Another season has ended; Christmas is here again. We hope you have enjoyed the films this season; we visited twelve different countries and included five 'F-rated' films (films with 'significant female involvement'). There was an average of over 111 people at the shows, with an average score of almost 80% so It looks like you did enjoy it, or at least most of them. The lowest attendance was 61 (at Rheged for the classic 'The Graduate' - I guess we will stick to new films in future...), the highest was 170 for 'A Man Called Ove', whilst the score ranged from 44% for 'The Ghoul' to 91% for 'Land of Mine'. I think my favourite was probably 'Franz' - what was your favourite? Let us know over on Facebook or Twitter.
This Sunday at 5.00 we finish our season with our only Japanese film - After the Storm - where we meet Shinoda: down on his luck, trying to make ends meet as a private detective, not accepting the end of his marriage. His attempts to make up with his family are given a boost by the storm, which keeps all of them together over night at his mother's house. Directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, "After the Storm is a family drama, a 21st-century variation on the classic Japanese style of which this film-maker is now the international standard-bearer... There is such intelligence and delicacy in Koreeda's film-making, such wit and understated humanity."– Peter Bradshaw, Guardian.
If you remember I Wish, or Still Walking, you will know what he means; this should be a gentle film, where food and family meals take on high importance....just right to put you in the mood for the Club Christmas meal which follows straight afterwards, and the Christmas break which we hope you enjoy until we are back on 7 January.
This Sunday at 5.00 we have a French treat - The Midwife - starring Catherine Frot (a French star since the 1970s who specialises in comedy roles) and Catherine Deneuve, who has been around French cinema even longer, playing almost any roles, but starting with ‘aloof, mysterious beauties’ - Wikipedia. The Midwife brings the two together in almost the opposite roles; Frot as a well-organised, contented midwife and Deneuve as the ex-mistress of her father, now a fun-loving lush.
All reviewers agree that the two actors are great, making the meeting between the two characters very memorable: "What brings the two women together after 30 years? ...With Martin Provost's film deepening pleasingly as it goes on, and both women (Frot and Deneuve) giving excellent performances, you'll enjoy trying to work it all out" – Matthew Bond, Mail on Sunday. (I don't think I have quoted him before, but I thought he said it all and that you might like to try to work out what 'deepening pleasingly' means at the same time!).