Merry Christmas from KFC

It's time for our short break for the holidays but we'll be back on January 10th with Jane Campion's Bright Things starting off the Spring Programme. You can find details of all the spring films here on the website, some highlights include Goodbye Solo, The White Ribbon, Un Prophète and of course the 11th Keswick Film Festival.

Joyeux Noel - Sunday 20th December 5pm

We picked Joyeux Noel out for our Christmas spot from the most likely ‘not-overdone-on-TV’ contenders, as being a film with some suitably uplifting content for the time of year (but some grimness too, as you’d expect on the front line in 1914) and a good story based on what actually happened almost exactly 95 years ago. It’s not a brand-new film (made in 2005) but a good one, which didn’t deserve to be overlooked back then. It was nominated for the Oscar for Best Film in a Foreign Language but it was beaten to the award by Tsotsi. When it came out, Joyeux Noel was called by the Time Out critic of the day: ‘a respectful, sobering tribute to the flickering of humanitarian spirit amid the darkest days of conflict and, as such, surely a Christmas film for the ages.’ Come and see what you think, if you’re not too busy on Sunday…

Fish Tank - Sunday 13th December 5pm

Our penultimate film of the year is Fish Tank, directed by Andrea Arnold (Red Road) and starring newcomer Katie Jarvis as 15-year-old Mia, the film was the winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes. Since Cannes, of course the film has done very well in the BIFA Awards: 'Arnold scooped Best Director as well as Katie Jarvis picking up MostPromising Newcomer for her central performance.'

Wonderful Town - Sunday 6th December 5pm

Wonderful Town was Sight & Sound's Film of the Month in April, and your chance to see it comes up on Sunday. The magazine's review, by Tony Rayns, forms the bulk of our film notes - but you might prefer to avoid 'spoilers' by reading them later. You're safe, though, to read the description in the brochure. Suffice it to say that Rayns pays tribute to an 'excellent, poetic, and engrossing' debut from the Thai director Aditya Assarat.