Check out the May film programme at Plymouth Arts Cinema.

For those with young families, join us this half term for a creative workshop and screening of Butterfly Tale.

Eagerly anticipated new releases this month include That They May Face The Rising Sun, Challengers, and Monkey Man.

This month's Programmer's Pick films are the newly restored Ratcatcher and Love Lies Bleeding, a refreshingly unpredictable love story.

   

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

   

Singin’ in the Rain (U) Silent Cinema Season with Theatre Royal Plymouth

Thursday 2 May, 6pm

Dir. Gene Kelly, US, 1952, 103 mins. Cast. Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, Cyd Charisse.

This is the final film in our Silent Cinema season in partnership with Theatre Royal Plymouth and what better place to end than with this masterpiece set at the very cusp of cinema when the silent age was being pushed out to make way for Talkies. What more is there that can be said about Singin in the Rain? This beloved musical shines a glorious and hilarious light on the perils of stardom, the price of fame and the unsurpassed genius of Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Jean Hagan who just about steals the film from under everyone’s noses.

  

Evil Does Not Exist (12A)

Friday 3 – Wednesday 8 May

• Fri 3, 6pm
• Sat 4, 2.30pm & 8pm
• Tue 7, 6pm
• Wed 8, 8.30pm

Dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan, 2023, 106 mins. In Japanese with English subtitles. Cast. Hitoshi Omika, Ryô Nishikawa, Ryûji Kosaka.

Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. Like generations before them, they live a modest life according to the cycles and order of nature. When the residents are told of a plan to erect a glamping site in their area, they realise the effects of the project will endanger the ecological balance of the plateau and their way of life.

Evil Does Not Exist is a polished and patient piece of storytelling, contemplating nature, work and community. It's also a deserved winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Venice Film Festival, and Best Film in London Film Festival.

  

That They May Face the Rising Sun (15)

Friday 3 – Thursday 9 May

• Fri 3, 8.30pm
• Sat 4, 5.30pm
• Tue 7, 8.30pm
• Wed 8, 2.30pm & 6pm
• Thu 9, 5.45pm

Dir. Pat Collins, UK/Ireland, 2023, 111 mins. Cast. Barry Ward, Anna Bederke, Lalor Roddy, Sean McGinley.

Capturing a year in the life of a rural, lakeside community in 1980s Ireland, this is a sensitive and beautifully realised adaptation of the last novel by John McGahern. Joe, a writer, and Kate, an artist, have returned from London to live and work in a small, close-knit community in rural Ireland, close to where Joe grew up. Now embedded in a remote lakeside setting, the drama of a year in their lives and those of their neighbours unfolds through the rituals of work, play and the passing seasons. Collins has crafted a delicate, meditative exploration of ritual, community bonds, and the question of how best to live. A quietly stunning adaptation of a book by a writer concerned with the ways Irish lives were changing and modernising in the 20th century, it features gorgeous scenery filmed on the shore of Loch Na Fooey in County Galway.

   

Beyond the Page: Charulata (U) + archive short

Thursday 9 May, 8.15pm

Dir. Satyajit Ray, India, 1964, 124 mins. in Bengali with English subtitles. Cast. Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Sailen Mukherjee.

The Box are thrilled to bring you a short South Asian film season to celebrate their current exhibition ‘Beyond The Page: South Asian Miniature Painting and Britain, 1600 to Now’. Co-curated with students and community members from the South Asian Diaspora and Plymouth Arts Cinema,  the film season reflects some of the best contemporary and 20th Century films from the Indian sub-continent.  In addition to the main feature, each showing will begin with a short film from The Box’s archive collections, introduced by a member of the co-curation team.

This film about a woman’s artistic and romantic yearning is set in late nineteenth-century, pre-independence India. It takes place in the gracious home of a liberal-minded, workaholic newspaper editor and his lonely, stifled wife, Charulata, whose exquisitely composed features mask a burning creativity. When her husband’s poet cousin comes to stay with them, Charulata finds herself both inspired by him to pursue her own writing and dangerously drawn to him physically.

Based on a novella by the great Rabindranath Tagore, Charulata is a work of subtle textures, a delicate tale of a marriage in jeopardy and a woman taking the first steps toward establishing her own voice.

