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A hugely entertaining blend of humour, truthfulness and sensitivity, Blandine Lenoir’s warm-hearted romantic comedy AURORE centres on a middle-aged woman in the midst of major personal and professional life changes. Fifty-year-old Aurore Tabort (Agnès Jaoui), separated from her husband and newly unemployed, discovers she is to become a grandmother. She feels as if her own life has come to a standstill, and worries she is slowly being pushed away to the fringes of society. But after bumping into the great love of her youth, Totoche, (Thibault de Montalembert) something changes… Aurore wonders if it might still be possible to embark on something new. On screen from start to finish, actress and co-writer Jaoui (The Taste of Others, Look at Me) is the heart and soul of this witty, feel-great film. She brings a touching, truer-than-life poignancy to an endearing portrait of the resilience of womanhood, as an everyday heroine on the road to (re)discovery. French language, English subtitles
A filmic reverie about an extraordinary Australian – politician, polymath, public intellectual – who became a household name and remains a one-out-of-the-box national living treasure. Nearing 85, Barry Jones is as contemporary, relevant and futuristic as ever. But in this film he uses the lens of film itself to focus on childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, training his camera eye on the shaping forces of his character and the key turning points of his life. An eager filmgoer from the age of five, movies moulded his early outlook. “I could list more than 50 memorable films that I saw in quite a short period as a child” he says. “My emotions, understanding, processes, characterisation and visual imagery, including recognising places, taking me out of familiar and the immediate, were largely shaped by film.” Co-Starring with Barry Jones is film itself as a major influence on Barry’s life. Film watermarks and time stamps his formative years, progresses his story, reenacts his character and the characters of his world, maps his social milieu, depicts events, sculpts his emotional landscape and parodies some of his predicaments. And Barry as film critic and cultural commentator is never too far away either.
After the death of his father, T’Challa the King of Wakanda, returns home to the isolated, technologically advanced African nation to succeed to the throne and take his rightful place as king. But when a powerful old enemy reappears, T’Challa’s mettle as king—and Black Panther—is tested when he is drawn into a formidable conflict that puts the fate of Wakanda and the entire world at risk. Faced with treachery and danger, the young king must rally his allies and release the full power of Black Panther to defeat his foes and secure the safety of his people and their way of life.
Based on Penelope Fitzgerald’s novel of the same name, THE BOOKSHOP stars Emily Mortimer as Florence Green, a free-spirited widow who puts grief behind her and risks everything to open up a bookshop – the first such shop in the sleepy seaside town of Hardborough, England. Fighting damp, cold and considerable local apathy she struggles to establish herself but soon her fortunes change for the better. By exposing the narrow-minded local townsfolk to the best literature of the day including Nabokov’s scandalising Lolita and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, she opens their eyes thereby causing a cultural awakening in a town which has not changed for centuries. Her activities bring her a kindred spirit and ally in the figure of Mr. Brundish (Bill Nighy) who is himself sick of the town’s stale atmosphere. But this mini social revolution soon brings her fierce enemies: she invites the hostility of the town’s less prosperous shopkeepers and also crosses Mrs. Gamart (Patricia Clarkson), Hardborough’s vengeful, embittered alpha female who is herself a wannabe doyenne of the local arts scene. When Florence refuses to bend to Gamart’s will, they begin a struggle not just for the bookshop but for the very heart and soul of the town.
