Annual General Meeting

Our AGM covering the 2024-2025 seasons, will be held at 4.30 on Sunday 11 January in the Alhambra before the film. We are hoping to make this a friendly, bigger affair this year by offering all members a free drink from 4.00pm so please come along to hear the latest news and, importantly, give your views on the club future. 

The full details and documents are now on our website

Films for 2025

If Only I Could Hibernate was the last film of the year but don't worry we'll be back on January 5th with the much acclaimed Anora. The programme for the full season is available to view here and the brochure is available to download or pick up from the Alhambra. There's 12 great films to take us through to the end of March and that's not including the 25th Keswick Film Festival.  If you head over the the Festival website you'll see more films added as they are confirmed, it looks like there's already some great ones to choose from. There's also a Films of the Century vote to pick from some of the best films of the last 25 years to show in screen 2 during the Festival. 

We hope you have a good Christmas and we'll see you in the New Year.

Only The River Flows - Sunday 15th December 5pm

"Detective Ma Zhe wanders through the frames of Wei Shujun's period noir Only the River Flows, smoking cigarettes like carbon monoxide is actually his oxygen, almost always bedecked in his leather coat. These are the trademark symbols of a weary cop who has worked too long and seen too much" - Andy Crump, Paste Magazine.

"Fittingly, as pure cinema, Only The River Flows is a knockout: eerie and dreamlike" - Danny Leigh, Financial Times

About Dry Grasses - Sunday 8th December 5pm

Running over 3 hours is About Dry Grasses just a pretentious, too-long, art-house movie, or a masterpiece? A lot of critics are leaning towards the latter.

"One of the best movies of this or any other year."- Bilge Ebiri New York, Magazine/Vulture

"There isn’t a boring frame in the film." - Josh Larsen, LarsenOnFilm

"It would be a waste to see About Dry Grasses anywhere other than on the largest screen, in the darkest cinema. It not only repays the time, it makes a change of pace nothing less than a moral recalibration." - David Sexton, New Statesman

Here - Sunday 24th November 5pm

This week's film Here is not the new Tom Hanks film of the same name but a much better received film from Belgian director Bas Devos. 

"[This] gentle, delicate and quietly beguiling movie, a prize winner last year in Berlin, is about love and fate. It crept up on me at its own measured walking pace" - Peter Bradshaw, Guardian.

Radical - Sunday 17th November 5pm

Winner of the Festival Favourite Award at the Sundance Film Festival, Radical is based on a genuine teacher, Sergio Juarez Correa, a teacher in the northeastern Mexican border town of Matamoros, whose story, by Joshua Davis, appeared on the cover of 'Wired' in 2013 and inspired this film. The school in question was known as 'the school of punishment'; it was impoverished, dominated by drug gangs and corrupt officials, all of which Sergio took on as a test to try out a new method - student-led learning.

"Brought to life by an electrifying cast fronted by Derbez and an ensemble of young actors already at the top of their game, while 'Radical' might feel like familiar territory, it is energized with so much heart and compassion that it feels almost impossible not to fall for its myriad charms." -  Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, AWFJ

Kneecap - Sunday 10th November 5pm

Based very loosely around the real Irish group Kneecap (who play themselves here), this follows three guys who start rapping in Irish Gaelic after the Good Friday agreement, and manage to get popular, despite (or maybe because) they make just about everyone angry, from the Government, the IRA and an anti-drug coalition the Radical Republicans Against Drugs (RRAD)

"This is the kind of bold filmmaking that has the potential to keep cinema alive." -Maria Lattila, Film Stories

The Outrun - Sunday 3rd November 5pm

The Outrun starts in London where we meet Rona who is spiralling to the bottom of her alcoholic life, pushing her loving partner Daynin away on her way downwards. She decides to run for cover to the place of her youth, Orkney. Not out of the woods yet - her family there cause her more heartaches - but she gradually finds peace and tranquility in the remote and windswept Scottish Islands

Rona is played by Saoirse Ronan in another potentially award winning performance:

"When it comes to disappearing into emotionally and physically demanding roles, there are a few actors out there as gifted and committed" - Tomris Laffly, Harper's Bazaar.

