That's all for now, folks!

And so our 25th Year comes to an end; we do hope you have enjoyed it! By the look of the votes most films seem to have gone down well, and more of you came to see them than last year so let's hope the Covid effect is wearing off; wouldn't it be great if next year sees our audiences reach the numbers they did before the pandemic!

We would like to thank all those who helped run the films this year, both for the club nights and the festival; the committee decision to try to involve more people seems to have been popular and successful - thank you all very much! Watch this space over the summer for requests for help next season; there might be a few more jobs for you to enjoy!

All that remains for us to do is to wish you all a great summer and to say we will be back in September (probably Sunday 8 September), and to remind you that it will be the Festival's 25th Birthday next year - Ian Payne, the Festival Director,  has some great ideas to hep us celebrate! Put the dates in your diary now - 25th Keswick Film Festival - Thursday 6 March to Sunday 9 March. 

More Films...

The End We Start From was originally going to be our last film before our long summer break but we now have two more films for you. We have decided that the Festival Favourite - 'Totem' deserves to be seen by more people than got to see it at the festival and so we will be showing it on TUESDAY 16 APRIL AT 7.30pm. 

On SUNDAY 21st April at 5.00pm we will be showing 'Lost in the Stars', the Chinese thriller that went wrong on 4 February. More details will follow soon - but put them in your diary now!

The End We Start From - Sunday 24th March 5pm

In The End We Start From Jodie Comer stars as a woman who gives birth just as terrible floods hit London; new life begins as the old life ends. The film continues to emphasise the individuals' problems rather than the bigger picture, focusing on our unnamed hero trying to survive as food gets harder to find. She first escapes from London up North with her partner, then tries to reach a commune with a new-found friend, all the while having to fend for her baby.

"Comer’s vulnerability and idealism are authentic as are her determination and a dash of real ruthlessness... She carries everything with unselfconscious strength and style." - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Shayda - Sunday 17th March 5pm

Shayda tells the story of the titular character's attempt to escape her abusive husband's clutches. This is director Noora Niasari's confident personal debut , which won an Audience Award at Sundance for the World Dramatic Competition program.

"One of the most masterful debuts of a filmmaker that I've seen in a long time." - Claudia Puig, FilmWeek

The Holdovers - Sunday 10th March 5pm

The Festival may be over but we still have some great films coming up on Sunday evenings. This week it's Alexander Payne's The Holdovers starring Paul Giamatti which has been nominated for nearly 200 awards (including 5 Oscars) and had already won more than 100. 

"Nothing about 'The Holdovers' sounds particularly special, and yet it's one of director Alexander Payne's best films – very funny, occasionally touching and a sterling example of the bonds that can be forged by an unlikely family. Set in a stiff New England private school in 1970, it passes the 'should see' test with flying colours" - Brian Lowry, CNN.

24th Keswick Film Festival

This Thursday sees the start of the 2024 Film Festival with the sold out European Première of Between The Lights (there are still some tickets available for the Saturday screening). From there our cinematic world tour takes in Malaysia, Mexico, Tunisia, Georgia, Japan, Iran and the USA. Recent BAFTA winners The Zone Of Interest and American Fiction are showing at the Alhambra on Sunday. The Osprey Short Film Awards are a free event at the Theatre By The Lake on Saturday featuring 9 new Cumbrian short films. The big screen at Rheged is in use once again for Samsara, The Taste Of Things, Tótem, Four Daughters and The New Boy. On Friday evening we'll be joined by co-directors Ali Catterall and Jane Giles for their riotous new doc Scala!!! (or to give the film its full title: Scala!!! Or, the Incredibly Strange Rise and Fall of the World's Wildest Cinema and How It Influenced a Mixed-up Generation of Weirdos and Misfits). There are 24 feature films over the long weekend including award favourites, critically acclaimed selections and previews of films not yet on release in the UK. 

Tickets and passes are available from the Alhambra, we hope to see you there.

Poor Things - Sunday 25th February 5pm

 

This week you can see Emma Stone's BAFTA winning performance in Poor Things, the latest from the strangely brilliant director Yorgos Lanthimos. The film was nominated for 11 BAFTAS and also won for production design, make up and hair, costume and special visual effects.

Emma Stone stars as Bella, the 'Frankengirl' brought back to life by Doctor Baxter (Willem Defoe). Rather than becoming a monster, however, Bella gets more and more complete as she discovers first how to move and talk, then the pleasures of the flesh (with sleazy, caddish Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo). But to Wedderburn's disgust, she then turns to reading and before you know it, she is out-thinking and outsmarting the men.

"Everything in it – every frame, every image, every joke, every performance – gets a gasp of excitement… And his leading lady is someone who takes it to the next career level, or the level beyond the next level" - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

AGM - Sunday 18th February 4:30pm

We are having our normal very brief AGM before Love Life, please come for 4.30 onwards to enjoy a free drink while we make decisions for the coming year.