NOVA EXCLUSIVE! In Paris in the early 1990s, a group of activists goes into battle for those diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, taking on sluggish government agencies and major pharmaceutical companies in bold, invasive actions. The organisation is ACT UP, and its members, many of them gay and HIV-positive, embrace their mission with a literal life-or-death urgency. Nathan (Arnaud Valois) is a newcomer to ACT UP, and keeps his personal reasons for joining the group close to his chest. Sean (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) lives with HIV, and his exuberant, militant style of protest reflects his own sense that he has a limited amount of time left to make a true impact on the struggle. Despite all that is arrayed against them, Nathan and Sean fall passionately, defiantly in love. Winner of the Grand Prix and the Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, BPM is the exhilarating and euphoric new film from Robin Campillo (The Returned, Eastern Boys), and represents a towering new landmark in LGBTIQ cinema. French language, English subtitles
Based on the award-winning novel by Tim Winton, BREATH is the feature film directorial debut of actor Simon Baker, and tells the story of two teenage boys in 1970s Western Australia who receive tutelage in the art of surfing from an older man with a mysterious past. Pikelet (Samson Coulter) and his best friend Loonie (Ben Spence) are growing up in a remote corner of the West Australian coast. Pikelet comes from a stable home, whereas wild child Loonie does everything he can to avoid his violent father. Curious and hungry for discovery, the two teens find themselves enthralled by surfing, and strike up an unlikely friendship with Sando (Baker), a former professional surfer who mentors the boys as they learn how to master the waves. But how has Sando found his way to this isolated town, and what is the story of his surly American partner Eva (Elizabeth Debicki)? As Sando pushes the boys to take bigger and more dangerous risks out in the ocean, the more Pikelet and Loonie come to discover about the joys – and the dangers – of growing up.
OSCAR WINNER! Best Adapted Screenplay. Luca Guadagnino (A Bigger Splash, I Am Love) returns with his most dazzling film yet, a searing first love romance set in the hazy heat of a northern Italian summer in the 1980s. Elio (breakout newcomer Timothée Chalamet) is enjoying the summer at his family’s Italian estate when a new research assistant arrives to help his archaeologist father (Michael Stuhlbarg). Handsome, American and charming, Oliver (Armie Hammer) at first irritates Elio with his aloof swagger, but the more time Elio spends with Oliver the more he becomes consumed by lust. Co-written by James Ivory and adapted from the charged novel by André Acimen, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME is a towering work of queer cinema, romantic, sensuous and utterly gorgeous. This will be your favourite film of the year, trust us! Winner: Audience Award 2017, Melbourne International Film Festival. Some Italian, French language, English subtitles
Hot on the heels of the groundbreaking smash hits Vatican Museums 3D and Florence and the Uffizi Gallery comes a brand-new documentary on the life and work of Italian master Caravaggio and the birth of modern painting. Caravaggio: The Soul and the Blood is an immersive and visually stunning journey of light and shadows through the struggles and successes of the revolutionary and controversial artist, joining him on his travels through Milan, Venice, Rome, Naples, Sicily and Malta as he tries to flee his many demons. Utilising state-of-the-art cinematic techniques, stunning 4K projection, commentary from leading historical experts and art historians, and unprecedented access to the masterpieces themselves, Caravaggio: The Soul and The Blood is a must-see for any art lover, exclusive to cinemas.
A houseboat motors down a river in rural Australia, and on board is a father on a life or death mission for his daughter in Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke’s unsettling zombie thriller that never once uses the ‘Z’ word. Andy (Martin Freeman) is running out of time. The problem with living in a world devastated by a civilisation-destroying epidemic is that there’s not a lot of people around to trust. Parallel to Andy’s task is the plight of Indigenous teenager Thoomi (Simone Landers), who is attempting to save her dad from his zombiefied fate with the help of her people’s spiritual leader (David Gulpilil). Marrying a bleak dystopian narrative with an ecological parable in which Indigenous culture and folklore is essential to the narrative, CARGO is the kind of intelligent genre film filled with proper scares and deeply disquieting observations about the state of our nation that puts an electrifying jolt through Australian cinema.
