It's set to be an exciting month of films at Plymouth Arts Cinema this October.

The cinema is excited to welcome Director Mark Cousins on 21st October to introduce A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things, a documentary about Scottish painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham.

Artist and Curator Rhys Morgan will introduce a free screening of Jeremy Deller's  Everybody in the Place on Thursday 17 Oct as part of The Box Plymouth / National Gallery The Triumph of Art commission.

Power to the People explores alternatives to fossil fuel in the south west and will be followed by a Q&A on Thursday 24 October hosted by Climate Action Plymouth.

October is Black History Month. On Saturday 26 October we will be screening a series of films written and directed by contemporary black filmmakers, exploring the rich, complex and diverse experiences and histories of individuals and groups living in Britain and British Overseas Territories.

Short films will be played before selected films in our October programme as part of A Sometimes Project Artist Moving Image initiative.

Where to find Plymouth Arts Cinema 

The cinema is located inside Arts University Plymouth’s main campus at Tavistock Place. Go through Arts University Plymouth’s main entrance and turn right, you will face our 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.

Remembrance (15)

Local Interest | Restored Classic

Friday 27 September – Thursday 10 October

• Fri 27, 6pm
• Thu 3, 8pm (Introduced by scriptwriter Hugh Stoddart and Johnny Mains)
• Fri 4, 8.30pm
• Tue 8, 8.30pm
• Thu 10, 6pm

Dir. Colin Gregg, UK, 1982, 111 mins. Cast. Gary Oldman, Timothy Spall, John Altman.

We are delighted to welcome the film’s scriptwriter, Hugh Stoddart, who will be in conversation with writer Johnny Mains on Thursday October 3rd.

This rarely seen British film is set around the pubs and clubs of the then-notorious Union Street in 1980s Plymouth and follows a group of young Royal Navy sailors during their last 24 hours ashore before their ship sets sail on a six-month naval exercise.

Colin Gregg's direction and Hugh Stoddart's script skilfully cuts between the interweaving stories of several characters as they prepare for the coming months at sea. The ensemble cast includes early performances from the likes of Timothy Spall, John Altman and Gary Oldman (in his big-screen debut).

One of the first films produced by Channel Four, where it was broadcast after a short theatrical run in the summer of 1982, Remembrance’s initial release was given added poignancy and relevance by the outbreak of the Falklands War a few months earlier and has rarely screened since.

The Outrun (15)

F-Rated | MUBI GO

Friday 4 – Thursday 10 October

• Fri 4, 6pm
• Sat 5, 7pm (Descriptive Subtitles)
• Tue 8, 6pm
• Wed 9, 2.30pm
• Thu 10. 8.30pm (+ short film, My November Guest, 4 mins)

Dir. Nora Fingscheidt, UK, 2024, 117 mins. Cast. Saoirse Ronan, Paapa Essiedu, Stephen Dillane.

A vivid and unflinching adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s wrenching personal memoir of addiction, powered by an extraordinary central performance from Saoirse Ronan. Addicted to hedonism, drink and drugs, a young woman must wrestle with recovery in the remote islands of Orkney whilst reckoning with her complex family history. Powered by a pounding soundtrack, a kinetic visual style and intricate narrative structure, this extraordinarily moving film is redemptive, cathartic and utterly riveting.

Othello from Shakespeare’s Globe (12A)

Saturday 5 – Wednesday 9 October

• Sat 5, 2.30pm
• Wed 9, 7pm

Dir. Orla Ince. Cast. Ken Nwosu, Ira Mandela Siobhan, Ralph Davis, Poppy Gilbert, Oli Higginson.

Captured live at the Sam Wannamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe.

This critically acclaimed production was captured live in March 2024 at The Globe’s Sam Wannamaker Playhouse, giving it an intimate-yet-cinematic feel that will be a treat for lovers of Shakespeare and theatre in general.

