Marshland - Sunday 17th January 5:00 PM

Our film this week is Marshland,  a Spanish film set in "the fabled wetlands region of Andalusia, home to a series of barren, yet forbiddingly beautiful landscapes quite unlike any other" (Herald Sun).

The story unfolds in 1980 as the country still faces the consequences of change after the death of Franco a few years earlier and the restoration of democracy. We follow two, newly-partnered plainclothes cops as they investigate the disappearance of two teenage sisters.

Australia's Herald Sun ranked the film as one of the best films of 2015, commenting upon the partnership between the two cops as ‘utterly mesmerising’ and the cinematography as ‘sublime’.

If the Aussies aren't your preferred arbiter of a good movie, then how about this from Empire?

"A gripping police procedural thriller from writer-director Alberto Rodríguez with understated character (and political) depth as Spain’s fascist past looms over all the characters. Rodríguez punctuates the film with stunning overhead landscape shots, delivers a burst of action in a nighttime car chase on marsh causeways and pays off with haunting ambiguity."

La Famille Bélier - Sunday 10th January 5pm

Our Spring (don’t you like the sound of that – Spring!) season kicks off in traditional style with La Famille Bélier a comedy from France that has won applause and approbation in equal measure. Applause for the film and its performances and approbation from the deaf community for using hearing actors to play the role of deaf characters – indeed some campaigners have boycotted the film altogether.

La Famille Bélier tells the story of a deaf-and-mute farming family with a 17-year-old daughter who can not only hear and speak but sing, beautifully. Paula Bélier's decision to leave home to become a professional singer is a sweet calamity for her parents. Their daughter is their mouth and ears. They want her to succeed but cannot comprehend her talent. (The Independent)

It is undoubtedly a feelgood movie that has been sold in 85 countries on the strength of the trailer alone. It has been ecstatically received (by most people) in France, inevitably drawing comparisons with Amélie, Intouchables and The Artist.

"Here is a film that makes you laugh, makes you think and occasionally makes you cry," said the newspaper, Le Parisien.

Happy Christmas

We finished our Autumn season yesterday with the blockbuster Sicario . Like the rest of the season, it too was blighted by the bad weather but 85 brave souls made it to the Alhambra to watch it. The feelings were mixed, but mainly favourable scoring 74%.

So we now take our Christmas Break until 10th January, when we are back with a French comedy drama La Famille Belier . Members will get their Spring brochures in the post soon and anyone else can pick up the new brochure at the Alhambra or TIC. It is also available to download and you can view the full programme or watch the following selection of trailers for more...

Sicario - Sunday 20th December 4:15pm

We finish our season with a bang - big budget, big stars, big action. Sicario follows an unlikely trio over the border between the USA and Mexico into the war on drugs. Emily Blunt plays Kate Macy, an FBI agent out of her depth in a team cobbled together to take on the top drug suppliers.

She is partnered with Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), a sandal-wearing mystery man who claims to work for the Defense Department, and Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), the 'Sicario' of the title...the 'hitman'. What follows is the usual interagency mess-up following mixed agendas... and morals.

Sicario was ranked the 5th best film of the year by Empire magazine: "Thanks to Roger Deakins' typically virtuoso photography, the arid border landscape, a geographical and moral chasm into which all of them plunge, becomes something monstrous and unearthly, a Golgotha in widescreen."

Please note the earlier start time of 4:15pm to allow us to finish in time for Bolshoi Ballet: The Nutcracker.

Home From Home: Chronicle of a Vision - Sunday 13th December 3pm

The show must go on and this Sunday we're starting earlier than normal with a four hour film which is "never dull for a moment; indeed, there is a box set addictiveness to the whole thing" according to Peter Bradshaw.

Home From Home: Chronicle of a Vision sees director Edgar Reitz revisiting his fictional village of Schabbach, first invented for his epic 1980s TV series Heimat (Homeland). This time we're going back in time to the 19th century. Here we meet Jakob - "a dreamer, a Romantic, a reader, always getting yelled at by his blacksmith dad for idling. He has conceived a passionate desire to leave the grind and oppression and emigrate to the promised land of Brazil - a 'homeland' that is an alternative both to Germany and the church’s feebly promised heaven" - Peter Bradshaw, Guardian.