English| 91 minutes | Cert: 12a

Director: Carl Hunter

Cast: Bill Nighy, Sam Riley, Alice Lowe, Tim McInnerny, Jenny Agutter

WOMAN AT WAR [KONA FER Í STRÍÐ – ICELAND], THU 26 SEPTEMBER, 8PM

By archive, Season 21 films

A music teacher leads a double life as an environmental warrior/industrial saboteur in this jet-black comedy.  An intelligent, feel-good film that manages to tackle urgent global issues with humour.

Meet Halla, a music teacher in her forties. She is a happy, upbeat woman who leads a quiet and routine life. But unbeknown to most she is also ‘The Mountain Woman’: a lone wolf environmental activist who disrupts the operations of an aluminium plant in the Icelandic highlands, by cutting power supply and damaging pylons in acts of industrial sabatogue.

As the authorities intensify their campaign to catch her, she receives an update on a long forgotten adoption application and learns she has been matched with a four-year-old girl in the Ukraine. Can she reconcile this with her crusade to protect her homeland from big industry or will her efforts destroy her chances of finally becoming a mother?

A funny, moving and utterly unique film.

A huge showcase for Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, who brings grit, determination, and quiet charisma to every scene. An engaging curiosity and an absolute joy. – The Irish Times

Amid the jet-black comedy of Woman at War, which takes as its catastrophic subject matter the despoliation of planet Earth, there is a warmth, wit and wisdom that transcend national and cultural boundaries, making this a truly universal treat. – The Guardian ★★★★

97% rating and ★★★★★ from Rotten Tomatoes.

Winner – Best Screenplay, Critics’ Week, Cannes Film Festival 2018

Winner – LUX Film Prize 2018

Iceland, 2018 | Language: Icelandic | 101 minutes | Cert: 12A

Director: Benedikt Erlingsson

Cast: Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, Jóhann Sigurðarson, Roman Estrada, Jörundur Ragnarsson

A SEASON IN FRANCE [UNE SAISON EN FRANCE – FRANCE], THU 3 OCTOBER, 8PM

By archive, Season 21 films

The pride, pain and desperation of an educated African refugee family in France is portrayed with compassion and a sharp edge.  For the college professor at the heart of this searching film, his loss of dignity is the most bitter pill.

Abbas, a college professor and father of two, seeks political asylum in France after fleeing the civil war that has raged in the Central African Republic since 2013. Widowed when his wife died in attempting to escape the country with him, he has since met Carole, who consoles him in his anguish at the French immigration system.

Two years of waiting finally elicit a response from the authorities. Everything he holds dear, including his hopes for both his future and those of his children, lie in their decision. Compelling performances from both lead actors, while director Haroun masterfully contrasts the intimacy of human relationships with the cold bureaucracy of a vast, impersonal system.

A deeply felt, compassionate film about refugees who find that one of their bitterest abasements is the loss of dignity and status.The Guardian ★★★

A jolting drama with the most shocking scene of the year.The Irish Times ★★★

The film builds toward an explicit condemnation of Europe’s handling of the refugee crisis, encouraging the viewer’s fury at the family’s forced circumstances. – The New York Times

Warm and subtly heartbreaking, offering a moving vision of life for those stuck in legal and emotional limbo. – The Hollywood Reporter

France, 2017 | Language: France | 100 minutes | Cert: 12A

Director: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun

Cast: Eriq Ebouaney, Sandrine Bonnaire, Aalayna Lys, Bibi Tanga, Ibrahim Burama Darboe

NEVER LOOK AWAY [WERK OHNE AUTOR – GERMANY], THU 10 OCTOBER

By archive, Season 21 films

Event cinema!  We are showing this Oscar-nominated film in two parts on one night, starting at 6pm.  There will be a 20-minute interval during which we’ll serve wine and a nibble. Total running time including the interval is 3 hours and 35 minutes.

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others, 2006) returns with an Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated drama about individuals caught up in the sweep of German history. Loosely based on the formative years of the world-renowned painter Gerhard Richter, Never Look Away is an intergenerational tale of love, sorrow, art and politics from Nazism through to the Cold War.

