Where to find Plymouth Arts Cinema

You can find Plymouth Arts Cinema inside Arts University Plymouth’s main campus at Tavistock Place. Go through Arts University Plymouth’s main entrance and turn right, you will face their Box Office and Café-Bar.

   

Opening times and how to Book

The Box Office and Café-bar open Tuesday, Thursday and Friday: 5-8.30pm; Wednesday: 1-8.30pm; Saturday: 1-8pm). You can call Box Office during these times: 01752 206114.

Standard £9.00 | Matinees £7.00 | Bringing in Baby £4 | Over 60s £7.75 | 25 & Under, Students, AUP Staff, Budget - Unwaged and low income £4 | Friends 10% discount and £6 on Tuesdays. Please bring relevant ID if you are eligible for a discount.

www.plymouthartscinema.org | 01752 206114 | info@plymouthartscinema.org

    

Our River… Our Sky (12A)

Wednesday 18 October – Thursday 2 November

• Wed 18, 6pm - Preview Screening introduced by Plymouth Amnesty International
• Fri 27, 6pm
• Tue 31, 6pm
• Thu 2, 8.30pm – Q&A with Director Maysoon Pachachi

Dir. Maysoon Pachachi, UK/France/Kuwait/UAE/Qatar, 2021, 117 mins, Arabic with English subtitles. Cast. Zainab Joda, Darina Al Joundi, Amed Hashimi, Mahmoud Abo Al Abbas, Basim Hajar, Labwa Arab, Meriam Abbas, Siham Mustafa.

This special release marks 20 years since the invasion of Iraq. Set in 2006 against the backdrop of intense sectarian war, Our River… Our Sky follows the stories of a small Baghdad community trying to find some semblance of normality and hope despite unpredictable violence, turmoil, and loss.

Sara is a single mother and a novelist. As her daughter Reema sleeps fitfully against the not-so-distant noise of mortars and gunfire, she’s unable to write. When her closest friend and neighbour, Sabiha, is forced into exile, Sara begins to fight back and recover a sense of defiance. But as the random killing escalates and gets closer to home, she begins to look for a way out for herself and her daughter. Sara and her neighbours invite us into their everyday lives as their world fragments. Through the chaos and destruction, the residents never let their hopes for the future fade. Yet, they can’t help but contemplate leaving Iraq, and are forced to ask a painful question – who does Baghdad really belong to?

The preview screening on Wednesday 18 October is a joint event with Plymouth Amnesty International. We are local volunteers who campaign for the rights of civilians indiscriminately targeted in wars and the rights of refugees forced to flee situations like this. Find out more about what we do and how to join us at the screening.

   

Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (15)

Programmer’s Pick | MUBI GO | Reclaim The Frame | F-Rated

Friday 27 October – Wednesday 1 November

• Fri 27, 8.30pm
• Sat 28, 5.30pm
• Wed 1, 2.30pm & 8.30pm

Dir. Anna Hints, Estonia, 2023, 89 mins, subtitled. Cast. Kadi Kivilo.

In the darkness of an Estonian smoke sauna, women share their innermost secrets and intimate experiences. Through a sense of communion, they wash off the stresses of daily life and regain their strength. Filmmaker Anna Hints has created a transformative experience of being human, showing these women “as they are” with great emotional veracity and deep empathy.

As the first documentary by an Estonian director to compete and win at Sundance, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood is a deeply moving film.

   

The Nettle Dress (12A)

Saturday 28 October – Wednesday 1 November

• Sat 28, Workshop with Vicky Putler (Thorody), 11.30am + film 2.30pm, 8pm
• Tue 31, 8.30pm
• Wed 1, 6pm

Dir. Dylan Howitt, UK, 2023, 68 mins.

Textile artist Allan Brown spends seven years making a dress by hand just from the fibre of locally foraged stinging nettles. This is ‘hedgerow couture’, the greenest of slow fashion but also his medicine. It’s how Allan survives the passing of his wife, leaving him and their four children bereft, and how he finds a beautiful way to honour her. The film follows Allan's journey through seasons and years, foraging, spinning, weaving, cutting and sewing the cloth, before finally sharing a healing vision of the dress back in the woods where the nettles were picked, worn by one of his daughters.

A labour of love in the truest sense, The Nettle Dress is a hymn to the healing power of nature and slow craft.

Actor Mark Rylance called the film “Exquisite and inspiring, beautiful and helpful for anyone suffering loss or grief”.

