SHREWSBURY FILM SOCIETY

Winter 2017

The Night of the Sunflowers

15 | Spain, France, Portugal | 2006 | Spanish
Crime, Drama, Thriller
Director: Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo
Date Shown: Wednesday 11 January 2017

While a speleologist is exploring a cave near a village in the north of Spain, his girlfriend is attacked in the nearby woods. His reaction leads to a tragic chain of events.


35 Shots of Rum

12 | France, Germany | 2008 | French, German
Drama
Director: Claire Denis
Date Shown: Wednesday 25 January 2017

The relationship between a father and daughter is complicated by the arrival of a handsome young man.


Vertigo

PG | USA | 1958 | English
Mystery, Romance, Thriller
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Date Shown: Sunday 29 January 2017

John "Scottie" Ferguson is a retired San Francisco police detective who suffers from acrophobia and Madeleine is the lady who leads him to high places. A wealthy shipbuilder who is an acquaintance from college days approaches Scottie and asks him to follow his beautiful wife, Madeleine. He fears she is going insane, maybe even contemplating suicide, because she believes she is possessed by a dead ancestor. Scottie is skeptical, but agrees after he sees the beautiful Madeleine.


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Rashomon

12 | Japan | 1950 | Japanese
Crime, Drama, Mystery
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Date Shown: Wednesday 8 February 2017

A priest, a woodcutter and another man are taking refuge from a rainstorm in the shell of a former gatehouse called Rashômon. The priest and the woodcutter are recounting the story of a murdered samurai whose body the woodcutter discovered three days earlier in a forest grove. Both were summoned to testify at the murder trial, the priest who ran into the samurai and his wife traveling through the forest just before the murder occurred. Three other people who testified at the trial are supposedly the only direct witnesses: a notorious bandit named Tajômaru, who allegedly murdered the samurai and raped his wife; the white veil cloaked wife of the samurai; and the samurai himself who testifies through the use of a medium. The three tell a similarly structured story - that Tajômaru kidnapped and bound the samurai so that he could rape the wife - but which ultimately contradict each other, the motivations and the actual killing being what differ. The woodcutter reveals at Rashômon that he knows more than he let on at the trial, thus bringing into question his own actions. But another discovery at Rashômon and the resulting actions from the discovery bring back into focus the woodcutter's own humanity or lack thereof.


Sonita

15 | Germany, Switzerland, Iran | 2015 | English, Persian, Dari
Documentary, Biography, Music
Director: Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami
Date Shown: Wednesday 22 February 2017

After her family attempts to sell her into marriage, a young Afghan refugee in Iran channels her frustrations and seizes her destiny through music. Grabbing the mic, she spits fiery rhymes in the face of oppressive traditions.


Court

PG | India | 2014 | Marathi, Gujarati, English, Hindi
Drama
Director: Chaitanya Tamhane
Date Shown: Wednesday 8 March 2017

A sewerage worker's dead body is found inside a manhole in Mumbai. An ageing folk singer is tried in court on charges of abetment of suicide. He is accused of performing an inflammatory song which might have incited the worker to commit the act. As the trial unfolds, the personal lives of the lawyers and the judge involved in the case are observed outside the court.


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Barry Lyndon

PG | UK, USA, Ireland | 1975 | English, German, French
Adventure, Drama, History
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Date Shown: Sunday 12 March 2017

An Irish rogue wins the heart of a rich widow and assumes her dead husband's aristocratic position in 18th-century England.
Stanley Kubrick's spectacular and beautiful epic tells of the rise and fall of an 18th century rogue-turned-aristocrat in George III's England and Ireland. This is a rare chance to see one of the all-time classics on the big screen.


Like Someone in Love

12 | France, Japan | 2012 | Japanese
Drama
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Date Shown: Wednesday 22 March 2017

In Tokyo, a young sex worker develops an unexpected connection with a widower over a period of two days.


©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