We have moved our AGM back in the calendar to allow time for the accounts to be audited, so this meeting will cover 18 months (but will still not take long as all the info you need is on our website, please try to read it before the meeting). The election of officers and Trustees is essential so do please come along or we will not be able to continue.

Love Life - Sunday 18th February 5pm

In a film strangely reminiscent of 'Past Lives', but with a very different feel, 'Love Life' explores Love and Life as past loves come back to haunt the lives of a Japanese couple.

In a wonderful, chaotic family, "The delicate domestic balance shared by Taeko and her second husband, Jiro, is upended when a tragedy strikes the family, in this wrenching Japanese melodrama from Kôji Fukada.

"An enormously poignant melodrama told at the volume of a broken whisper" - David Ehrlich, indieWire

The Peasants - Sunday 11th February 5pm

For The Peasants the makes of 'Loving Vincent' have taken a Polish classic novel as a basis and produced a "ravishingly beautiful visual triumph". The story is of Jamila, a striking blonde beauty who is admired by every male in the village, including both the rich Maciej and his eldest son Antek, who Jamila loves. When Maciej arranges a marriage for himself with Jamila, the affair with his son continues, with disastrous results.

“A disconcertingly beautiful picture about the ugliness of humanity.” - Wendy Ide, The Observer

 

Lost In The Stars - Sunday 4th February 5:00 PM

 

To go with the MINT Chinese Film Festival taking place at the Alhambra from this Thursday 1st to Sunday 4th, this week we're showing Lost In The Stars, a cracking, Hitchcockian, twisty thriller.

A Chinese couple go away to an island for a weekend to celebrate their wedding anniversary, but the wife goes missing and then the twists and turns continue; definitely a thriller 'like they used to be'...

Anatomy Of A Fall - Sunday 28th January 5:00 PM

Anatomy Of A Fall won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year and is a whodunnit, deliberately built around uncertainty, where marriage is the prime suspect.

Sandra, a German author is married to Samuel, a French aspiring author. They live in an Alpine chalet with their visually impaired son Daniel. Their marriage is argumentative, which becomes especially important when Samuel is found dead outside in the snow. Did he fall? Did he commit suicide? ...Or was he pushed? In a world where perceptions are more important than truth, the police accuse Sandra of murder. But did she do it?

“This family drama masquerading as a murder-mystery touches on universal marital tensions; it is both enigmatic and very human.” - Laura Venning, Empire Magazine

20,000 Species of Bees - Sunday 21st January 5pm

 

A beautiful, gentle film about family, identity and so much more, which won its star, Sofia Otero the Best Actress award at the Berlin Festival… not bad for an 8 year old. Sofia plays Cocó, the youngest son of Ane, who is having problems with her marriage. When Ane takes her family to visit her own mother Lita in Spain, her own identity as a sculptor is thrown into doubt by Lita. Coco meanwhile is more and more sure he is a girl in a boy's body; the only person to accept this is her great aunt Lordes, who is happy with her bees, and with calling her Lucía. So...Pretty well the whole family have identity problems of their own.

With this gentle, empathic picture, [director] Urresola joins a conversation that usually plays out as a screaming match, and tones it down to a murmur. It turns out that you hear a lot more that way" - Wendy Ide, Guardian.

20 Days In Mariupol - Sunday 14th January 5pm

We hesitated about showing this documentary, but the constantly great reviews (100% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.7 on IMDb) and the number of members who voted for it, persuaded us it should be seen: An inside view of the Russian occupation of this Ukrainian city is not going to be an easy watch, but probably one we all should see.

"A brave, visceral, merciless masterpiece... Feels like a cinematic siege of the soul." - Ed Vulliamy, The Guardian

Our New Year begins with Fallen Leaves

Happy New Year everyone! We hope you have all enjoyed your Christmas, but, like us, you are looking forward to watching great World Cinema again…and We have some great films indeed lined up for 2024, with award winners and likely Oscar winners amongst films from all around the world… not to mention the Keswick Film Festival from 29 February to 3 March. 

We start on 7 January at 5.00pm at the Alhambra cinema with the latest deadpan comedy from the great Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki – ‘Fallen Leaves’: A lovely tale of ‘almost-doomed’ romance. Ansa is sacked from her shelf-filling, supermarket job for taking home out-of-date food to give to the poor. Holoppa is sacked from his job in a scrapyard for drinking at work. All looks lost for both of them until they meet at an eclectic karaoke bar (!) and love beckons… but a lost address and even a charming stray dog still stand in their way… 

We are hoping for some great evenings in a full Alhambra over the coming months.  We are looking forward to seeing films again… and to seeing you! All are welcome. We hope these films will appeal to you; see you there!