Event Categories: Film

Madeline has become an integral part of a prestigious physical theatre troupe. When the workshop’s ambitious director pushes the teenager to weave her rich interior world and troubled history with her mother into their collective art, the lines between performance and reality begin to blur. The resulting battle between imagination and appropriation rips out of the rehearsal space and through all three women’s lives.

Starring Helena Howard, Molly Parker, Miranda July

Hull Independent Cinema presents MADELINE’S MADELINE
Josephine Decker | 2018 | USA | Cert 15 | 93 mins

In 1999, teenage Celeste survives a violent tragedy. After singing at a memorial service,
Celeste transforms into a burgeoning pop star with the help of her songwriter sister (Stacy Martin) and a talent manager. Celeste’s meteoric rise to fame and concurrent loss of innocence dovetails with a shattering terrorist attack on the nation, elevating the young powerhouse to a new kind of celebrity: American icon, secular deity, a global superstar. By 2017, adult Celeste is mounting a comeback after a scandalous incident that derailed her career. Touring in support of her sixth album, a compendium of sci-fi anthems entitled “Vox Lux,” the indomitable, foul-mouthed pop saviour must overcome her personal and familial struggles to navigate motherhood, madness and monolithic fame in the Age of Terror.

In Brady Corbet’s second feature, following his 2015 breakout debut The Childhood of a Leader — winner of the Best Director and Best Debut Film prizes at the Venice Film Festival — Celeste becomes a symbol of the cult of celebrity and the media machine in all its guts, grit and glory. Featuring original songs by Sia, an original score by Scott Walker, and a transcendent performance by Natalie Portman, personifying and pummeling the zeitgeist, VOX LUX is an origin story about the forces that shape us, as individuals, nations, and gods.

Featuring Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Stacy Martin

Awards and Reviews
Venice Film Festival, Toronto Intl Film Festival, AFI Fest Official Selections

“The film creates a universe where fame crowds out humanity. You can’t stop thinking about it” – Rolling Stone

“Brady Corbet’s VOX LUX, with a big performance by Natalie Portman, is an audacious story about a survivor who becomes a star, and a deeply satisfying, narratively ambitious jolt of a movie.” – The New York Times

Certificate
VOX LUX is rated 15. Visit the BBFC website for full details (may include plot spoilers).

Halla is a fifty-year-old independent woman. But behind the scenes of a quiet routine, she leads a double life as a passionate environmental activist. Known to others only by her alias “The Woman of the Mountain,” Halla secretly wages a one-woman-war on the local aluminum industry. As Halla’s actions grow bolder, from petty vandalism to outright industrial sabotage, she succeeds in pausing the negotiations between the Icelandic government and the corporation building a new aluminum smelter. But right as she begins planning her biggest and boldest operation yet, she receives an unexpected letter that changes everything. Her application to adopt a child has finally been accepted and there is a little girl waiting for her in Ukraine. As Halla prepares to abandon her role as saboteur and savior of the Highlands to fulfill her dream of becoming a mother, she decides to plot one final attack to deal the aluminum industry a crippling blow.

Starring Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, Jóhann Sigurðarson, Juan Camillo Roman Estrada

Awards and Reviews
Winner, Best Feature – Hamburg Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival, Palm Springs Intl Film Festival, Melbourne Intl Film Festival Official Selections

“An artful fable that examines what it really means to save the world, Benedikt Erlingsson’s “Woman at War” is the rarest of things: A crowd-pleaser about climate change.” – indieWire

“Erlingsson has a magnetic heroine in Geirharðsdóttir, whose lithe and athletic without being a show-off, and underplays as a good soldier would” – New York Magazine

Certificate
WOMEN AT WAR is currently unrated. We expect it to be 15. Visit the BBFC website for full details (may include plot spoilers).

There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend: Those with tickets for this movie, and those without. You know which you want to be.

Purse those lips and get your best whistle at the ready. Our June classic brings together a quiet loaner, a hitman and a bandit in THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY. We’ll be screening the 2008 extended cut edition of the film, so be sure to stock up on popcorn and drinks before the movie!

