SHREWSBURY FILM SOCIETY

Season 6

We cannot remember a season which offered so much variety. We had 16 films from 16 different countries offering a good balance of films that would make you laugh and cry, serious and light-hearted.

Rams

15 | Iceland | 2015 | Icelandic
Drama
Director: GrÍmur Hakonarson
Date Shown: Friday 23 September 2016

In a secluded valley in Iceland, Gummi and Kiddi live side by side, tending to their sheep. Their ancestral sheep-stock is considered one of the country's best and the two brothers are repeatedly awarded for their prized rams who carry an ancient lineage. Although they share the land and a way of life, Gummi and Kiddi have not spoken to each other in four decades. When a lethal disease suddenly infects Kiddi's sheep, the entire valley comes under threat. The authorities decide to cull all the animals in the area to contain the outbreak. This is a near death sentence for the farmers, whose sheep are their main source of income, and many abandon their land. But Gummi and Kiddi don't give up so easily - and each brother tries to stave off the disaster in his own fashion: Kiddi by using his rifle and Gummi by using his wits. As the authorities close in the brothers will need to come together to save the special breed passed down for generations, and themselves, from extinction.


Mustang

15 | Turkey | 2015 | Turkish
Drama
Director: Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Date Shown: Friday 7 October 2016

When five orphan girls are seen innocently playing with boys on a beach, their scandalized conservative guardians confine them while forced marriages are arranged.

an absolute belter of a film - @JennaBlairFLP


Paradise Now

15 | Palestine | 2005 | Arabic, English
Crime, Drama, Thriller
Director: Hany Abu-Assad
Date Shown: Friday 21 October 2016

Two childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.


Back to Top

La Veuve de Saint-Pierre

15 | Canada | 2000 | French
Drama, Romance
Director: Patrice Leconte
Date Shown: Friday 4 November 2016

In a small French colony, a drunken man kills someone. While a guillotine is being shipped in, he changes, becoming a good and popular man.


The Second Mother

15 | Brazil | 2015 | Portuguese
Comedy, Drama
Director: Anna Muylaert
Date Shown: Friday 18 November 2016

Val spends 13 years working as nanny to Fabinho in São Paulo. She is financially stable but has to live with the guilt of having left her daughter Jéssica, in Pernambuco, in the northeast of Brazil, raised by relatives. As college entrance exams roll around, Jéssica wants to come to São Paulo to take her college entrance exams too. When Jéssica arrives, cohabitation is not easy. Everyone will be affected by the personality and candour of the girl and Val finds herself right in the middle of it.


Tangerines

15 | Estonia | 2013 | Russian, Georgian, Estonian
Drama, War
Director: Zaza Urushadze
Date Shown: Friday 2 December 2016

War in Georgia, Apkhazeti region 1992: local Apkhazians are fighting to break free from Georgia. Estonian village between the mountains has become empty, almost everyone has returned to their homeland, only 2 men have stayed: Ivo and Margus. But Margus will leave as soon as he has harvested his crops of tangerines. In a bloody conflict in their miniature village wounded men are left behind, and Ivo is forced to take them in. But they are from opposite sides of the war. This is touching anti-war story about Estonians who find themselves in the middle of someone else's war. How do they handle it? How do the enemies act under third-party roof?


Back to Top

Sing Street

12 | Ireland | 2016 | English
Drama, Music
Director: John Carney
Date Shown: Friday 16 December 2016

A boy growing up in Dublin during the 1980s escapes his strained family life by starting a band to impress the mysterious girl he likes.


The Lesson

15 | Bulgaria | 2014 | Bulgarian, English
Drama
Director: Kristina Grozeva, Petar Valchanov
Date Shown: Friday 6 January 2017

In a small Bulgarian town Nadezhda, a young teacher, is looking for the robber in her class so she can teach him a lesson about right and wrong. But when she gets in debt to loan sharks, can she find the right way out herself?


Mia Madre

15 | Italy | 2015 | Italian, English, French
Drama
Director: Nanni Moretti
Date Shown: Friday 20 January 2017

These are hard days for Margherita, who is going through a very difficult period in her life. On a professional level first, the middle-aged film director, has started wondering whether the committed movies she has been making are really an actual reflection of the world she lives in ; on top of this, she is in conflict not only with her crew but also, and primarily, with Barry Huggins, a well-known American actor of Italian origin, who proves awfully bad and uncontrollable. On the personal level, things do not get any better - it could even be said they are worse. Margherita has just left her life partner and she has become unable to relate to her teenage daughter. As for her mother, she is now seriously ill and her doctor tries to prepare her brother and her for the worst. Which is unacceptable to the weakened woman who can find salvation only in denial of reality. Will she manage to face up to the facts and to come to terms with herself?


Back to Top

Bolshoi Babylon

E | UK | 2015 | Russian
Documentary
Director: Nick Read, Mark Franchetti
Date Shown: Friday 3 February 2017

A behind-the-scenes look at Moscow's prestigious Bolshoi Theatre as it's rocked by an acid-attack scandal in 2013.


Stray Dogs

12 | Afghanistan | 2004 | Dari
Drama
Director: Marzieh Makhmalbaf
Date Shown: Friday 17 February 2017

The story of survival of 2 children in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Their mother has been imprisoned for "adultery" and their father is in Guantanamo Bay.


White God

15 | Hungary | 2014 | Hungarian, English
Drama, Thriller
Director: Kornél Mundruczó
Date Shown: Friday 3 March 2017

A cautionary tale between a superior species and its disgraced inferior - Favoring pedigree dogs, a new regulation puts a severe tax on mixed breeds. Owners dump their dogs and shelters become overcrowded. 13-year-old Lili fights desperately to protect her pet Hagen, but her father eventually sets the dog free on the streets.


Back to Top

Dheepan

15 | France | 2015 | Tamil, French, English
Crime, Drama
Director: Jacques Audiard
Date Shown: Friday 17 March 2017

Dheepan is a Tamil freedom fighter, a Tiger. In Sri Lanka, the Civil War is reaching its end, and defeat is near. Dheepan decides to flee, taking with him two strangers - a woman and a little girl - hoping that they will make it easier for him to claim asylum in Europe. Arriving in Paris, the 'family' moves from one temporary home to another until Dheepan finds work as the caretaker of a run-down housing block in the suburbs. He works to build a new life and a real home for his 'wife' and his 'daughter', but the daily violence he confronts quickly reopens his war wounds, and Dheepan is forced to reconnect with his warrior's instincts to protect the people he hopes will become his true family.


The Brand New Testament

15 | Belgium | 2015 | French, German
Comedy, Fantasy
Director: Jaco Van Dormael
Date Shown: Friday 31 March 2017

Did you know that God is alive and lives in Brussels with his daughter?


Ivan's Childhood

PG | Russia | 1962 | Russian, German
Drama, War
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky, Eduard Abalov
Date Shown: Friday 21 April 2017

During World War II, 12-year old Ivan works as a spy on the eastern front. The small Ivan can cross the German lines unnoticed to collect information. Three Soviet officers try to take care of this boy-child.


Back to Top

Tales from the Golden Age

12 | Romania | 2009 | Romanian
Comedy, History
Director: Hanno Höfer, Razvan Marculescu, Cristian Mungiu, Constantin Popescu, Ioana Uricaru
Date Shown: Friday 5 May 2017

Several urban legends of Communist Romania are dramatized.


©2024 Shrewsbury Film - screening the best current and classic films from around the world.
Regular film screenings at the Hive, Shrewsbury, Shropshire. SY1 1TE
The Hive Media and Arts Centre Cinema For All Film Audience Network