   

Ratcatcher (15)

F-Rated | Reclaim The Frame | Programmer’s Pick | Restored Classic

Friday 10 – Tuesday 14 May

• Fri 10, 6pm
• Tue 14, 8.30pm

Dir. Lynne Ramsay, UK, 1999, 94 mins. Cast. Tommy Flanagan, Mandy Matthews, William Eadie.

Lynne Ramsay's astonishingly beautiful debut feature set on a 70s Glaswegian council estate celebrates its 25th anniversary with a new 4K restoration. Ratcatcher is seen through the eyes of twelve-year-old James, a young boy haunted by a secret. Feeling increasingly distant from his family, his only escape comes with the discovery of a new housing development on the outskirts of town where he has the freedom to lose himself in his own world. Enticed by a local gang of older boys, James is thrown together with vulnerable fourteen-year-old Margaret Anne and the pair strike up an unlikely friendship which becomes their hesitant but touching experience of first love.

The film deftly contrasts urban decay with a rich interior landscape of hope and perseverance, resulting in a work at once raw and deeply poetic.

The screening on Friday 10th May, 6pm is a Reclaim the Frame screening which will be introduced by Plymouth filmmaker and cinematographer Amber Amare, who will talk on the influence of Lynne Ramsay on her practice.

  

Challengers (15)

MUBI GO

Friday 10 – Wednesday 15 May

• Fri 10, 8.15pm
• Sat 11, 5.30pm & 8.15pm
• Wed 15, 11am (Bringing in Baby) & 2.30pm (Descriptive Subtitles) & 5.30pm
• Dir. Luca Guadagnino, US, 2024, 131 mins. Cast. Mike Faist, Zendaya, Josh O’Connor.

One of the most feverishly anticipated films of the year, Challengers is a punchy, sensationally watchable blend of romance, comedy, tennis and high drama, by Luca Guadagnino. Tashi Duncan is a former tennis prodigy-turned-coach and a force of nature who makes no apologies for her game on and off the court. Married to Art, a champion on a losing streak, Tashi’s coaching strategy for her husband’s redemption takes a surprising turn when she signs him up for a ‘Challenger’ match against the washed-up Patrick – Art’s ex-best friend, and Tashi’s former lover. As the trio reunite, memories of their youthful love triangle arise and new feelings of jealousy, lust and betrayal come to the fore.

   

The Trust Fall (15)

Saturday 11 – Thursday 16 May

• Sat 11, 2pm + Intro and Q&A with Sarah Saunders
• Wed 15, 8.15pm
• Thu 16, 5.45pm

Dir. Kym Statton, UK, 128 mins.

Despite being detained, silenced and hidden from public view in maximum security Belmarsh Prison, multi-award-winning Australian journalist and publisher Julian Assange has become one of the loudest voices for free speech of our times.

The disclosures of WikiLeaks and Assange from 2010 onwards ignited a firestorm of controversy. The Trust Fall examines the meaning and significance of the insights that WikiLeaks shared with the world, the resulting behaviour of the governments involved, the extraordinary personal risk taken by Assange, and the wider fundamental issues around press freedom that affect all of us and our right to know.

Filmed over two years on three continents and in ten cities, the film invites viewers to embark on a journey of understanding, where the circumstances are unprecedented, and the destination unexpected.

   

Urban Tree Festival Screening: The Happy Man Tree (12A) + Event

Tuesday 14 May, 6pm

Dir. Katy McGahan, UK, 75 mins.

Screening as part of Plymouth’s Urban Tree Festival we invite the audience to notice trees - a tree at risk, one that has already been felled, or a tree that you love and to walk from a tree of your choice to the screening of The Happy Man Tree documentary. Afterwards we reflect on our experience, and consider the questions ‘What now?’ and ‘How shall we live going forward?

Losing a tree hurts and it’s difficult to avoid the blame game when one you love is at risk, but here we’re more interested in dialogue, a dialogue we surely all need, about how to look after and value our natural environment - and ourselves in it.  Throughout these interventions we seek insight, compassion and connection with everyone involved in the stories of our trees.

  

Beyond the Page: Joyland (15) + Archive short

LGBTQ+

Thursday 16 May, 8.30pm

Dir. Saim Sadiq, Pakistan, 2022, 126 mins, in Urdu with English subtitles. Cast. Rasti Farooq, Sarwat Gilani, Ali Junejo.

