Plymouth Arts Cinema is the city's independent cinema for everyone. Check out what's on in February 2024, from critically acclaimed dramas and thought-provoking documentaries to enchanting animations and gripping thrillers, the programme offers something for everyone. 

As we're nearing Valentine's Day, romance is in the air this February, from Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal's chemistry in All Of Us Strangers, to the Falling In Love With IRIS collection of short films, and secret love in The Promised Land.

You'll also find plenty to love in the rest of our programme - a classic underdog story from George Clooney with The Boys In The Boat, the remarkable story of The Disappearance of Shere Hite, a restored treat with It Happened One Night, the ever-popular Exhibition on Screen with Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse, and lots more.

   

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

  

All of Us Strangers (15)

MUBI GO | LGBTQ+ | Programmer’s Pick

Friday 2 – Thursday 8 February

• Fri 2, 6pm
• Sat 3, 2.30pm (captioned) & 8pm
• Tue 6, 6pm
• Wed 7, 8.30pm
• Thu 8, 6pm

Dir. Andrew Haigh, UK, 2023, 105 mins. Cast. Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell, Claire Foy.

Adam is a screenwriter living in London. He strikes up an uneasy acquaintance with his mysterious neighbour Harry, which edges towards something more intimate. At the same time, on visiting his old family home, he discovers something quite strange and beautiful, which keeps him returning time and again. But as the days continue, Adam begins to question the turn his life has taken and whether it is to his detriment. Andrew Scott’s central performance once again shows why he is regarded as one of our finest actors. Paul Mescal is sublime as Harry, while Jamie Bell and Claire Foy’s performances elicit some of the film’s most striking emotional notes.

This work contains flashing images which may affect viewers who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy.

  

The End We Start From (15)

F-Rated

Friday 2 – Thursday 8 February

• Fri 2, 8.30pm
• Sat 3, 5.30pm
• Tue 6, 8.30pm
• Wed 7, 2.30pm (captioned) & 6pm
• Thu 8, 8.30pm

Dir. Mahalia Belo, UK, 2023, 102 mins. Cast. Jodie Comer, Joel Fry, Katherine Waterson.

Mahalia Belo’s confident feature debut brings Megan Hunter’s acclaimed 2017 dystopian novel to the screen as a disaster movie with immense power deriving from the intimacy of its performances. An excellent Jodie Comer, playing the young mother, is joined by a uniformly superb cast, including Joel Fry and Katherine Waterson, who convey the emotional gravity of this poignant and unsettlingly prophetic tale of survival against the odds, which has echoes of The Road and Children of Men.

   

The Boys in the Boat (12A)

Friday 9 – Wednesday 14 February

• Fri 9, 5.45pm
• Sat 10, 8pm
• Tue 13, 5.45pm
• Wed 14, 2.30pm & 8.15pm

Dir. George Clooney, US, 2023, 124 mins. Cast. Joel Edgerton, Callum Turner, Peter Guinness.

Directed by George Clooney, and based on Daniel James Brown’s bestselling book, The Boys in the Boat tells the inspirational true story of an underdog rowing team hoping to compete for Olympic gold. In 1936, at the height of the Great Depression, members of the rowing team at the University of Washington – including coach Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton) and lead rower Joe Rantz (Callum Turner) – are thrust into the spotlight as they compete for gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, taking on elite rivals from around the world.

  

Tchaikovsky’s Wife (15)

Friday 9 – Wednesday 14 February

• Fri 9, 8.15pm
• Sat 10, 2pm & 5pm
• Tue 13, 8.15pm
• Wed 14, 5.15pm

Dir. Kirill Serebrennikov, Russia, 2023, 143 mins. In Russian with English subtitles. Cast. Alyona Mikhailova, Odin Lund Biron, Filipp Avdeev.

A masterful historical drama from director Kirill Serebrennikov exploring the tumultuous relationship between the famous Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and his wife Antonina Miliukova. Antonina is a beautiful and bright young woman, born into aristocracy. She could have anything she wants, and yet her only obsession is to marry Pyotr Tchaikovsky. While the composer finally accepts this union, he blames her for his misfortunes and breakdowns. With the subsequent attempts to get rid of his wife becoming more and more brutal.