While the Civil War rages between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hit man and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.

Starring Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef

Reviews & Awards
“The new length gives a clearer view of the civil war context: a nightmare of panic as the south flees before the Union’s advance.” – Guardian

“Sergio Leone’s grandiose 1966 western epic is nothing less than a masterclass in movie storytelling, a dynamic testament to the sheer, invigorating uniqueness of cinema.” – TimeOut

Certificate
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY is rated 15. Visit the BBFC website for full details (may include plot spoilers).

Hull Independent Cinema presents DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE
Craig Zahler | 2018 | USA/Canada | Cert 18 | 159 mins

DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE follows two police detectives who find themselves suspended when a video of their strong-arm tactics is leaked to the media. With little money and no options, the embittered policemen descend into the criminal underworld and find more than they wanted waiting in the shadows.

Featuring Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Don Johnson

Awards and Reviews
BFI London Film Festival, Venice Intl Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival Official Selection

“The set pieces are inventive and nasty, with an unflinching eye for violence. Such style and confidence is impressive.” – The Guardian

“Few filmmakers come to mind who could orchestrate these slow-burning set pieces with such precision; it’s like watching a chess game in which everyone thinks they’re a king but most of them are pawns” – indieWire

Certificate
DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE is rated 18. Visit the BBFC website for full details (may include plot spoilers).

Hull Independent Cinema presents EIGHTH GRADE
Bo Burnham | 2018 | USA | Cert 15 | 94 mins

In his feature film directorial debut, comedian Bo Burnham deftly encapsulates the awkwardness, angst, self-loathing and reinvention that a teenage girl goes through on the cusp of high school. Thirteen-year-old Kayla endures the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence as she makes her way through the last week of middle school—the end of her thus far disastrous eighth-grade year—before she begins high school.

Starring Elsie Fisher, Josh Hamilton, Emily Robinson

Awards and Reviews
Nominee, Best Actress – 2019 Golden Globes
Winner, Best First Screenplay – 2019 Film Independent Spirit Awards
Winner, Breakthrough Director – 2018 Gotham Awards

“You’re going to fall in love with Elsie Fisher. As the breakout star and big, beating heart of Bo Burnham’s feature directorial debut, EIGHTH GRADE Fisher is tasked with carrying an entire film — an achingly real, firmly modern coming-of-age tale – with honesty and vulnerability to spare.” – indieWire

“In addition to its queasy verisimilitude, EIGHTH GRADE offers acute observations on how social media and the language of self-care have warped teen life.” – New York Times

Certificate
EIGHTH GRADE is rated 15. Visit the BBFC website for full details (may include plot spoilers).

Hull Independent Cinema presents GIRL
Lukas Dhont | 2018 | Belgium | Cert 15 | 106 mins | French language with English subtitles

Synopsis
The feature filmmaking debut from writer-director Lukas Dhont, GIRL is an extraordinarily moving coming-of-age tale about identity and the journey to becoming who you’re meant to be.

Determined 15-year-old Lara (an astonishing performance from newcomer Victor Polster) is a young woman who is fiercely committed to becoming a professional ballerina. She throws herself into this quest at a new school but finds the usual frustrations and challenges of adolescence are heightened as her body does not bend too easily to the strict ballet discipline because she was born a boy. Though supported by her family, Lara’s adolescent frustrations and impatience are heightened as she prepares for gender reassignment surgery, pushing her body to its limits. Based on empowering real-life experiences, the award-winning GIRL is a powerful and sensitively told story about the nuances of growing up transgender and the struggle that can motivate or define that process.

Starring Victor Polster, Arieh Worthalter, Oliver Bodart

Awards and Reviews
Winner, Camera d’Or and Queer Palm – Cannes Film Festival
Winner, Best First Feature – BFI London Film Festival
Nominee, Best Foreign Language Film – Golden Globes

“An elegant and poised piece of transgendered cinema” – Sight and Sound

“A stunning debut from both director Lukas Dhont and star Victor Polster” – Variety

Certificate
GIRL is rated 15. Visit the BBFC website for full details (may include plot spoilers).

