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international films

The Teacher's Loung

DRIVING MADELEINE [France], Thursday 25 January, 8pm

By archive, Season 25, Winter 2024

Online tickets for DRIVING MADELEINE are sold out. A limited number will be available to purchase on the door.

“Would you mind if we took a quick detour?” – “It’s not on the way, not even close”- “I know, but it’ll take what? Ten minutes? What’s ten minutes out of our lives? It’s nothing.”

A seemingly simple taxi ride across Paris evolves into a profound meditation on the realities of the driver, whose personal life is in shambles, and his fare, an elderly woman whose warmth belies her shocking past.

Madeleine, 92 years old, calls a taxi to take her to the retirement home where she will be living. Charles, a disillusioned driver with a tender heart, agrees to drive by the places that affected Madeleine’s life. Through the streets of Paris, her extraordinary past is revealed. They don’t know it yet, but they will forge a friendship during this drive that will change their lives forever.

It’s this uncommon grit from the director and co-writer Christian Carion that differentiates the movie from the comforts of the “wise ole coot” genre (from The Straight Story to Pixar’s Up). – The Times [UK]

Both of the leads keep it low-key, with 95-year-old Renaud’s unfussy reminiscences dotted with defiant irony, and the initially unforthcoming Boon opening up under her cajoling as naturally as a flower. – The Guardian

Christian Carion offers up a voyage through one person’s memories and depicts a bond developing between a taxi driver and his passenger in a simple and especially human film. – Cineuropa

96% Rotten Tomatoes

  • DRIVING MADELEINE (UNE BELLE COURSE)
  • France, 2022 | Language: French | 1 h 30 min | Cert: CLUB
  • Director: Christian Carion
  • Cast: Line Renaud, Dany Boon, Alice Isaaz
  • Foreign language films are subtitled. 
  • Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • WIRELESS, a short film by Cork filmmaker Brian Dwyer, will be shown before the feature.
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/DRIVINGMADELEINE-25thJan
  • Cork Cine Club absorbs the cost of online booking fees.
  • Online booking closes at 5pm on the night of the film.
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

R.M.N.

R.M.N. [Romania], Thursday 1 February, 8pm

By archive, Season 25, Winter 2024

Online booking is appreciated. Click here to buy your ticket for R.M.N.

From acclaimed auteur Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), comes a stunning new piece of cinema. Set in a remote Transylvanian town where customs and tradition bind the community together, historic resentments start to bubble to the surface with the arrival of some new immigrant workers who have been hired by the local factory. 

Underlying frustrations and fears soon grip the populace, erupting through the veneer of understanding and calm. With divisions forming and tensions running high, it falls to a few residents to try and prevent the community from breaking apart completely.

Featuring an outstanding cast, R.M.N. is a gripping, breathtaking and powerful new work from one of the masters of European cinema.

R.M.N. is the Romanian acronym for “nuclear magnetic resonance” and, sure enough, modern master Cristian Mungiu’s urgent, fiercely intelligent migration drama doubles as a laser-enhanced dissection of European hypocrisies and contradictions. – Irish Times

While ‘R.M.N.’ largely takes place in Romania, as Mungiu makes forcefully clear, this is also a story that transcends borders…his touch is so deft and his filmmaking so enlivening, and the villagers so laughable (if also scary!), that you never feel dragged down or punished by the ugliness. – New York Times

R.M.N. is as gripping and scrupulously humane as Mungiu’s admirers have come to expect from an artist of supreme discipline and dramatic skill. – Washington Post

96% Rotten Tomatoes

  • R.M.N.
  • Romania, 2022 | Language: Romanian | 2 h 7 min | Cert: 15A
  • Director: Cristian Mungiu
  • Cast: Marin Grigore, Judith State, Macrina Bârlădeanu
  • Foreign language films are subtitled. 
  • Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/RMN-1stFeb
  • Cork Cine Club absorbs the cost of online booking fees.
  • Online booking closes at 5pm on the night of the film.
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

never gonna snow again

NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN [Poland], Thursday 8 February, 8pm

By archive, Season 25, Winter 2024

Online booking is appreciated. Click here to buy your ticket for NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN.

When Zhenia, a mysterious stranger (Alec Utgoff of Stranger Things), arrives in a wealthy gated community of identical white McMansions on the outskirts of a large Polish city, he is welcomed by the residents who embrace his talents as a masseur. Though his hands provide healing, his eyes seem to penetrate their very souls, lifting a disquiet in each of their lives. No one thinks to ask Zhenia about his own concerns, least of all his mysterious origins.