“A visionary evocation of the heartbreak and sickness of a woman in love with a Russian icon who doesn’t love her back.”- Little White Lies

  

The Best of IRIS 2023 (15)

Thursday 15 February, 6pm

A curated collection of extraordinary short films that have been honoured and celebrated at the 2023 Iris Prize LGBTQ+ Film Festival. www.irisprize.org

The screening will be introduced by Seth Edmonds, Assistant to the Director at Iris Prize.

Programme running time: 54 mins

Tickets £5 / £4 concessions

Realness With A Twist (Winner: 2023 Youth Jury Award) - Rated 12A

Director: Cass Virdee UK, 12 Mins

A talented footballer is forced to battle between his secret passion for voguing and the fear of his team-mate's disapproval.

Ted And Noel (Winner: 2023 Co-op Audience Award) - Rated PG

Director: Julia Alcamo, UK, 25 Mins

Ted and Noel deals with a grieving LGBTQ+ activist who tries to find the strength for one last campaign.

F**ked (Winner: 2023 Best British) - Rated 15

Director: Sara Harrak, UK, 6 Mins

What exactly are the rules in an open relationship? With no rulebook, it’s down to the couple to draw their lines... F**KED raises the question many of us secretly ask ourselves - have I really explored and enjoyed my own sexuality?

Scaring Women At Night (Winner: 2023 Iris Prize) - Rated 15

Director. Karimah Zakia Issa, Canada, 11 Mins

Two strangers are scared on a late walk home. As they try to escape one another, their worlds collide at an intersection forcing them to question who they’re afraid of and why.

  

Falling in Love with IRIS (15)

Thursday 15 February, 8pm

This programme, curated by the Iris Prize LGBTQ+ Film Festival, is a collection of short films that explores looking for love, finding love, desire, and human connections in various forms. www.irisprize.org

The screening will be introduced by Seth Edmonds, Assistant to the Director at Iris Prize.

Programme running time: 60 mins

Tickets £5 / £4 concessions.

Bubbling – Rated 12A

Director: Chang Che Ming, Taiwan, 23 Mins

Guang has difficulty focusing during school choir. He's distracted by something more enticing than singing. When a charismatic new student arrives, Guang's curiosity and sexual desire is taken to a new level.

Malwa Khushan – Rated U

Director: Preeti kanungo, Sourav Yadav, India, 20 Mins

Coming of age story of two sisters Malwa and Khushan exploring sexuality and attraction in their adolescent years. A new girl arrives in Khushan's classroom, and she starts developing feelings for her.

Single: Meat Cutes - Rated 15

Director: Tilly Robba & Steph Jowett, Australia, 12 Mins

We are first introduced to Luke, Bridie and Tilly as they rideshare to the pub for their separate dating-app dates. Disaster ensues on all counts, and the three end the night crammed in a skip-bin outside the pub—dateless and still single.

Diomysus – Rated 12A

Director: Emily Elizabeth Morus-Jones, Wales, 5 Mins

An experimental film where a group of mice (voiced by members of the UK polyamorous community whose identities are masked using puppetry) discuss their experiences of polyamory. Diomysus asks the question - are we (the audience) more open to taboo ideas if unconscious bias is eliminated?

  

American Fiction (15)

Friday 16 – Thursday 22 February

• Fri 16, 6pm
• Sat 17, 2.30pm (captioned) & 8pm
• Tue 20, 6pm
• Wed 21, 8.30pm
• Thu 22, 8.30pm

Dir. Cord Jefferson, US, 2023, 117 mins. Cast. Jeffrey Wright, Issa Rae, Sterling K. Brown, Tracee Ellis Ross.

In American Fiction, Cord Jefferson crafts a hilarious and withering satire about an African American novelist chafing against an industry that limits Black storytelling to trauma and poverty narratives. Monk is a frustrated novelist who's fed up with the establishment that profits from Black entertainment that relies on tired and offensive tropes. To prove his point, he uses a pen name to write an outlandish Black book of his own, a book that propels him to the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain.

  

The Disappearance of Shere Hite (15)

F-Rated | Programmer’s Pick

Friday 16 – Wednesday 21 February

• Fri 16, 8.30pm
• Tue 20, 8.30pm
• Wed 21, 6pm

Dir. Nicole Newnham, US, 2023, 118 mins.