The Box are thrilled to bring you a short South Asian film season to celebrate their current exhibition ‘Beyond The Page: South Asian Miniature Painting and Britain, 1600 to Now’. Co-curated with students and community members from the South Asian Diaspora and Plymouth Arts Cinema,  the film season reflects some of the best contemporary and 20th Century films from the Indian sub-continent.  In addition to the main feature, each showing will begin with a short film from The Box’s archive collections, introduced by a member of the co-curation team.

A conservative family in Pakistan is torn apart when a son falls in love with a transgender dancer, in director Saim Sadiq’s riveting queer drama. Set in bustling Lahore, the Ranases are, on the surface, a functional, patriarchal family. The household is made up of Abbas, the elderly father, the older brother, Saleem and his wife Nucchi, and younger brother Haider and his wife Mumtaz. When Haider gets a job in a theatre as a backup dancer for trans starlet, Biba, and starts secretly dating her, everything changes, and the cracks that have always been there, tear the family apart.

  

Love Lies Bleeding (15)

F-Rated | LGBTQ+ | MUBI GO | Programmer’s Pick

Friday 17 – Wednesday 22 May

• Fri 17, 6pm
• Sat 18, 2.30pm & 8pm
• Tue 21, 6pm
• Wed 22, 8.30pm

Dir. Rose Glass, UK, 2023, 104 mins. Cast. Kristen Stewart, Katy M. O’Brian, Ed Harris, Dave Franco.

Director Rose Glass follows up her debut film Saint Maud with an electric 1980s-set crime thriller filled with blood, sex and brawn. Reclusive gym manager Lou falls hard for Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Las Vegas in pursuit of her dream. But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou’s criminal family. A refreshingly untraditional, unhinged and unpredictable love story that flirts with paranormal body horror, filled to the brim with droning beats and neon lights - one not to be missed!

   

Opponent (15)

LGBTQ+

Friday 17 – Wednesday 22 May

• Fri 17, 8.30pm
• Sat 18, 5.30pm
• Tue 21, 8.30pm
• Wed 22, 2.30pm & 6pm

Dir. Milad Alami, Sweden, 2023, 119 mins, in Swedish with English subtitles. Cast. Payman Maadi, Amirali Abanzad, Ahmed Abdullahi.

Writer-director Milad Alami’s accomplished second feature weaves an emotional domestic drama around a wrestler torn between family and suppressed desires.

In the aftermath of a devastating rumour, Iman and his family have been forced to flee Iran. As refugees, they end up in a run-down hotel in northern Sweden. Despite feeling powerless, Iman tries to maintain his role as the family patriarch. To increase their chances of asylum, he breaks a promise to his wife and joins the local wrestling club. As the rumours start to resurface, Iman’s fear and desperation begin to take a hold. This meticulously rendered drama reveals how complex social dynamics can affect an individual’s inner self, with the refugee crisis as a searing backdrop to a story about masculinity and family values.

★★★★ “An outstanding lead performance from Payman Maadi lies at the heart of this powerful, slow-burning drama” Total Film

   

Beyond the Page: East Is East (15)

Thursday 23 May, 8.30pm

Dir. Damien O’Donnell, UK, 1999, 92 mins. Cast. Om Puri, Linda Bassett, Archie Panjabi, Emil Marwa, Jimi Mistry.

The Box are thrilled to bring you a short South Asian film season to celebrate their current exhibition ‘Beyond The Page: South Asian Miniature Painting and Britain, 1600 to Now’. Co-curated with students and community members from the South Asian Diaspora and Plymouth Arts Cinema,  the film season reflects some of the best contemporary and 20th Century films from the Indian sub-continent.  In addition to the main feature, each showing will begin with a short film from The Box’s archive collections, introduced by a member of the co-curation team.

George Khan, proud Pakistani and chip shop owner -- Ghengis to his kids -- rules his family with a rod of iron. He thinks he's raising his seven children to be respectable Pakistanis, but this is Salford in the North of England, in 1971. Much as George's English wife, Ella, loves her husband, she also wants her kids to be happy. The children, caught between bell-bottoms and arranged marriages, simply want to be citizens of the modern world. BAFTA-winning comedy drama starring Om Puri, Linda Bassett and Jimi Mistry..