Anchored by Utgoff’s magnetic central performance, this study of class and modern malaise astutely blends magic realism with dark humour and stunning production design to often jaw-dropping effect.

93% Rotten Tomatoes

A film that asks a question for every answer it gives, and whose crackerjack images leave you wondering, in the best of senses: wait, what did I just see? – Financial Times

Alec Utgoff is irresistibly compelling, instilling in his character a silent yet singular presence. – New York Times

Don’t look for logic or literalness here, but rather magic and metaphor and let the film’s transporting, imaginative elements take over. – Los Angeles Times

Compelling and hauntingly realised. A searching, cryptic social satire of bourgeois insularity. Though immersed in particular strains and stresses of urban Polish society, it should resonate universally with its evocation of haves-and-have-nots tension, supported by droll comedy and lavishly atmospheric intrigue. – Variety

  • NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN
  • Poland, 2021 | Language: Polish | 1 h 53 min | Cert: CERT
  • Director: Małgorzata Szumowska & Michał Englert
  • Cast: Alec Utgoff, Maja Ostaszewska, Agata Kulesza, Weronika Rosati, Katarzyna Figura, Lukasz Simlat
  • Foreign language films are subtitled. 
  • Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/NeverGonnaSnowAgain-8thFeb
  • Cork Cine Club absorbs the cost of online booking fees.
  • Online booking closes at 5pm on the night of the film.
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

afire

AFIRE [Germany], Thursday 22 February, 8pm

By archive, Season 25, Winter 2024

Online booking is appreciated. Click here to buy your ticket for AFIRE.

Our third film by Christian Petzold [Barbara, 2013; Transit, 2020], the director renowned as a modern master of suspense and a poet of Germany’s divided self. 

While vacationing by the Baltic Sea, writer Leon (Thomas Schubert) and photographer Felix (Langston Uibel) are surprised by the presence of Nadja (Petzold regular, Paula Beer), a mysterious young woman staying as a guest at Felix’s family’s holiday home. Nadja distracts Leon from finishing his latest novel and with brutal honesty, forces him to confront his caustic temperament and self-absorption.

As Nadja and Leon grow closer, an encroaching forest fire threatens the group and tensions escalate when a handsome lifeguard and Leon’s tight-lipped book editor also arrive.

Petzold’s acclaimed latest won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival. Intelligent and compelling, Afire is full of humour and tragedy.

91% Rotten Tomatoes

This entertaining, masterly, genre-defying comedy rightly took home Berlin’s Silver Bear. German master Christian Petzold deftly weaves ecological catastrophe, sexual capering and a portrait of beta masculinity into something extraordinary. – Irish Times

Afire is an entertainment with spark and philosophical insight — and a reminder that, as we contemplate apocalypse, we’d better learn to start understanding each other, and ourselves, a little more. – Financial Times

Christian Petzold returns with something lighter, funnier and more instantly-lovable … a film that’s much lighter and outwardly entertaining than what we’ve come to expect from him. – Little White Lies

Throughout this movie, an absorbing, barbed and frequently funny evisceration of artistic ego, Petzold practices a deft and disarming sleight of hand, using key details to keep the viewer off balance and deliver a stinging rebuke to Leon’s myopia. – Los Angeles Times

On one level, it seems to belong to international cinema’s increasingly prevalent strain of climate catastrophe dramas, on another it’s a brittle character piece, a comedy of social embarrassment with a dark and ultimately tragic undertow. – Screen International

  • AFIRE (ROTER HIMMEL)
  • Germany, 2023 | Language: German | 1 h 43 min | Cert: TBC
  • Director: Christian Petzold
  • Cast: Thomas Schubert, Paula Beer, Langston Uibel
  • Foreign language films are subtitled. 
  • Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/Afire-22ndFeb
  • Cork Cine Club absorbs the cost of online booking fees.
  • Online booking closes at 5pm on the night of the film.
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

20000_species_of_bees

20,000 SPECIES OF BEES [Spain], Thursday 29 February, 8pm

By archive, Season 25, Winter 2024

Online booking is appreciated. Click here to buy your ticket for 20,000 SPECIES OF BEES.