Hull Independent Cinema presents CAPERNAUM

From acclaimed director Nadine Labaki (Carmel, Where Do We Go Now?) comes her stunning and unforgettable new film CAPERNAUM, which clocked up a ten-minute standing ovation at Cannes, scored the Jury Prize at the discerning French film festival and was in the running for 2019’s Best Foreign Language film at the Oscars.

In a courtroom, a young boy named Zain stands before a judge. He asks to sue his own parents for giving him life. The circumstances that have brought him to this point take us on a journey through his poverty-stricken upbringing in Beirut where he lives with his family. Forced to live by his wits in order to survive, Zain’s life reaches a turning point when his parents make an unforgivable deal that will see his younger sister married off. Left distraught by this terrible act, Zain takes to the road. While looking for work at a fairground, he befriends a young woman who is working illegally as a cleaner and helps to look after her adorable one-year-old baby, Jonas. Zain and Jonas form a touching bond but things get much more complicated when circumstances force Zain to make choices that will have huge ramifications. Capernaum is a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit – a battle cry for the forgotten, the unwanted and the lost that offers hope in the most unexpected of places.

Starring Zain Al Rafeea, Yordanos Shiferaw, Boluwatife Treasure Bankole

Awards and Reviews
Nominee, Best Foreign Language Film – 2019 Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Foreign Language Film – 2019 Golden Globes
Nominee, Best Foreign Language Film – 2019 BAFTA Film Awards
Winner, Jury Prize – Cannes Film Festival

“CAPERNAUM is an absolute heartbreaker about children in peril and the plight of undocumented people.” – Toronto Star

“Labaki’s excellent film is tough sledding – a sucker punch that lands with the emotional force of dinkens relocated to the slums of the modern-day Middle East.” – Entertainment Weekly

Certificate
CAPERNAUM is rated 15. Visit the BBFC website for full details (may include plot spoilers).

WeWatchFilms presents: ROBOCOP: Director’s Cut

It’s the not-too-distant future in crime-ridden Old Detroit. A corporate conglomerate is running the city and has developed a huge metal android to combat rampant street crime. When their creation demonstrates a murderous “glitch,” Robert Morton sees an opportunity to advance his company position by building a better cop machine. He gets his chance when street cop Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is brutally killed by a gang of sadistic hoodlums. Murphy’s body is reconstructed by technicians and dubbed Robocop.

Starring Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Dan O’Herlihy

Reviews & Awards
Winner, Special Achievement in Sound Effects – Academy Awards 1988
Nominee, Best Sound, Best Film Editing – Academy Awards 1988

“What follows is a blast of an action movie that still manages to be funny, touching, and has one of the best ending lines of any movie ever. Really.” – Decider

“When the law-enforcing RoboCop cleans up corrupt Motown, his victory is satisfying because he’s got machinery and morals on his side. RoboCop is where high-tech meets High Noon.” – Philadelphia Inquirer

Certificate
ROBOCOP is rated 18. Visit the BBFC website for full details (may include plot spoilers).

Hull Independent Cinema presents LORDS OF CHAOS
Jonas Åkerlund | 2018 | UK/Sweden | Cert 18 | 117 mins

Synopsis
Oslo, 1987. 17-year-old Euronymous is determined to escape his traditional upbringing and becomes fixated on creating ‘true Norwegian black metal’ with his band Mayhem. He mounts shocking publicity stunts to put the band’s name on the map, but the lines between show and reality start to blur. Arson, violence and a vicious murder shock the nation that is under siege by these Lords of Chaos.

A note from the distributor: To uphold the authenticity of LORDS OF CHAOS and the actual events that transpired, this film contains a sequence of flashing lights and strobing effects in a concert scene which might affect customers who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy.