Celebrated by many, Othello has risen through the ranks of the Met police. But can his hard-won reputation, his marriage to Desdemona, and his own subconscious survive the toxic systems that surround him? Sixteenth-century Venice becomes modern-day London’s Docklands, as Othello grapples with many of the same issues that successful Black people have faced for centuries. This is an Othello for our times.

Experience Shakespeare’s confronting look at the destructive impact of institutional racism, toxic masculinity, and a justice system locked in a vicious cycle of self-fulfilling prophecy.

There will be a 20 minute interval in the film. The release also features cinema-exclusive interviews with the cast and a behind-the-scenes look at the stunning venue.

‘inspired’ ★★★★ (The Guardian) and ‘profound’ ★★★★ (Evening Standard)

Sing Sing (15)

Friday 11- Wednesday 16 October

• Fri 11, 6pm
• Sat 12, 2.30pm & 8pm
• Tue 15, 8.30pm
• Wed 16, 6pm (+ short film, Ida, 4 mins)

Dir. Greg Kwedar, US, 2023, 105 mins. Cast. Colman Domingo, Sean Dino Johnson, Clarence Maclin.

Sing Sing is a stirring true story of resilience and humanity, starring an unforgettable ensemble cast of formerly incarcerated actors.

Divine G (Colman Domingo), imprisoned at Sing Sing for a crime he didn’t commit, finds purpose by acting in a theatre group alongside other incarcerated men, and a wary newcomer played by Clarence Maclin.

The film is based on a real-life programme Rehabilitation Through the Arts and is a real demonstration of the transformative power of art.

The Critic (15)

Friday 11 – Thursday 17 October

• Fri 11, 8.30pm
• Sat 12, 5.30pm (short film, √ (Root), 5 mins)
• Tue 15, 6.15pm
• Wed 16, 2.30pm (Descriptive Subtitles) & 8.30pm
• Thu 17, 8.30pm

Dir. Anand Tucker, UK, 2024, 101 mins. Cast. Ian McKellen, Gemma Arterton, Mark Strong.

The Critic is a deliciously dark and sharp-witted thriller set in 1930s London ‘theatreland’, featuring an all-star cast.

When the most feared and vicious theatre critic in town Jimmy Erskine, finds himself suddenly in the crosshairs of the Daily Chronicle’s new owner David Brooke, he strikes a sinister Faustian pact with struggling actress Nina Land who is desperate to win his favour. 

Everybody In the Place (Recommended age 12+)

Thursday 17 October, 6pm, with intro by Rhys Morgan

Dir. Jeremy Deller, UK, 2019, 62 mins.

FREE – booking essential

The Box Plymouth is kicking off its public programme for Jeremy Deller’s upcoming commission, The Triumph of Art, with a free screening of his 2019 film Everybody in the Place. This film captures the importance of rave culture to contemporary British society and considers it in the context of a wider folk canon.

Rare and unseen archive materials map the journey from protest movements to abandoned warehouse raves, the white heat of industry bleeding into the chaotic release of the dancefloor. We join an A-level politics class as they discover these stories for the first time, viewing the story of acid house from a generation for whom it is already ancient history.

This event is part of The Triumph of Art, a nation-wide project by artist Jeremy Deller, commissioned by the National Gallery, London, as part of NG200, its Bicentenary celebrations. The Triumph of Art is being developed in partnership with Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee, Mostyn in Llandudno, The Box Plymouth and The Playhouse in Derry-Londonderry. Supported by Art Fund. 

Jeremy Deller (b. 1966, London) studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute and at Sussex University. He began making artworks in the early 1990s, often showing them outside conventional galleries. With projects including The Battle of Orgreave (2001) and We’re here because we’re here (2016), Deller is known for works that involve people and that explore the themes of performance art and popular culture.