Eight-year-old Coco doesn’t identify with the male name, Aitor, she was assigned at birth. She would in fact prefer to be called Lucia. However her family, even her open-minded sculptress mother, are struggling to see Lucia for who she really is. So when Coco (as the child goes by for a while) and her family spend the summer with her mother’s relatives in the Basque countryside, the time she spends tending to bees with her eccentric aunt Lourdes, finally gives the little girl the confidence to accept her developing identity and share her feelings with others.

Featuring an astonishing central performance from Sofia Otero as Coco [Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance, Berlin International Film Festival 2023], Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s moving debut film approaches its young lead character’s story of self-discovery with great sensitivity and humanity.

96% Rotten Tomatoes

With this gentle, empathic picture, Urresola joins a conversation that usually plays out as a screaming match and tones it down to a murmur. – Observer [UK]

A warm and generously performed film. – Guardian

★ A beautifully realised piece of work, this is far more than just an issue film. – Eye For Film

An engaging, authentic, moving film about the way society persists in seeing monsters where there are none. – Screen International

  • 20,000 SPECIES OF BEES [20.000 ESPECIES DE ABEJAS]
  • Spain, 2023 | Language: Spanish | 2 h 9 min | Cert: CLUB
  • Director: Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren
  • Cast: Sofia Otero, Patricia López Arnaiz, Ane Gabarain
  • Foreign language films are subtitled. 
  • Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/20000SpeciesofBees-29thFeb
  • Cork Cine Club absorbs the cost of online booking fees.
  • Online booking closes at 5pm on the night of the film.
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

how to have sex

HOW TO HAVE SEX [U.K.], Thursday 7 March, 8pm

By archive, Season 25, Winter 2024

Online booking is appreciated. Click here to buy your ticket for HOW TO HAVE SEX.

Three teenage girlfriends navigate sex, consent, and friendships old and new on a euphoric post-exams holiday on a Greek party island.

It’s supposed to be the best summer ever. Tara, Skye and Em touch down on the Greek party resort of Malia for the holiday to end all holidays, the girls’ trip every British teenager ticks off at the cusp of adulthood. Tara, the last remaining virgin, is on a mission to change that: and her best friends are causing chaos right alongside her. The 16-year-old drinks and dances her way through the strip – with all its messy bars and grimy nightclubs – until she meets a couple of boys on the neighbouring hotel balcony who she hopes might give her a summer to remember.

Making her debut feature with a vibrant, compassionate look at sex, friendship, consent and the sweet smell of a boozy sunburned summer holiday, director and cinematographer Molly Manning Walker (Scrapper, Good Thanks, You?) paints an exhilarating, moving, and painfully familiar portrait of young adulthood.

95% Rotten Tomatoes

This is not a horror film and yet, it’s impossible not to think of the immortal genre battle cry: “Don’t do it! Don’t go down to the beach tonight!” The plot promises and often delivers fun. – Irish Times

As enthralling as it is important, How To Have Sex neatly depicts the joy and pain of teenage girlhood. – Empire Magazine

It’s all guided with a sure hand by first-time director Molly Manning Walker and anchored by a performance by Mia McKenna-Bruce that is as eye-catching as the film’s title. – Financial Times

Described by its director as loosely autobiographical, How to Have Sex is built around a subtle but devastating rug-pull that exposes the culture of sex and consent in the same way F Scott Fitzgerald put the Jazz Age on blast in The Great Gatsby. – Independent [UK]

This is fresh, passionate, and remarkably assured filmmaking, made with ample energy and even more exhilarating clarity of vision. – RogerEbert.com

  • HOW TO HAVE SEX
  • U.K., 2023 | Language: English | 1 h 38 min | Cert: 15A
  • Director/Writer: Molly Manning Walker
  • Cast: Mia McKenna-Bruce, Lara Peake, Enva Lewis, Shaun Thomas, Samuel Bottomley
  • Foreign language films are subtitled. 
  • Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • GOOD TO TALK, a short film by Cork filmmaker Stephen Broekhuizen, will be shown before the feature.
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/HowtoHaveSex-7thMarch
  • Cork Cine Club absorb the cost of online booking fees.
  • Online booking closes at 5pm on the night of the film.
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

past lives

PAST LIVES [USA], Thursday 14 March, 8pm

By archive, Season 25, Winter 2024

Online booking is appreciated. Click here to buy your ticket for PAST LIVES.

Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrest apart when Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea the the U.S. Two decades later, they are reunited in New York for one fateful week as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life, in this heartrending modern romance.