   

La Chimera (15)

F-Rated

Friday 24 – Wednesday 29 May

• Fri 24, 5.45pm
• Sat 25, 2.30pm & 8pm
• Tue 28, 5.45pm
• Wed 29, 8pm

Dir. Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, 2024, 131 mins, in Italian with English subtitles. Cast. Josh O'Connor, Carol Duarte, Isabella Rossellini, Vincenzo Nemolato.

The Crown’s Josh O’Connor proves he’s just as good in Italian as he is in English in Alice Rohrwacher’s heady mix of gritty social drama and magical realism. O'Connor plays adrift Englishman Arthur, who is mourning his lost love and whose water dowsing talents see him join a group of grave robbers to locate ancient artefacts. There’s never a dull moment as Rohrwacher dips in and out of Arthur’s reveries at the same time as he is drawn to Italia (Carol Duarte), who is the helpmate of his lost girlfriend’s mother (Isabella Rossellini).

Elaha (15)

F-Rated | Reclaim the Frame

Friday 24 – Thursday 30 May

• Fri 24, 8.30pm
• Sat 25, 5.30pm
• Tue 28, 8.30pm
• Wed 29, 2.30pm
• Thu 30, 6pm

Dir. Milena Aboyan, Germany, 2023, 110 mins. In German/Kurdish with English subtitles. Cast. Bayan Layla, Hadnet Tesfai, Derya Durmaz.

Elaha follows a young Kurdish-German woman torn between her love for her family and her personal aspirations. In the build up to her marriage, Elaha investigates the possibility of hymen reconstruction to cover up the fact that she is no longer a virgin - a state of 'honour' considered essential by her German-Kurdish community and, more specifically, by her strict mother. Aboyan’s feature debut is a compelling character portrait and feminist journey of identity and self-discovery, powered by Layla’s astonishing performance which is full of exuberance and empathy.

Beyond the Page: Monkey Man (18)

Thursday May 30th 8.30pm

Dir. Dev Patel, Canada/US, 2024, 121 mins. Cast. Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley, Sobhita Dhulipala.

Dev Patel makes an astonishing directing debut with an action thriller about one man’s quest for vengeance against the corrupt leaders who murdered his mother and continue to victimise the poor and powerless. Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage, Monkey Man stars Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meagre living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.

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

  

Family Friendly: Butterfly Tale (U) + Workshop

Friday 31 May

• Workshop,  9.45am
• Film, 11am

Dir. Sophie Roy, US, 2024, 88 mins. Cast. Mena Massoud, Tatiana Maslany. With original songs from Grammy & Brit Award nominated Shawn Mendes.

The butterflies are preparing for their annual migration, and everyone is aflutter! But when young butterfly Patrick is told he must stay home as he’s not ready, he and his friends refuse to be grounded. Despite having only one full-grown wing, Patrick and friends follow their dream of flying with (or rather just behind) the migration. The tenacious team encounter incredible wonders and plenty of challenges–but above all they discover it’s not just the journey that matters, but what we learn along the way.

   

Family Workshop: Origami Butterflies

Friday 31 May, 9.45 – 10.45am

£3.50 per child

Suggested age 5-11

Join us for a relaxed creative workshop before we watch Butterfly Tale! We will learn to use basic origami folds to create pretty concertina butterflies.

As an added bonus, you can make a butterfly ring with pipe cleaners that you can wear on your finger as you watch the film!

The workshop will take place in the Arts University Plymouth Refectory, but come and check in at the cinema Box Office/ Cafe when you arrive (turn right when you enter the main doors of AUP). Our cafe will be open at 9.30am for snacks and hot and cold drinks.

Parents are required to stay during the workshop, and are encouraged to join in, but you only need to book places for children. 15 places available, advance booking required.

With Christina Oldfield

Christina is an artist and former Primary school teacher.  She initially trained as a textile designer and worked for several years as a freelance printed textile designer. After training as a teacher, Christina taught for many years in Primary schools in Bristol and Cornwall. She has taught across the primary age range from Reception to Year 6. More recently, Christina studied for a Masters degree in Ceramics at Arts University Plymouth, graduating in 2022. She now works on her own ceramic and textile projects and also teaches ceramic workshops in her former school and runs pottery evening classes for adults.