Girls Will Be Girls (15)

F- Rated | Programmer’s Pick

Friday 18 – Wednesday 23 October

• Fri 18, 6pm
• Sat 19, 3pm (Descriptive Subtitles) & 8pm (+ short film, Three Waters: Tears, Tea, Sea, 5 mins)
• Tue 22, 6pm
• Wed 23, 8.30pm

Dir. Shuchi Talati, India, 2024, 118 minutes. In English and Hindi with English subtitles. Cast. Preeti Panigrahi, Kani Kusruti, Kesav Binoy Kiron.

Mira is a perfect teenage student in her final year at a strict boarding school in the Himalayas. However, her life is thrown off course by her sexual awakening, as she becomes passionately involved with a new student, recently arrived from abroad. Tensions rise when Mira brings him home and finds herself competing with her overbearing mother for his attention, creating a bizarre yet captivating love triangle. A beautiful coming-of-age tale, Girls Will Be Girls is a sensitive and warm depiction of female awakening.

This stellar debut feature from Shuchi Talati won the World Cinema Audience Award at Sundance this year.

The Goldman Case (12A)

Friday 18 – Thursday 24 October

• Fri 18, 8.30pm
• Sat 19, 5.30pm
• Tue 22, 8.30pm
• Wed 23, 6pm (+ short film, Marie Basse, 3 mins)
• Thu 24, 8.30pm

Dir. Cédric Kahn, France, 2023, 116 mins. In French with English subtitles. Cast. Arieh Worthalter, Arthur Harari, Stéphan Guérin-Tillié.

This tense, immersive courtroom drama follows the 1975 trial of Pierre Goldman, a fiery and controversial figure of revolutionary left-wing activism. Facing a life sentence, he accepts charges of robbery but denies any involvement in two murders. 

Twenty years before the OJ Simpson case, the Goldman trial reflected the political, ideological, and racial tensions that marked the 1970s in France and Europe. Then considered to be the trial of the century, it divided an entire country and widened the gap between the conservative right and left-wing intelligentsia. 

Taking place entirely in the confined courtroom and with a script meticulously recreated from newspaper reports of the trial, this is a fast-paced and profoundly thought-provoking drama. 

Flashing/flickering lights - This work contains flashing images which may affect viewers who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy.

A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things (tbc)

Monday 21 – Wednesday 23 October

• Mon 21, 7pm (Intro + Q&A with Director Mark Cousins)
• Wed 23, 2.30pm (Descriptive Subtitles)

Dir. Mark Cousins, UK, 2024, 88 mins, Narrated by Tilda Swinton

Featuring Tilda Swinton as the voice of Scottish painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, this feature documentary tells the story of a remarkable artist and a magnificent obsession.

One day in 1949, a young Scottish painter climbed a Swiss glacier. The experience rewired her brain, and transformed her art. Barns-Graham was synaesthetic – associating letters, names and people with particular colours – and Cousins explores how her neurodiversity and her encounter with the glacier shaped her vision of the world.

Born and raised in St Andrews, Barns-Graham was a member of the St Ives group of modernist artists, who lived in the Cornish seaside town from the Second World War onwards. The glacier paintings inspired by her experience in Switzerland were the breakthrough in her artistic career. Through a cinematic immersion into her art and life, the film explores themes of gender, neurodiversity, climate change, and the nature of creativity from youth to old age.

Made with the support of the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust, the film delves into her archives, private notebooks and diaries from her 65-year career. Two decades after her death in 2004, the film represents a major reassessment of Barns-Graham’s life and work, and her place in 20th century art.

Power to the People (U) + Q&A

Thursday 24 October, 6pm
The screening will be followed by a Q&A hosted by Climate Action Plymouth.

Dir. Bryony Stokes, UK, 2024, 41 mins.

With fantastic resources of wind, sun, tides, geothermal heat and critical minerals, Cornwall could drive the whole country’s clean energy revolution.

However, the UK’s 100-year-old grid infrastructure means this potential can’t be harnessed – while huge numbers of local people are living in poorly insulated homes they can’t afford to heat.