   

Exhibition on Screen: Klimt and the Kiss

Thursday 2 – Saturday 4 November

• Thu 2, 6pm
• Sat 4, 2.30pm (Captioned Screening)

Dir. Ali Ray, 90 mins, 2023.

The Kiss by Gustav Klimt is one of the most recognised and reproduced paintings in the world. It is perhaps the most popular poster on student dorm walls from Beijing to Boston.

Painted in Vienna around 1908, the evocative image of an unknown embracing couple has captivated viewers with its mystery, sensuality and dazzling materials ever since it was created. But just what lies behind the appeal of the painting – and just who was the artist that created it? 

Delving into the details of real gold, decorative designs, symbolism and simmering erotica, a close study of the painting takes us to the remarkable turn of the century Vienna when a new world was battling with the old.

Klimt was a titan of the Art Nouveau movement, creating decadent new worlds which merged tender sensuality, ancient mythology and radical modernity.

Discover the scandalous life and the rich tapestry of extraordinary influences behind one of the world’s favourite paintings.

From the director of ‘Frida Kahlo’ and ‘Mary Cassatt – Painting the Modern Woman’ comes a powerful, gripping and passionate new film.

   

Killers of the Flower Moon (15)

Friday 3 – Saturday 11 November

• Fri 3, 7pm
• Tue 7, 7pm
• Wed 8, 2.30pm Captioned Screening
• Sat 11, 5.30pm

Dir. Martin Scorsese, US, 2023, 206 mins. Cast. Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone.

Director Martin Scorsese returns with another epic tale from American history about the horrific murdering of members of the Osage tribe. Based on the best-selling book of the same name by David Grann, the film depicts the true story of the Osage Native American nation who became incredibly wealthy in the 1920s thanks to their reservation sitting on land rich with oil. This attracts the attention of the white population, who will stop at nothing - including murder - to get what they think is their 'fair share'.

Scorsese tells this horrifying development through the eyes of the improbable romance between Osage Mollie Kyle and white Ernest Burkhart, where their love for each other leads them down a path of unspeakable betrayal...

  

Stop Making Sense (PG)

Saturday 4 – Wednesday 8 November

Restored Classic

• Sat 4, 8pm
• Wed 8, 8pm

Dir. Jonathan Demme, US, 1984, 88 mins. With. David Byrne, Bernie Worrell, Alex Weir.

Considered the greatest concert film of all time, Stop Making Sense brings to the screen Talking Heads in December 1983: David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz, and Jerry Harrison, alongside an ecstatic ensemble of supporting musicians. The live performance was shot over the course of three nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theatre and features the band's most memorable songs including Burning Down The House, Psycho Killer and Once in a Lifetime.

Renowned filmmaker Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs) captured the band at their exhilarating best, in this new and complete 4K restoration for the film's 40th anniversary.

   

French Film Festival: Two Tickets to Greece (15)

Saturday 4 – Thursday 9 November

• Sat 4, 5.30pm
• Thu 9, 8.30pm

Dir. Marc Fitoussi, France, 2022, 110 mins. Cast. Olivia Cote, Laure Calamy, Kristin Scott Thomas.

Three feisty femmes – Laure Calamy, Olivia Côte and Kristi Scott Thomas – play estranged childhood friends who tentatively reunite for a trip to the Greek Islands. Recently divorced, and watching helplessly as her only son leaves home, Blandine (Olivia Côte) is struggling to find her footing again, so when her former best friend Magalie (Call My Agent’s Laure Calamy), loud and fearless, suddenly resurfaces, she allows herself to be spontaneous for a change. But as they head off towards their destination, it is soon apparent that Magalie’s very different approach to holidaying – and to life – could lead Blandine to her breaking point… and beyond. An unashamed crowd-pleaser with Kristin Scott Thomas getting in on the act and letting down her hair as a hippie jewellery maker called Bijou. The film emerges as a breezily delightful tale of female camaraderie, intermingled with laughter, tears and great scenery around Amorgos, where Luc Besson’s cult The Big Blue was shot.

    

20,000 Species of Bees (12A)

F-Rated | MUBI GO | LGBTQ+

Friday 10 – Wednesday 15 November

• Fri 10, 5.45pm
• Tue 14, 8.15pm
• Wed 15, 2.30pm

Dir. Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, Spain, 2023, 129 mins, subtitled. Cast. Sofia Otero, Patricia Lopez Arnaiz, Ane Gabarain.