Past Lives is an authentically beautiful romantic debut feature from playwright Celine Song. Exploring “In Yun’’, a Korean notion of connection between people – the string of fate which tangles together across different lifetimes, it subtly addresses the tension between a life longed for and the life lived.

With spellbinding performances from Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, and John Magaro it brims with compassion for how complicated the human condition can be.

96% Rotten Tomatoes

It is a film that embraces blended nationalities while acknowledging the pull of one’s earliest home. One leaves aware of unavoidable open-endedness but sated by a work that has achieved all its lofty ambitions. – Irish Times

The performances are impossibly strong and awards-season ready. Anything other than a best actress Oscar nomination for [Greta] Lee will be criminal.- Times [UK]

★★★★★ It’s a must-see… a beautiful, transporting film but one made with both feet firmly on the ground. – Guardian

’It is a very tough thing indeed to make a film that is at once restrained and brimming with feeling, a movie that could be fairly described as both big and small. – Variety

★★★★★ Celine Song’s tender, time-spanning romance is an exquisitely judged wonder. A directorial debut of remarkable poise and power. – Total Film

Plaudits to the principal cast, who do a miraculous job of portraying inner conflict and ecstasy with the merest tilt of a head, or subtle shift of a shoulder.  – Observer [UK]

  • PAST LIVES
  • USA, 2023 | Language: English/Korean | 1 h 46 min | Cert: 12A
  • Director/Writer: Celine Song
  • Cast: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro
  • Foreign language films are subtitled. 
  • Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/PastLives-14thMarch
  • Cork Cine Club absorbs the cost of online booking fees.
  • Online booking closes at 5pm on the night of the film.
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

paris memories

PARIS MEMORIES [France], Thursday 21 March, 8pm

By archive, Season 25, Winter 2024

Online booking is appreciated. Click here to buy your ticket for PARIS MEMORIES.

After an idyllic evening full of red wine and a late-night motorcycle ride home, Mia (Virginie Efira) stops at a Parisian bistro to take shelter from a downpour. Her reprieve is shattered when a gunman opens fire. Three months later, with a frustratingly hazy memory of the attack, Mia finds herself numbed and unable to resume her life. Her friends and partner seek something from her that she can no longer give.

Determined to reconstruct the sequence of events and re-establish a sense of normalcy, Mia finds herself repeatedly returning to the bistro where the shooting happened. In the process, she forms bonds with fellow survivors.

Inspired by the experiences of the director’s brother, who was present at the Bataclan attack, Paris Memories investigates the notion of memory and identity in the aftermath of violence. Approached from the perspective of the survivors, the film is an empowering testament to the resilience of humanity and how both complicated and simple, the healing process can be.

93% Rotten Tomatoes

Devastating, yet ultimately rewarding, Paris Memories [Revoir Paris] offers an alternative to the usual socio-political consideration of a terrorist attack by drawing a humane, kaleidoscopic portrait of various survivors’ crisis responses. – Empire Magazine

Despite the tragedy, “Revoir Paris” is a hopeful film about the healing power of human connection and mutual comfort. It’s the kind of movie that lingers in the mind long after the credits roll. – RogerEbert.com

Winocour’s film is a poignant mediation on personal trauma and the importance of memory. But the film also serves as a tribute to Paris – to remembering that it is possible to love a place despite experiencing something terrible there. – Little White Lies

Illuminated by a masterful performance by French actress Virginie Efira, Paris Memories makes the unimaginable experience of surviving a violent attack beautifully real and painfully universal. – IndieWire

It’s powerful film-making, grounded by Efira’s enormous, often silent, central performance. – Times [UK]

It’s a modest film with a heart very much on its torn sleeve, given force and ballast by another fine dramatic turn from the hard-working Virginie Efira. – Variety

  • PARIS MEMORIES [REVOIR PARIS]
  • France, 2022 | Language: French | 1 h 43 min | Cert: 15A
  • Director: Alice Winocour
  • Cast: Virginie Efira, Benoit Magimel, Gregoire Colin
  • Foreign language films are subtitled. 
  • Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/ParisMemories-21stMarch
  • Cork Cine Club absorbs the cost of online booking fees.
  • Online booking closes at 5pm on the night of the film.
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

RYE LANE [U.K.], Thursday 11 April, 8pm

By archive, Season 25, Winter 2024

Online booking is appreciated. Click here to buy your ticket for RYE LANE.