Power to the People explores the exciting opportunities and huge challenges facing us as we wean ourselves off fossil fuels – from a farmer who’s found a novel way to combine food production with solar panels, opportunities to use our historic heritage to power the future, and projects to harness the amazing untapped heat 5km down in the Earth’s crust.

Power to the People is the latest documentary produced by Cornwall Climate Care as part of the Cornwall’s Climate Stories series highlighting the impacts of climate change already being felt across Cornwall - and the fantastic businesses, researchers, community groups and individuals working hard to prepare us for the challenges coming our way.

Timestalker (15)

F-Rated | Programmer’s Pick

Friday 25 – Thursday 31 October

• Fri 25, 6pm
• Tue 29, 6pm (+ short film, The Stream X, 7 mins)
• Wed 30, 2.30pm (Descriptive Subtitles) & 8.30pm
• Thu 31, 8.30pm

Dir. Alice Lowe, UK, 2024, 96 mins. Cast. Alice Lowe, Aneurin Barnard, Jacob Anderson, Nick Frost, Kate Dickie.

Agnes has lived many lives, in 1680s Scotland, in 1790s England, in 1840s Britain, in 1980s New York, and more. And in every life, she meets the one man whom she is destined to be with - but just as they are meeting, something dreadful happens and she dies. Until she meets him again in the next life. Could it be that he is not the perfect match after all? While its title may sound like a 1980s action sci-fi — and there is a good deal of that vibe here — Timestalker is actually a darkly funny, emotionally insightful time-travel comedy drama about a woman determinedly pursuing the supposed love of her life throughout history. 

Alice Lowe’s miraculous second feature is a triumph of imagination, soul-searching and a refined comic instinct – Little White Lies

I Saw the TV Glow (15)

LGBTQ+

Friday 25 – Thursday 31 October

• Fri 25, 8.30pm
• Tue 29, 8.30pm
• Wed 30, 6pm (+ short film, Leanne in the Lake, 4 mins)
• Thu 31, 6pm

Dir. Jane Schoenbrun, US, 2024, 100 mins. Cast. Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Ian Foreman.

"A devastating tale of identity, fandom and obsession." The Guardian

Jane Schoenbrun’s striking story of suburban horrors and coming of age in the mid-1990s creates a foreboding feeling that unspools across time.

Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack...

Schoenbrun’s latest work is a meticulously crafted film that explores the perils of our culture’s obsession with nostalgia and the ways we find and make ourselves in the things we watch.

Flashing/flickering lights - This work contains flashing images which may affect viewers who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy.

Black History Month

Saturday 26 October

Black History Month at Plymouth Arts Cinema With Support from Cornwall and Devon Creative Collective (CoDeCC CIC)

Stories shape the way in which we understand our past, present and imagine our futures. They also inform our sense of connection and identity. Black History Month 2024 focuses upon the contributions of global majority communities across the UK as storytellers, historians and custodians of cultural heritage. Written and directed by contemporary black filmmakers, these films explore the rich, complex and diverse experiences and histories of individuals and groups living in Britain and British Overseas Territories.

Snapshot: Short Film Programme

F-Rated
Saturday 26 October, 3pm

Black girls coming of age on their own terms

From the lands of Brooklyn, NY to South Africa, across the ground-breaking work of Cauleen Smith, Ayoka Chenzira, Milisuthando Bongela, Leslie Harris & more, SNAPSHOT turns the spotlight to Black girls who are coming of age on their own terms. Through these intimate explorations of their interior lives, we find joy in their adventures, in the refreshing variety of perspectives they have to offer, and in storytelling that simply lets Black girls be girls.

T A P E, with the support of the BFI, presents a programme of radical archive and critical contemporary offerings with this series of short films which capture and celebrate the multi-faceted experiences of Black Girlhood. In a world where Black girls are too often relegated to sidekick or trauma narratives, we bring to the fore the audacious, the hilarious and the beguiling. 