Cocó is a trans girl who is perplexed by the gender binaries that rule her world, where boys and girls are divided at playtime, and relatives chide her long hair. Her mother takes her back to her hometown in the Basque Country for the summer, where Cocó spends hours with her great aunt, the village beekeeper, watching her work and asking her to define unfamiliar terms. It’s here that Cocó feels most free to be herself while her mother Ane, is distracted by her own troubles, and goes through an identity crisis of her own. Sofia Otero won the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance at 2022’s Berlin Film Festival and this is a tender, heartfelt drama about an eight-year-old’s unforgettable summer holiday of self-discovery.

Reminiscent of Céline Sciamma’s Tomboy in its considered authenticity, 20,000 Species of Bees offers a child’s eye view of growing up.

   

Savage Waters (12A)

Adventure Film Club

Friday 10 – Wednesday 15 November

• Fri 10, 8.30pm
• Tue 14, 6pm
• Wed 15, 8.30pm

Dir. Mikey Corker, France, 2022, 93 mins.

A tantalising passage in a 19th-century treasure hunter’s journal inspires a family of modern-day adventurers to find and surf a spectacular wave in some of the most remote and dangerous waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

For renowned skipper and thrill-seeker Matt Knight, the challenge of sailing to such an unpredictable and uncharted region is impossible to resist. Joined by world-class big wave surfer Andrew Cotton, plus family and friends, the group faces serious injury and life-threatening challenges as they fulfil their quest.

Narrated by Charles Dance, Mikey Corker’s exhilarating documentary is an intimate and epic portrayal of extraordinary individuals who push the very limits of exploration. It is filmed in some of the most beautiful islands and dangerous waters in the Atlantic, from the West Coast of Ireland to the mighty waters of Nazaré.

The film is an ode to pushing the limits of your world, connecting with the people around you, overcoming adversities with optimism and testing your grit.

Our modern adventurers, just like the 19th-century adventurers they are emulating, will inspire and remind you of what is truly important – especially today.

   

French Film Festival: The Origin of Evil (15)

Saturday 11 – Wednesday 15 November

• Sat 11, 2.30pm
• Wed 15, 5.45pm

Dir. Sebastien Marnier, France, 2022, 125 mins, subtitled. Cast. Laure Calamy, Doria Tillier, Dominique Blanc, Jacques Weber.

With more than a nod in the director of such masters as Patricia Highsmith and Claude Chabrol, director Sébastien Marnier sets up camp in a luxurious seaside villa where a young woman finds herself in the company of her strange family: an unknown wealthy father, Serge, his extravagant wife, Louise his scheming daughter George, his rebellious granddaughter Jeanne and their creepy housekeeper Agnès. Laure Calamy stars as the calculating Stéphane, a worker at a fish factory who shows up on the doorstep claiming to be the long-lost daughter of the patriarch. Cue twists and turns in abundance.

The Origin of Evil’s wicked ways hit home with all the more jouissance for being deceptively anchored in the real - Sight& Sound

   

Cinema Unbound: The Cinematic Worlds of Powell and Pressburger: 

Suspiria (18)
Thursday 16 November, 6pm

Dir. Luca Guadagnino, Italy/US, 2018, 152 mins. Cast. Dakota Johnson, Mia Goth, Tilda Swinton

A darkness swirls at the centre of a world-renowned dance company in director Luca Guadagnino’s ambitious, dark and feminist re-imaging of Dario Argento’s sublime Suspiria. Unfolding in Berlin in the 70s, it follows Susie Bannion an ambitious young dancer auditioning for a place in a prestigious school. Students are disappearing, and its apparent that some kind of ancient violence lives in the school's walls. With an eerily brilliant score by Thom Yorke and an earthy, muted colour palette of greens and pale pinks, Guadagnino has made a spellbinding look at corruption, innocence, and female power that expertly blends filmmaking, dance and performance.

    

How To Have Sex (15)

Programmer’s Pick | MUBI GO | F-Rated | Reclaim The Frame

Friday 17 – Thursday 23 November

• Fri 17, 6pm
• Sat 18, 2pm (+ free workshop) & 8pm
• Tue 21, 6pm
• Wed 22, 8.30pm
• Thu 23, 8.30pm

Dir. Molly Manning Walker, UK, 2023, 98 mins. Cast. Mia McKenna-Bruce, Shaun Thomas, Lara Peake.

Winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, How to Have Sex is a vibrant and authentic depiction of the agonies, ecstasies and ride-or-die glory of young female friendship, from rising British filmmaker Molly Manning Walker. Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday, drinking, clubbing and hooking up in what should be the best summer of their lives. As they dance their way across the sun-drenched streets of Malia, they find themselves navigating the complexities of sex, consent and self-discovery. Captured with luminous visuals and a pitch-perfect soundtrack, Manning Walker’s directorial debut paints a painfully familiar portrait of young adulthood, and how first sexual experiences should – or shouldn’t – play out.

With intro and post-screening Bad Sex Writing workshop with Plymouth Laureate of Words, Laura Horton on Saturday 18 November (film at 2pm, workshop at 3.55pm). Book your space for the free workshop here. Or if you book tickets for the Saturday 2pm screening below, you will get the option to add tickets for the workshop before proceeding to checkout.

   

Bad Sex Writing workshop (18)

Saturday 18 November, 3:55pm

Age: 18+

Duration: 1 hour

Free, advance booking advised

Please bring a pen, paper or notepad (please note the workshop is taking place in the cinema so please bring something to lean on).

Join award-winning writer Laura Horton for a Bad Sex Writing workshop on the theme of firsts. Laura started Bad Sex Writing in 2021 as a way for people to create funny, engaging and accessible fiction about sex, with no pressure to write well.

With prompts, the first 30-minutes will be dedicated to finding ways to write comically about sex – be that a short story, a poem or a play. In the second 30-minutes, there will be time to read pieces out, anonymously or otherwise if desired, and for discussion about the themes of the film. This is a very unpressured space with no writing experience necessary. 

“Even though these events are spaces for humour, I’ve had a lot of people open up after workshops, making me realise how messy everyone’s romantic lives are. Ultimately, this sort of camaraderie makes sex less intimating – and makes us all feel less alone.”

Read more about Bad Sex Writing in Vogue:

https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/bad-sex-writing-workshops

Laura Horton is a multi-award-winning writer and former Plymouth Laureate of Words 2020-2023. Her play Breathless won a Fringe First and enjoyed runs at Soho Theatre and Off-Broadway in 2023. Her short film, A Summer of Birds, was Toast of the Fringe winner, 2021. Laura launched digital projects Hidden by Things and Theatre Stories, for which she was in The Stage100. She runs Bad Sex Writing workshops and is represented by United Agents.

   

Typist Artist Pirate King (12A) + intro

Programmer’s Pick | F-Rated

Friday 17 – Wednesday 22 November

• Fri 17, 8.15pm
• Sat 18, 5.30pm
• Tue 21, 8.30pm
• Wed 22, 2.30pm (captioned screening) & 6pm

Dir. Carol Morley, UK, 2023, 108 mins. Cast. Monica Dolan, Kelly Macdonald, Gina McKee.

Director Carol Morley will be joining us for the screening on Friday November 17th.

"Sanity and madness have played on my mind almost my entire life. But when I tell stories I desire to bring something more than darkness - I want to bring humour, kindness, connection, hope and light: the possibility of something to make us all carry on." Carol Morley

From acclaimed British filmmaker Carol Morley, this dark and funny exploration of the growing friendship between two women as they hit the road is filled with adventure, humour and compassion. The film puts forgotten artist Audrey Amiss on the map. Inspired by her extensive archive of diaries, letters and art, the film weaves real events into an imagined journey as Audrey goes on a road trip with her psychiatric nurse. Deciding that she must have an exhibition of her art before it is too late, Amiss persuades her nurse, Sandra, to drive her from London to a gallery in her birthplace in Sunderland. Opting to not take the motorway, the two decide to take the long way round - trundling in Sandra's electric car on B-roads to their destination. But with so many deviations along the way, will they ever even make it?

   

Cinema Unbound: The Cinematic Worlds of Powell and Pressburger:

Black Swan (15) introduced by Anna Bogutskaya

Thursday 23 November, 6pm

Dir. Darren Aronofsky, US, 2010, 108 mins. Cast. Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder.

Black Swan is a psychological thriller set in the New York ballet, that follows Nina, a competitive, dedicated dancer, whose dreams of taking the lead in Swan Lake threaten to overpower her already fragile state of mind. It is impossible to imagine the world of Black Swan without the fever-fuelled influence of The Red Shoes.