No other British film has, in a generation, done such imaginative work in restructuring romantic comedy. Rye Lane is one of those rare films the audience didn’t know it really, really needed. – Donald Clarke, Irish Times

At an art exhibition in South London, Yas and Dom meet in less-than-ideal circumstances. However, they quickly realise they have plenty in common, including that they’ve both recently experienced very messy break-ups. They end up on a meandering stroll through the city, via Rye Lane Market. Over the course of a whirlwind evening, their mutual attraction grows as they get caught up in increasingly funny, outrageous, and unexpected situations.

Raine Allen-Miller’s debut feature is a joyous, modern romantic comedy. Making full use of the sights, sounds and people of South London, this is one of the freshest and most stylish romantic comedies in a generation. It’s elevated further by two electrifying, charming performances from Vivian Oparah as Jas and David Jonsson as Dom.

98% Rotten Tomatoes

Will leave you with a smile on your face, a spring in your step and (hopefully) a renewed confidence in next-wave British filmmaking. – Observer

It’s a frothy metropolitan comedy with some heyday Richard Curtis energy and a deep affection for its well-crafted and smartly performed characters. – The Times UK

Rye Lane is about a day that gets continuously better, if not funnier and more loving… What makes the film relatable is how achingly human it all is. – Rolling Stone

It feels like a miracle. Here’s an entry into the genre that doesn’t surrender to thinkpiece-ready neuroticism. – Independent UK

Rye Lane keeps winning you over by being a satiric-yet-sincere love letter to creative expression as much as to love itself. – San Francisco Chronicle

  • RYE LANE
  • UK, 2023 | Language: English | 82 min | Cert: 15A
  • Director: Raine Allen-Miller
  • Cast: David Jonsson, Vivian Oparah

  • A short Irish film, MAGIC, will be shown before the feature.
  • Director: Jo Halpin
  • Writer: Ali Hardiman
  • Cast: Ali Hardiman and Killian Sundermann 
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/RYELANE-11thApril
  • Cork Cine Club absorbs the cost of online booking fees.
  • Online booking closes at 5pm on the night of the film.
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

fremont

FREMONT [USA], Thursday 18 April, 8pm

By Homepage, Season 25, Winter 2024

Online booking is appreciated. Click here to buy your ticket for FREMONT.

Donya, a young Afghan who moved to Fremont, California after serving as a translator for the American army, spends her days working at a fortune cookie factory and her nights wide awake battling between her desire to rebuild her life and the overbearing guilt she carries within. In a bid to reconnect with the world, she sends an unconventional message out in one of the fortune cookies.

Shot in BxW, Fremont is a warm, poignant and deadpan tale of self-discovery. A cast that includes comedian Gregg Turkington and The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White bring life to unforgettable, unique characters, but it is Anaita Wali Zada’s shining turn as Donya that is a revelation.

97% Rotten Tomatoes

This is a sweet, low-key charmer with a winning, achingly sympathetic performance from novice actress Zada at its centre. – Times [UK]

The fourth film from Iranian-born director Babak Jalali is a droll, low-key charmer … an invitation to fall head-over-heels in love. – Screen International

It’s the kind of independent film which we haven’t seen a lot of lately, endowed with intimacy and a kind of dreamy charm. – Guardian

Fremont is neither game-changing nor revolutionary. It’s merely a throwback, in the best possible way, to a low-fi aesthetic and low-key way of storytelling you thought had gone the way of the Triceratops. – Rolling Stone

A stunning mood piece that takes pride in its stillness and slow pace, ultimately delivering a tale of intimacy, searching, and quiet strength. – RogerEbert.com

The story is suffused with an uncommon blend of radiance and resignation, nowhere more rapturously than in the final shot. – New Yorker

★ In this gentle, offbeat comedy, Babak Jalali meets the lonely realities of displacement with sensitivity and hope. – The Skinny [UK]

  • FREMONT
  • USA, 2023 | Language: English, Dari, Cantonese | 1 h 32 min | Cert: CLUB
  • Director: Babak Jalali
  • Cast: Anaita Wali Zada, Jeremy Allen White, Gregg Turkington
  • Foreign language films are subtitled. 
  • Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE, a short film by Jason Branagan, will be shown before the feature.
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/Fremont-18thApril
  • Cork Cine Club absorbs the cost of online booking fees.
  • Online booking closes at 5pm on the night of the film.
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.