A suspenseful historical drama from John Curran (Tracks), CHAPPAQUIDDICK examines the infamous 1969 incident when Senator Ted Kennedy accidentally drove off a bridge, resulting in the death of campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne. Among the most morally murky episodes in late 20th-century US politics — and that's a crowded field — was the drowning of campaign specialist Kopechne in what would become known as the Chappaquiddick Incident. The Kennedy dynasty had lost three heirs apparent by 1969, and Ted (Jason Clarke) was, at the time, the family's last hope to carry their name and ambitions into the upper echelons of US politics. Kennedy patriarch Joe (Bruce Dern), however, always considered his youngest son a ne'er-do-well — and he never let Ted forget it. The party on Chappaquiddick reunited the "Boiler Room Girls" who had served on Robert Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign, among them Mary Jo (Kate Mara). Ted whisks Mary Jo away for a reckless moonlight drive that ends in tragedy. But the more profound malfeasance begins after the accident, when a battalion of spin doctors gets to work on covering up the incident, using the Apollo 11 moon landing as a distraction. This is an unsettling and eerily prescient film about the way power strives to protect itself while victims are left by the wayside.
Murder is afoot in this new cinematic telling of Agatha Christie’s classic mystery of the death of a rich patriarch, and the hunt for whodunit among his family members, all with plenty of motive and plenty to hide. When the obscenely wealthy, and equally ruthless, tycoon Aristide Leonides keels over in bed on his sprawling estate, what is first presumed to be a heart attack is proved to be poison. Leonides’ granddaughter Sophia (Stefanie Martini) engages her old flame, private detective Charles Hayward (Max Irons), to investigate the murder. He finds a house full of hostile relatives of the dead man, all eager to suspect and blame each other, but afraid to let their own secrets be uncovered. With a fantastic cast including Glenn Close, Gillian Armstrong, Terence Stamp and Christina Hendricks, CROOKED HOUSE is a deliciously twisted murder mystery.
March to hilarious victory behind the banner of our glorious leader in satire Armando Iannucci (The Thick of It, Veep) as he applies his gift for backstage political chaos to Soviet Russia and the power vacuum created by the demise of dictator Joseph Stalin. The USSR is thrown into chaos by the death of the iron-fisted, absolute ruler Stalin. With the exulted leader lying on the floor of his Moscow summer retreat “in a puddle of indignity”, every toady, schemer and apparatchik is scrambling to figure out who is going to be a part of the new world order and inveigle to end up on top of the pack, hopefully without getting shot first. Hopefully. With a cast including Steve Buscemi, Jeffrey Tambor, Simon Russell Beale, Jason Isaacs, Andrea Riseborough, Michael Palin, Rupert Friend and Paddy Considine all at the top of their game, THE DEATH OF STALIN is a viciously funny delight. Rise up, comrades!
Adapted from the worldwide smash hit novel, THE GUERNSEY LITERARY & POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY is a story of love, endurance, and the restorative power of both reading and friendship. It’s 1946, the war is over, and in London author Juliet Ashton (Lily James) receives a letter from a representative of the intriguingly named Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society, a most unusual book club. The letter’s writer is Dawsey Adams (Michiel Huisman), a farmer on the island of Guernsey in the middle of the English Channel, and Juliet’s curiosity is so piqued by this letter that she decides to visit Guernsey. Introduced to the eccentric members of the society, Juliet learns about the island’s occupation by Nazi Germany during the war, and of the society’s mysterious founder. Directed by Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral) and with a top class cast including Matthew Goode, Jessica Brown Findlay, Katherine Parkinson, Penelope Wilton and Tom Courtenay, this is one society’s company that is as warm and delightful as a fresh slice of pie!
Celebrated by audiences at home and abroad, Indigenous artist Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu was one of the most important and acclaimed voices to come out of Australia. Blind from birth, he found purpose and meaning through songs and music inspired by his community and country on Elcho Island in far North East Arnhem Land. Living a traditional Yolngu life, his breakthrough album ‘Gurrumul’ brought him to a crossroads as audiences and artists around the world began to embrace his music. GURRUMUL is a portrait of an artist on the brink of global reverence, and the struggles he and those closest to him faced in balancing that which most mattered to him and keeping the show on the road.