In 1937, at the Nazi Party notorious “degenerate art” exhibition in Dresden, a small boy named Kurt’s passion for art is ignited. Years later, in Communist East Germany, Kurt enters art college where he falls in love with fashion student Ellie, unaware that her father has a devastating secret and is determined to end their relationship.

Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography, 2019

Golden Globe nominee, Best Foreign Language Motion Picture, 2019

Click here for official website.

Click here for The New Yorker magazine interview with the director.

An ambitious, compelling film.The Independent ★★★★★

An undeniably enjoyable, absurdly long potboiler gets by on delicious sweep and epic voluptuousness. – The Irish Times

Germany, 2018 | Language: German | 189 minutes plus 20 minute interval | Cert: CLUB

Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Cast: Tom Schilling, Sebastian Koch, Paula Beer, Saskia Rosendahl

EVERYBODY KNOWS [TODOS LO SABEN – SPAIN], THU 24 OCTOBER, 8PM

By archive, Season 21 films

Oscar-winning filmmaker Asghar Farhadi’s (A Separation) intimately painful and powerfully acted drama centres on a shocking crime that interrupts a family wedding.  Starring Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem.

Laura (Cruz) returns to Spain with her children for her sister’s wedding. There she is reunited with her former lover Paco (Bardem) now happily married and running a successful vineyard on land once owned by Laura’s family. Whilst Laura’s husband, Alejandro (Ricardo Darín) stayed behind in Argentina, an old rumour of her jilting Paco reignites. Moreover, within Laura’s family, resentment simmers over the manner in which Paco acquired the vineyard.

A seething mystery unfurls as secrets, lies and unhealed wounds spanning generations are brought to light. Everybody Knows is an unforgettable portrait of love, loss, and betrayal.

This is Iranian auteur Asghar Farhadi’s eighth feature and his first in Spanish.

Explores the unhealed wound at the heart of a Spanish family with pitiless efficiency and sheer muscular flair…the performances are so intelligent, mature and yet uninhibited…Farhadi’s storytelling has overpowering force.The Guardian  ★★★★

The characters, observations and performances make this film shine.The Independent ★★★★★

Spain, 2018 | Language: Spanish | 133 minutes | Cert: 15A

Director: Asghar Farhadi

Cast: Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Ricardo Darín

FOXTROT [ISRAEL], THU 7 NOVEMBER, 8PM

By archive, Season 21 films

A rallying cry against war that charts the story of an Israeli family who are forced to confront difficult truths when they receive shocking news from their son’s desolate military checkpoint.

Michael and Dafna Feldmann are told that their son Jonathan has died in the line of duty while serving in the Israeli army. As they come to terms with the news and prepare for the funeral, they’re informed that a horrifying mistake has been made. Meanwhile, we get a glimpse into Jonathan’s life manning an isolated checkpoint. He and his colleagues never know what will happen when a car pulls up to the barrier.

This film by Lebanese director Samuel Maoz is an extraordinary, complex drama that is both a visceral exploration of military life and an emotionally raw family drama. A source of controversy in its native Israel, Foxtrot is a film full of anger and sadness, and one that is as deeply personal as it is political.

Surrealism and slapstick combine in an unforgettable masterclass…Every single sequence in this controversial Israeli film is thrillingly unexpected.The Irish Times ★★★★★

Brilliantly constructed with a visual audacity that serves the subject rather than the other way around, this is award-winning filmmaking on a fearless level. – Variety

A sad, noble rallying cry against war.RTE.ie ★★★★★

Israel’s hottest export of the year lives up to the hype. an intricate, dazzling cinematic dance. – Los Angeles Times

Fascinating, funny, beautiful and truly profound. – Vanity Fair

Israel, 2017 | Language: Hebrew | 108 minutes | Cert: CLUB

Director: Samuel Maoz

Cast: Lior Ashkenazi, Sarah Adler, Yonatan Shiray, Karin Ugowski