Anna Bogutskaya is an author, critic, film programmer, podcaster and creative producer. She is co-founder of the horror-film collective The Final Girls, writes widely for BBC Culture, Sight and Sound, The Guardian and her book, Unlikeable Female Characters, has been recently published. https://www.annabogutskaya.com/

    

Saltburn

MUBI GO | F-Rated

Friday 24 – Thursday 30 November

• Fri 24, 5.45pm
• Sat 25, 2.30pm & 8.15pm
• Tue 28, 5.45pm
• Wed 29, 8.15pm
• Thu 30, 11am (BIB)

Dir. Emerald Fennell, UK, 2023, 127 mins. Cast. Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Carey Mulligan, Richard E. Grant.

Struggling to fit in at Oxford University, Oliver Quick finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton, who invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family’s sprawling estate, for a summer never to be forgotten. Oscar winner Emerald Fennell set cinematic screens alight with her US-set feature debut A Promising Young Woman. For her hotly anticipated sophomore film, the director returns to the UK and sharpens her gaze on the opposite sex for this thrilling tale of an intellectually brilliant student navigating a new and precarious world. Saltburn offers endless delights with its delicious plot twists, dry wit and edgy barbs, delivered with aplomb by the stellar cast.

     

French Film Festival: Anatomy of a Fall (15)

MUBI GO | F-Rated

Friday 24 – Wednesday 29 November

• Fri 24, 8.15pm
• Sat 25, 5.15pm
• Tue 28, 8.15pm
• Wed 29, 2pm & 5pm

Dir. Justine Triet, Germany/France, 150 mins, some subtitles. Cast. Sandra Huller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado-Graner.

Sandra, a German writer, lives with her husband Samuel and their visually impaired son Daniel in a remote mountain chalet in the French Alps. When Samuel falls to his death in mysterious circumstances, the investigation cannot determine whether it’s suicide or foul play. Sandra is ultimately arrested for murder and the trial puts their tumultuous relationship and her ambiguous personality under the microscope. As her young son takes to the stand, doubt starts creeping in between them.

Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

   

An Occult Avantgarde - Judith Noble’s Professorial lecture + Performance

Thursday 30 November

• Lecture, 6.30pm
• Film 8pm

(Donald Cammell, Nic Roeg, 1970)

Judith Noble has chosen Performance as the film to accompany her Professorial lecture, An Occult Avantgarde.

One of the greatest British films ever made, in Performance the occult meets the counterculture meets the London underworld in Cammell and Roeg’s cult masterpiece. Starring James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg and Michelle Breton, with music by Mick Jagger and Ry Cooder, and ostensibly a “crime movie about rock and roll” the film is a disturbing but beautiful mix of occult ideas that explores the nature of gender and identity, and the relationships between violence and creativity, hallucinogens and music, amorality, power and death. 

Donald Cammell was a key figure in the Luciferian London scene of the 1960s, His father had been a close friend of Aleister Crowley (who was the infant Cammell’s baby sitter!). Cammell worked with Kenneth Anger and would go on to play Osiris in Anger’s Lucifer Rising (1981). The script adviser was the mysterious counterculture figure David Litvinoff, associate of the Krays who modelled for painter Lucian Freud. Litvinoff was described by Cammell as a genius and the film’s guiding spirit.

“I sneaked in to see this very X-rated film at the age of 15 in Manchester. More than any other film, Performance made me want to be a filmmaker” (Judith Noble)

   

A Matter of Life and Death (U)

Monday 6 November 7pm Jill Craigie Cinema, University of Plymouth

Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, UK, 1946, 104 mins.  Cast: David Niven, Kim Hunter, Roger Livesey, Raymond Massey.

Associate Professor of Filmmaking at the University of Plymouth, Mark Carey, will introduce ‘Powell & Pressburger’s crowning achievement’ A Matter of Life and Death, discussing its origins, production and cultural significance. Set in a gorgeously photographed Technicolor England and a monochrome heaven, A Matter of Life and Death took the imaginative daring of jointly credited writer-producer-directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger to new heights. David Niven plays a British airman who survives a plane crash and falls in love with an American radio operator (Kim Hunter), only to be summoned to the afterlife by a heavenly ‘Conductor’ (Marius Goring). But is heaven just a hallucination brought on by brain injury? Described by Martin Scorsese as “an audacious film” that is “romantic, daring and beautiful” and by Mark Kermode as “one of the greatest movies ever made”, it has been referenced or riffed on by Aardman, the Harry Potter series, BBC’s Big Train, Marvel, Pet Shop Boys, Phil Collins, and appeared on British stamps and at the opening of the 2012 Olympics.

Tickets for all the events are available from the Plymouth Arts Cinema Website.