From director Wes Anderson (The Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom, Fantastic Mr Fox) comes one of the most anticipated films of 2018: ISLE OF DOGS. Twenty years in the future: Mayor Kobayashi has spearheaded a plan to rid the Japanese archipelago of all dogs following an explosion in animal numbers and the outbreak of a flu that threatens to cross the divide between species. Decreeing that all dogs must be moved to the off-shore 'Trash Island', Japan soon finds itself rid of 'Man's Best Friend'. Seeking to be reunited with his beloved pet dog Spots, Kobayashi's young ward - the orphaned Atari - sets off to Trash Island, setting in motion a series of events that will rock both human and canine society to its core. Creating a meticulously realized world quite unlike anything seen on-screen, Anderson's stop-motion animated adventure features a voice cast including Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Greta Gerwig, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson, Bob Balaban, Tilda Swinton, Courtney B. Vance, Liev Schreiber and Yoko Ono.
Greta Gerwig’s impressive solo directorial debut stars Saoirse Ronan as a seventeen year old desperate to get away from her Californian town and Catholic high school in order to be somebody – she’s just not quite sure what kind of somebody she wants to be yet. Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson dreams of escaping to university on the east coast, mostly to spite her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf) who wants her daughter to go to a local, less expensive college. Her difficult relationship with her mother propels Lady Bird to act out, not just with adopting her preferred nom de plume, but with trying out new friends and sexually experimenting with two very different boys (Lucas Hedges and Timothée Chalamet). Gerwig crafts a masterful study of that period of life for teenagers when adulthood and freedom seems so close and yet so far. With Ronan delivering the most accomplished performance of her career thus far, LADY BIRD is a must-see confluence of fantastic women making heartfelt art.
NOVA EXCLUSIVE! Filmed in Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon's signature whimsical style, LOST IN PARIS stars the filmmakers as a small-town Canadian librarian and a strangely seductive, oddly egotistical vagabond. When Fiona's (Gordon) orderly life is disrupted by a letter of distress from her 88-year-old Aunt Martha (delightfully portrayed by French cinema legend Emmanuelle Riva) who is living in Paris, Fiona hops on the first plane she can and arrives only to discover that Martha has disappeared. In an avalanche of spectacular disasters, she encounters Dom (Abel), the affable but annoying tramp who just won't leave her alone. Replete with the amazing antics and intricately choreographed slapstick that has come to define Abel and Gordon's work, LOST IN PARIS is a wondrously fun and hectic tale of peculiar people finding love while lost in the City of Lights.
Everyone deserves a great love story, but for 17-year-old Simon Spier it's a little more complicated. He appears to be an average teenage boy, popular at school, with a tight-knit group of loving friends, and a supportive family. But Simon has a big secret he has never told anyone: Simon is gay. His situation is further complicated by the fact that a rumour is going around school that there is a queer kid who has outed themselves anonymously. Making contact with the mysterious student online, Simon begins to feel the stirrings of a crush. But who exactly are they? Adapted from Becky Albertalli’s celebrated young adult novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, and with a great cast of young and established talent alike including Nick Robinson as Simon, Jennifer Garner, Josh Duhamel, Katherine Langford and Tony Hale, LOVE, SIMON is something that would have felt impossible only a few short years ago: a gay teen film backed by a major studio that is unapologetically romantic, hilarious and gloriously feel-good.
The searing new drama from Russian master Andrey Zvyagintsev (Leviathan, Elena, The Return), LOVELESS is a razor-sharp portrayal of a marriage – and country – in a state of collapse. Boris (Alexey Rozin) and Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) live together in the same Moscow apartment, but their relationship is all but over. Caught in a spiral of slanging matches and eager to be in the company of their new lovers, the only thing keeping them together is their 12-year-old son, Alyosha (Matvey Novikov). When he doesn’t come home one night, the couple are forced into an increasingly desperate search, further exposing the lack of empathy they now have for each other. Shot with trademark precision, his stately compositions paired with taut moral narratives of greed and injustice, Zvyagintsev again proves to be the pre-eminent chronicler of his country’s 21st century malaise. Earning rave reviews at Cannes, where it topped the Screen International jury poll as best of the festival, LOVELESS is one of the must-see films of the year. Russian language, English subtitles.