The Hite Report remains one of the bestselling books of all time since its publication in 1976. Drawn from anonymous survey responses, the book challenged restrictive conceptions of sex and opened a dialogue in popular culture around women’s pleasure. Its charismatic author, Shere Hite, a feminist sex researcher and former model, became the public messenger of women’s secret confessions. But few remember Shere Hite today. Filmmaker Nicole Newnham (Crip Camp) transports viewers back to a time of great societal transformation around sexuality. The film is a rediscovery of a pioneer who has had an unmistakable influence on current conversations about gender, sexuality, and bodily autonomy, as well as a timely, cautionary tale of what too often happens to women who dare speak out.

  

It Happened One Night (U)

Restored Classic

Saturday 17 – Wednesday 21 February

• Sat 17, 5.30pm
• Wed 21, 2.30pm

Dir. Frank Capra, US, 1934, 105 mins. Cast. Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns.

What an absolute treat! A new 4K restoration of this sparkling screwball comedy classic to mark its 90th birthday. Spoiled Ellie Andrews escapes from her millionaire father, who wants to stop her from marrying a worthless playboy. En route to New York, Ellie gets involved with an out-of-work newsman, Peter Warne (Gable). When their bus breaks down, the bickering couple set off on a madcap hitchhiking expedition. Complications fly when the runaway heiress and brash reporter fall in love. Directed by Frank Capra, this was the first movie to be honoured with all five major Oscars®: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Screenplay.

  

The Promised Land (15)

Friday 23 – Wednesday 28 February

• Fri 23, 5.45pm
• Sat 24, 8pm
• Tue 27, 5.45pm
• Wed 28, 2.30pm & 8.15pm

Dir. Nikolaj Arcel, Denmark, 2023, 127 mins. Danish with English subtitles. Cast. Mads Mikkelsen, Amanda Collin, Simon Bennebjerg, Kristine Kujath Thorp.

From BAFTA nominated writer and director, Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), comes a powerful Nordic epic starring Mads Mikkelsen (The Hunt, Another Round). In 1755, the impoverished Captain Ludvig Kahlen sets out to conquer the uninhabitable Danish heath in the name of the King. But the sole ruler of the area, the merciless Frederik de Schinkel, who believes the land belongs to him, swears revenge when the maid Ann Barbara and her serf husband escape for refuge with Kahlen.

  

The Zone of Interest (12A)

Programmer’s Pick

Friday 23 – Thursday 29 February

• Fri 23, 8.30pm
• Sat 24, 2.30pm & 5.30pm
• Tue 27, 8.30pm
• Wed 28, 5.45pm
• Thu 29, 8.30pm

Dir. Jonathan Glazer, UK/US/Poland, 2023, 106 mins. German, Polish with English subtitles.
Cast. Sandra Huller, Christian Friedel.

Rudolf, Hedwig and their family live the perfect suburban dream with their beautifully ordered house and garden. But audible from behind the wall are the sounds of mechanised death, for Rudolf Höss is the commandant of Auschwitz. Jonathan Glazer (Birth, Under the Skin) offers his most ambitious film yet, displacing the usual tropes of the Holocaust drama to depict the pampered life of executioners inhabiting the bubble of bourgeois denial, keeping the reality of genocide hermetically sealed on the outside. It’s a film that asks us to reckon with history, with human nature and, in today’s world with the drumbeat of fascism rising again. Call it a caution.

Content warning: Contains distressing concepts.

  

Exhibition on Screen - Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse

Thursday 29 February – Saturday 2 March

Thu 29, 6pm
Sat 2, 2.30pm

Dir. David Bickerstaff, UK, 2016, 93 mins.

For many great artists the garden has long been considered a desirable subject for the expression of colour, light and atmosphere. Claude Monet is perhaps the most well-known painter of gardens but other greats such as Van Gogh, Pissarro, Matisse and Sargent all viewed the garden as a meaningful focus for their talents. The work of these great artists, along with many others, feature in a major 2016 exhibition ‘Painting the Modern Garden’ from The Royal Academy, London.

This dazzling film takes a magical journey from the gallery to the gardens, to Giverny and Seebüll and other glorious grounds favoured by artists. Here we discover how early twentieth century artists designed and cultivated their own gardens to explore contemporary utopian ideas and motifs of colour and form. Monet said, ‘Apart from painting and gardening, I’m no good at anything’.

For lovers of art or lovers of gardens, this is an ideal film.

“A ravishing joy from start to finish.”    The Guardian