Hunt For The Wilderpeople - Sunday 8th January 5pm

We will start the Spring season with the worldwide Kiwi hit Hunt for the Wilderpeople, starring Sam Neill and the new, young find, Julian Dennison, who play Hec and Ricky. Ricky is a troublesome youth who ends up being fostered by Hec and his wife Bella in the middle of nowhere, until further trouble with social services drive Rick and Hec deep into the Kiwi bush...

"Uncle Hec and Ricky's journey together is hysterical, the laughs coming often, the two central characters’ relationship becoming the ginormous and heartwarming soul of the film. There's brilliant chemistry between Dennison and Neil, the pair quite obviously bouncing off each other; a joy to watch on screen, and as the story progresses you begin to feel like a member of their special pack, gleefully part of the adventure" – Jack Shepherd, Independent

2017 Festival & Spring Programme

We're taking a short break between programmes and would like to this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. It's already looking like 2017 will be a great year for films. The festival programme is looking strong with many films picking up award nominations such as La La Land, Loving, Toni Erdmann and Manchester by the Sea.

We'll be back in our regular slot on Sunday 8th January with Empire magazine's best film of 2016 Hunt For The Wilderpeople. The full spring programme is now available and you can download a copy of the brochure or pick one up from the usual places.

Our Little Sister - Sunday 18th December 5pm

So we reach our last film of this season: we finish as we started with a gentle Japanese film - Our Little Sister.

By the same director – Hirokazu Koreeda – as the perfect  Still Walking from 2010, this promises the same beautiful, thoughtful episodes from the lives – rather than a story – of three girls who only find out at their father's funeral that they have another, younger step sister.

"There are minor conflicts and revelations, but these never seem like plot points. Rather they feel like the fabric of everyday life, observed with limpid simplicity and given powerful emotional effect with natural, easy, unforced performances" - Allison Gilmour Winnipeg Free Press.

"A delicate, unforced meditation on the bonds of family and the joys and wonders hidden in everyday life, this film is able to move audiences without apparent effort, and that must be experienced firsthand to be appreciated and understood"– Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

"Anyone in the mood for two hours of sheer, unadulterated loveliness ... will be amply rewarded." – Mike D’Angelo, AV Club.

...which should leave you feeling rested and relaxed for the Christmas break! We will be back on 8th January with the Kiwi Hunt for the Wilderpeople. A very Happy Christmas to you all!

The Innocents - Sunday 11th December 5pm

The Anne Fontaine film The Innocents (Les innocents) is in French, Polish and Russian. It’s Warsaw in December 1945 and Mathilde, a young French doctor, has set up a clinic to treat French people left behind in Poland at the end of the second world war when a Benedictine nun comes to ask her help to deliver babies for several of her fellow nuns… It’s based on true events involving the victorious Russian army repeatedly raping and sometimes killing the nuns.