Phelim McDermott returns to the Met staging Mozart’s comedy Così fan tutte, led by David Robertson. Set in the 1950s on Coney Island, the cast features Amanda Majeski as the conflicted Fiordiligi; Serena Malfi as her sister, Dorabella; Tony Award winner Kelli O’Hara as their feisty maid, Despina; Ben Bliss and Adam Plachetka as the sisters’ fiancés, Ferrando and Guglielmo; and Christopher Maltman as the cynical Don Alfonso. Così fan tutte is a co-production with the English National Opera.
In 1984, Midnight Oil released their iconic record Red Sails in the Sunset. They embarked on a relentless tour around the nation performing raw and electrifying music that reignited the imagination of young Australians. That same year, their lead singer Peter Garrett committed to run for a Senate seat for the Nuclear Disarmament Party. With the mounting pressure of balancing the demands of music and politics this is the year that would make, but nearly break, Australia's most important rock and roll band. Thirty years in the making and featuring never seen before seen footage of the band on and off the stage, MIDNIGHT OIL 1984 is the untold story of the year Australia’s most iconic rock band inspired the nation to believe in the power of music to change the world.
Winner of the Berlinale’s Golden Bear and nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi crafts a romance equally grounded in oftentimes shocking realism and the highest flights of fantasy in ON BODY AND SOUL. In a slaughterhouse on the outskirts of Budapest, Endre (Géza Morcsányi) is the taciturn manager, prickly and with few friends. When he spots the shy new hygiene inspector Maria (Alexandra Borbély), she inspires deep feeling in him he hasn’t experienced in years. Unbeknownst to them both, Endre and Maria are actually meeting in each other’s dreams, and this eventual discovery will be the catalyst to, slowly but surely, propel them towards each other in their waking hours. Surreal, graceful, eccentric and just as concerned with daily horrors as it is with striving for a sense of the sublime, there is nothing like the unique experience of ON BODY AND SOUL.
Janet (Kristin Scott Thomas) has just been appointed to a key ministerial position in the shadow cabinet – the crowning achievement of her political career. She and her husband Bill (Timothy Spall) plan to celebrate this with a few close friends. As the guests arrive at their home in London the party takes an unexpected turn when Bill suddenly makes some explosive revelations that take everyone present by surprise. Love, friendships and political convictions are soon called into question in this hilarious comedy of tragic proportions. From acclaimed British filmmaker Sally Potter and featuring a star studded cast that includes Bruno Ganz, Cherry Jones, Emily Mortimer, Cillian Murphy, and a scene-stealing Patricia Clarkson, this witty, sharp and very funny comedy will be an unmissable date for everyone’s diary.
John Krasinski and Emily Blunt star in A QUIET PLACE; a gripping thriller set in a world where the slightest noise can lead to death. Living in this world is a family of five; a mother (Blunt), father (Krasinski) and their three children. Having escaped the terror that has destroyed society as we know it, the family live a rural existence where the only communication is through sign language. But raising young children in such a forbidding environment can be difficult in ways they could never have imagined... In his sophomore feature, director Krasinski signals that he is a director to watch; taking a simple premise and ratcheting up the terror through an inventive use of sound and silence.
From filmmaker Steven Spielberg comes the science fiction action adventure Ready Player One, based on Ernest Cline’s world-wide bestseller of the same name. Set in 2045, the world is on the brink of chaos and collapse. But the people have found salvation in the OASIS, an expansive virtual reality universe created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance). When Halliday dies, he leaves his immense fortune to the first person to find a digital Easter egg he has hidden somewhere in the OASIS, sparking a contest that grips the entire world. When an unlikely young hero named Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) decides to join the contest, he is hurled into a breakneck, reality-bending treasure hunt through a fantastical universe of mystery, discovery and danger.