Take a deep dive into films by Black female filmmakers across the decades, platforming cinema which allows its subjects to be powerful, complicated, vulnerable, and the main character in their own stories.

A Story of Bones (12A) + introduction with Helen Thomas

Documentary

Saturday 26 October, 5.30pm

Dir. Joseph Curran and Dominic Aubrey de Vere, UK/US, 2024, 95 mins.

Saint Helena island, a tiny British Overseas Territory in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, is so remote that the only means of arrival is the world’s last Royal Mail Ship, a six-day journey from Cape Town. For centuries Saint Helena has existed in near isolation from the rest of the world, a potent symbol of Britain’s colonial past, epitomized by its most famous tourist attraction – Napoleon Bonaparte’s empty tomb. As the Environmental Officer for Saint Helena’s troubled £285m airport project, Annina Van Neel learned of the island’s most terrible atrocity, an unmarked mass burial ground of an estimated 9,000 formerly enslaved Africans. It is one of the most significant traces of the transatlantic slave trade still on earth. Haunted by this historical injustice, Annina fights alongside renowned African American preservationist Peggy King Jorde and a group of disenfranchised islanders, many of them descendants of enslaved people, for the proper memorialization of these forgotten victims. The resistance they face exposes disturbing truths about the UK’s colonial past – and present.

In charting her years-long journey to this moment of catharsis, A Story of Bones documents Annina’s extraordinary transformation from a disempowered bystander to an undaunted social justice activist, and one who is determined to advocate for a community that has long been denied a voice.

My Neighbour Totoro (U)

Family Friendly

Monday 28 - Wednesday 30 October

• Mon 28, 11am
• Wed 30, 11am

Dir. Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 1988, 86 mins. English dubbed version. English Voice Cast: Dakota Fanning, Elle Fanning, Tim Daley.

There will be a FREE drop-in session from 10am before each screening with My Neighbour Totoro activities and colouring sheets.

In rural Japan, two young sisters discover the magical spirits of the forest, in this Ghibli classic back on the big screen.

Sisters Satsuki and Mei move home to be closer to their convalescing mother. After encountering susuwatari (house sprites), young Mei is led to a camphor tree, in which she finds the larger spirit Totoro, and an adventure within nature begins.

Featuring a bus-shaped cat, a ceremonial dance and a terrific soundtrack, this Studio Ghibli classic is a joyful exploration of our relationship with the environment. 35 years since its release, My Neighbour Totoro is still considered one of Studio Ghibli's most beloved works.

Cinema snacks, hot and cold drinks available at our café from 10am. Check out our menu. The Refectory at AUP will also be open to the public for lunch.

Our Family Friendly screenings are Relaxed. They are suitable for neurodiverse audiences and those with access requirements.

- Plymouth Arts Cinema is run by a small and friendly team of staff and volunteers.

- The volume is much lower than at a multiplex.

- The house lights are left on a little.

- You are welcome to bring personal items such as blankets, ear defenders, that will help you enjoy the film but do not disrupt other people’s cinematic experience.

- To find out more about accessibility in our building, please visit this page.

- Please note children must be accompanied by an adult at all times.

Artist Moving Image Programme

Moving Waters - curated by A Sometimes Project

An emerging, experimental arts initiative that aims to create opportunities for artists and audiences, at different locations, some of the time.

https://www.instagram.com/asometimesproject/

My November Guest (Georgie Gentile, 3 mins 28)

Thursday 10 October, 8.30pm (before The Outrun)

Shot on 16mm Tri-X film, hand-processed, and hand-toned with exhausted copper toner the film was then edited on a Steenbeck. The director wanted to explore movement in nature, specifically how wind subtly affects the environment and to show how diverse the environment can be through rhythmic editing.

Georgie Gentile is an experimental filmmaker who primarily works on 16mm film, focusing on the materiality of the medium and how it can be manipulated.  She adds to film through painting and gluing, as well as removes through scratching and bleaching. Georgie is currently receiving her MFA in Cinema at Binghamton University (USA).