La Chimera - Sunday 27th October 5pm

Another Members' Choice this week with La Chimera. Josh O'Connor, who can do no wrong, stars in 'his best performance to date'; Alice Rohrwacher directs her 'best film to date'. How good can it get? The critics loved it.

"Not just great, but expansive: it shows new ways a movie can be." - Esmé Holden, Little White Lies

Paradise is Burning - Sunday 20th October 5pm

Winner of a Best Director award at Venice, Paradise Is Burning is Mika Gustafson's first movie and is a celebration of youth: three sisters, aged 16, 12 and 7, are surviving alone after their fun-loving mother finally abandons them all together.

"Bracingly shot and edited, with impressive performances from the cast, the film is packed with powerfully intense moments." - Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall

Hounds - Sunday 13th October 5pm

In Hounds local mobster Dib's prized dog loses a fight, so he gets a couple of cheap goons , Hassan and Issam, to kidnap his rival. What could possibly go wrong? Just about everything as it turns out. We follow Hassan and Issam in almost real time through the surroundings of Casablanca as they try to recover from their initial mistake, only to get into more and more problems... 

"A tense journey through the underbelly of Morocco’s largest city where a father and son walk a knife edge between life and death, right and wrong, reality and a spirit netherworld." - Lee Marshall, Screen International

Rosalie - Sunday 6th October 5pm

In Rosalie a marriage of convenience hits its first snag when the bride removes her clothes. A story based on the first 'bearded lady' carnival acts, this tries to bring a feminist angle when Rosalie 'comes out' in the café they run. She decides to throw off the humiliation and bets a customer she can grow a better beard than him.

"A very watchable, offbeat slice of period drama." - Leslie Felperin, Hollywood Reporter

Kinds of Kindness Sunday 29th September 5pm

Lanthimos is back with Kinds of Kindness and Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe. Whether you liked 'Poor Things' or not, it certainly made the Oscar news, but his latest film is more in line with his earlier 'The Lobster' or 'Dogtooth'. 

"If you enjoy films that explain it all for you, then let me do you a kindness and say that 'Kinds of Kindness' is not for you. But if you like the kind of challenge that exasperates as often as it entertains, then this mesmerizing mindbender is just the provocation you need. It's your choice" -Peter Travers, ABC News. 

How could we NOT show it?!

Next Sohee - Sunday 22nd September 5pm

Next Sohee

Sohee is a bright high school pupil, studying pet care when her school work-experience teacher gets her a 'plumb' job working in a call centre. She takes the job with enthusiasm, but is soon worn down by the high pressure and lack of support, gradually crushing her spirit until she can take it no more...

"There's a real sense of fury behind this film... The problem at its core is systemic but [director] Jung makes a strong case to the effect that it must be addressed with the same vigour as one would expect if individuals were causing equivalent harm. Sohee is broken to the point where she cannot see any hope. Oh likewise makes some bleak discoveries, but her attitude – as someone older with a stronger sense of possibility – is very different. Next Sohee speaks for people who do not have a voice, and it does so eloquently". Jennie Kermode, Eye For Film

Rose - Sunday 15th September 5pm

Our opening night starts with free drinks from 4.30pm, so do get there nice and early to see your friends. We start with Rose from Denmark.

The story of two sisters, Inger and Ellen, and how their relationship is challenged on a highly anticipated coach trip to Paris. When Inger announces her struggles with mental health to the group, the sisters are faced with pity from some and discrimination from others. On arrival in Paris, it soon becomes clear that Inger has a hidden agenda. ROSE is a film about love and care for each other, in spite of our differences, as much as it is a film about not judging a book by its cover.

"Gråbøl is superb throughout, recognising Inger as a complicated individual who has a lot more going on than just her illness." - Jennie Kermode, Eye for Film

Your Programme for Autumn 2024

We are getting close to the start of our 25th year which starts on Sunday 15th September. The autumn season is booked, including 9 films voted for by the members. You can now read about all of the films in the PDF of the brochure which is also available around town.

If you join the club for £10 you get to see any of the club films for only £6 but everybody is welcome at all of the films.

We hope that you will want to see many of the films here and that our 25th year turns out to be a memorable one for us all!

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!

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.