In the 19th century, German missionaries brought hymns to the Indigenous peoples of central Australia. In the 21st century, the women of The Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Choir will take the hymns back to Germany – sung in their own languages, and on their own terms. West of Alice Springs, the region of Hermannsburg has a rich musical tradition of Lutheran baroque hymns and ancient Aboriginal songs and storytelling. Both of these song forms have been preserved and passed down the generations by the women of the area via their choir. Combining the hymns and their own languages of Arrarnta and Pitjantjatjara, the choir’s efforts to share their songs is given a boost by the arrival of a new choirmaster with an audacious plan to take the women on tour to Germany. Director Naina Sen crafts an uplifting and nuanced documentary; a story of music, survival, identity and cross-cultural collaboration.
From Force Majeure director Ruben Östlund comes the Palme d'Or winning satire The Square. A poignant reflection of our times - about the sense of community, moral courage and the affluent person's need for egocentricity in an increasingly uncertain age - Ostlund's comedy stars Claes Bang as Christian, the respected curator of a contemporary art museum. Confident he is a 'good man', Christian commissions an artistic installation that encourages visitors to reflect upon their responsibility to be kind to their fellow human beings. However, the theft of Christian's mobile phone initiates a series of actions that exhibits how difficult it can be to live up to your own ideals before errupting into an apocalyptic, self-imposed existential crisis. Co-starring Elizabeth Moss, Dominic West and Terry Notary, THE SQUARE is a hysterically funny insight into the disconnect between how we see ourselves and the reality of our own behavior. Some Swedish, Danish language, English subtitles
OSCAR WINNER! Best Actress for Frances McDormand, Best Supporting Actor for Sam Rockwell. Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell star in the new film from In Bruges director Martin McDonagh, a black as pitch comedy about a mother demanding justice from an ill-equipped and hostile rural police force. After months have passed without a culprit in her daughter's murder case, Mildred Hayes makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at William Willoughby, the town's revered chief of police. When his second-in-command Officer Dixon, an immature mother's boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing's law enforcement is only exacerbated. With McDormand giving her most incendiary performance since Fargo and making virtues out of both white hot anger and balletic foul language, THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI is one of the more unusual yet highly deserving films of this awards season.
There’s a lot of things they don’t tell you about being a mother, and there’s a lot of truths about it that people don’t want to hear. Reuniting for the third time after Juno and Young Adult, screenwriter Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman turn their idiosyncratic gazes onto the experience of motherhood, via the gift of a modern day Mary Poppins. Marlo (Charlize Theron) is literally about to pop with her third child, but the baby isn’t an anticipated joyous event. With an attention-starved daughter, a special needs son who is in danger of being thrown out of his private school, and a husband who retreats into video games, Marlo is drowning in the realities and shortcomings of family life. When her brother gifts her with a night nanny to look after the new baby for the first month of life and allow Marlo some sleep, Marlo is hesitant – shouldn’t she be able to deal with all this herself? But when the young, ever calm, always smiling, and completely honest Tully (Mackenzie Davis) arrives on her doorstep, Marlo discovers a helping hand that facilitates the stark truths about being a mother to come pouring out… whether anyone likes it or not.
A Steven Soderbergh movie shot on an iPhone and starring Claire Foy? Count us in! One of American cinema’s most chameleon creators returns with a psychological thriller about the uncertainty and paranoia spawned by one’s own mind. Sawyer (Foy) is obsessed with thoughts that her long-time stalker has resurfaced and is back to harassing her. As her fears grow, she goes to seek professional help, and as events unspool she discovers to her shock that she has somehow managed (or was she tricked?) to commit herself to a psychiatric hospital. Desperate to convince the hospital’s staff and doctors that she is not crazy, Sawyer has to consider the unthinkable: is she sane, or is she simply so deluded that she cannot recognise her own madness? Co-starring Juno Temple, Jay Pharaoh, Joshua Leonard and Amy Irving, UNSANE is an unsettling, electrifying work from Soderbergh, who continues to prove himself to be a continually experimental and evolving filmmaker.