(Root) (Till Gombert and Gesa Kolb, 4 mins 44)

Saturday 12 October, 5.30pm (before The Critic)

Partnerships often manoeuvre somewhere between turmoil and reconciliation, distance and togetherness. In this experimental silent film, partners Kolb and Gombert reflect on complex process of growing together within long-term relationships.

Kolb studied Fine Arts at Kunstakademie Karlsruhe in the class of the painter Erwin Gross. Gombert studied at Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe with a major in Media Art / Film and as post-graduate at Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln.

Ida (Simon Coates, 3 mins 31)

Wednesday 16 October, 6pm (before Sing Sing)

Filmed on location in the swamps near Jean Lafitte in Louisiana, USA, Ida takes its name from the hurricane that decimated large areas of the US state in 2021.  Flooding affected the surrounding areas and the bayous around Jean Lafitte increased in size as a result.  The work was created to reflect the resilience of the Louisiana people in the face of disaster.

Simon Coates is an artist, writer and curator based in London, UK. Coates’ practise is predicated on societal mores and behaviours as communicating modes, and he uses digital media, live and recorded production, and curated events as tools for exploration.

Three Waters: Tears, Tea, Sea (Alma and Brett Studholme, 5 mins)

Saturday 19 October, 8pm (before Girls Will Be Girls)

The film documents a tea ceremony by a mother and daughter. While facing the seas that separate them, they are cradling warm teacups cast from each other’s hands. This evokes the warmth of each other’s touch and the ritual becomes a way of both confronting and overcoming their physical distance. Alma Studholme and Brett Studholme are collaborative life partners working in a multidisciplinary art context which includes video, animation, sound, performance and installation. They are based in Sydney, Australia.

Marée basse (Allan Laurent, 3 mins 12)

Wednesday 23 October, 6pm (before The Goldman Case)

Laurent is a Franco-Mexican audiovisual artist currently living in France. His work is strongly related to the body, memory and time and includes documentary, video essay, experimental cinema, video dance and video clip. The work is contemplative and hypnotic with the desire to experience the diverse chronologies that are part of the world.

This film was made in Douarnenez France, in September 2024. As a portrait of the cemetery of ships in the port Rhu and the relationship that these bodies maintain with the dance of the tide.

The Stream X (Hiroya Sakurai, 6 minutes 53)

Tuesday 29 October, 6pm (before Timestalker)

Episode 10 of The Stream is an experiment in which environmental sound in the water is replaced with environmental sound from outside the waterway. As a result, the viewer experiences the sound of the wind as an underwater environmental sound. The wind moves the aquatic plants and pushes along objects floating on the water. The artist’s purpose was to use the expression of the wind as a metaphor for the stream and to impress the viewer with the liveliness of water, which is the theme of this work.

Hiroya was born in Yokohama, Japan and graduated from University of Tsukuba. Emeritus Professor, Seian University of Art and Design. Sakurai’s work can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada and J.Paul Getty Trust.

Leanne in the Lake (Dir Pouria Kazemi, 3 mins 38)

Wednesday 30 October, 6pm (before I Saw the TV Glow)

We were driving on the M16 when, all of a sudden, Leanne felt like she was burning up from the inside. She cried out: “My heart is melting, my kidneys are smoking, my liver is boiling”. We pulled over and she immediately jumped into the first lake we came across. Leanne in the Lake was my response regarding the problem of ‘truth’. In this short experimental documentary, my friend Leanne is floating in a lake while we hear another woman talking about her mental state. The narration belongs to an interview with a schizophrenic patient more than 60 years ago. By syncing the audio of that patient and my friend, I tried to create a connection between the two, since they were both suffering from the same disorder.

Kazemi graduated from Manchester School of Art and Bergen Academy of Fine Art. Most of their films are experimental investigations into the notion of language, performance and reclaimed borders.