Featuring Rory Culkin, Emory Cohen, Sky Ferreira

Awards and Reviews
BFI London Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, FrightFest Official Selections

“LORDS OF CHAOS provokes both awe and repulsion, but not necessarily admiration for a musical form and subculture unwaveringly devoted to literalism, no matter how extreme.” – The Hollywood Reporter

“Euronymous shaped the Norwegian Black Metal scene. You’d think that’d make him cool, but Åkerlund wisely doesn’t buy it.” – Variety

Certificate
LORDS OF CHAOS is rated 18. Visit the BBFC website for full details (may include plot spoilers).

Hull Independent Cinema presents UNDER THE SILVER LAKE

Sam is a disenchanted 33-year-old who discovers a mysterious woman, Sarah, frolicking in his apartment’s swimming pool. When she vanishes, Sam embarks on a surreal quest across Los Angeles to decode the secret behind her disappearance, leading him into the murkiest depths of mystery, scandal, and conspiracy in the City of Angels.

Featuring Andrew Garfield, Riley Keough, Topher Grace

Awards and Reviews
Nominee, Palm d’Or – Cannes Film Festival
AFI Fest, Fantasia Film Festival, Calgary Intl Film Festival Official Selections

“Aided by cinematographer Mike Gioloukas’ sunny visuals and a searching Disasterpiece score, the movie becomes a bittersweet ode to wanting answers from an indifferent world overwhelmed by superficial distractions.” – indieWire

“The ambition of UNDER THE SILVER LAKE is worth cherishing. It will either evaporate into nothingness or cohere into something you’ll want to hug for being so wonderfully weird.” – TimeOut

Certificate
UNDER THE SILVER LAKE is rated 15. Visit the BBFC website for full details (may include plot spoilers).

Hull Independent Cinema presents: THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHER

Maggie Gyllenhaal stars as Lisa Spinelli, a kindergarten teacher and poet fed up with her career, her oblivious husband and teenage kids who largely ignore her. When she discovers that a five-year-old in her class may be a poetic prodigy, Lisa becomes fascinated and tries to protect him from neglectful parents. She soon finds herself risking her career and family to nurture his talent.

Featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gael García Bernal, Ato Blankson-Wood

Awards and Reviews
Winner, Best Dramatic Director – Sundance Film Festival
Toronto Intl Film Festival, CPH:PIX, Ghent Film Festival Official Selections

“It’s hard not to think “WTF?!” in this story of a teacher who discovers a child prodigy and becomes obsessed. But Gyllenhaal is a sorceress of an actress worthy of following through the film’s twisty paths of light and dark.” – Rolling Stone

“Gyllenhaal – who is never out of our sight – somehow makes us all her accomplices, imprisoning our sympathies even when Lisa’s inappropriate behaviour escalates to inexcusable.” – The New York Times

Certificate
THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHER is rated 12A.

HIC and Doc’n Roll Film Festival presents: RUDEBOY: THE STORY OF TROJAN RECORDS

Synopsis
A film about the love affair between Jamaican and British youth culture told through the prism of one of the most iconic labels in the history of black music, Trojan Records.

Combining archive footage, interview and drama, Rudeboy tells the story of the label by placing it at the heart of a cultural revolution that unfolded in the council estates and dancefloors of the late 60s and early 70s Britain, as immigration and innovation transformed popular music and culture. A cast of legendary artists including Lee “Scratch” Perry, Toots Hibbert, Ken Boothe, Neville Staple, Marcia Griffiths, Dave Barker, Dandy Livingstone, Lloyd Coxsone, Pauline Black, Derrick Morgan and more bring the sounds, stars and stories to life.

Featuring Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Toots Hibbert, Ken Boothe, Marcia Griffiths

Awards and Reviews
BFI London Film Festival Official Selection

“This love letter to one of Britain’s first multicultural pop movements is an effortlessly enjoyable viewing experience with a rich, sunny, consistently uplifting soundtrack.” – Hollywood Reporter

“Great fun. A slick ‘greatest hits’ look back at the Trojan legacy, which leaves you wanting more.” – Little White Lies

Certificate
RUDEBOY is unrated. Only those over 18 will be allowed into the cinema.