15-year-old Charley arrives in Portland with his father Ray, both eager for a fresh start after a series of hard knocks.
Charley finds camaraderie at a local racetrack in an ageing quarter horse named Lean On Pete. The horse’s gruff owner Del and his seasoned jockey Bonnie help Charley fill the void of his father’s absence, until he discovers that Pete is bound for slaughter, prompting him to take extreme measures to spare his new friend’s life.
They experience adventure and heartbreak, but never lose their irrepressible hope and resiliency as they pursue their dream of finding a place they can call home.
Mary & The Witch’s Flower combines an exhilarating tale with the unique richness, art and animation.
While spending the last weeks of summer with her Great-Aunt Charlotte in the countryside, Mary follows a mysterious cat into the nearby woods, where she stumbles upon a flower that has magical powers and transforms a little broomstick into one that flies.
Mary is whisked away, high above the clouds, and transported to Endor College – a school of magic!
François Ozon returns with L’Amant Double, a sleek erotic thriller that sees the prolific French auteur ramping up the sexual tension while keeping his tongue firmly in his cheek.
Chloé falls in love with her psychoanalyst Paul. When they decide to move in together, everything seems perfect until a series of discoveries lead her to suspect that he may be living a double life.
As she searches for the truth, Chloé’s investigations plunge her into a dark and bewildering world of smoke, mirrors and doppelgangers – where nothing is as it seems, and no one can be trusted.
A whirlwind of heightened senses and amped-up drama, L’Amant Double is filthy, flamboyant and a whole lot of fun.
Childhood friends Lily and Amanda reconnect in suburban Connecticut after years of growing apart.
Lily has turned into a polished, upper-class teenager, with a fancy boarding school on her transcript and a coveted internship on her resume. Amanda has developed a sharp wit and her own particular attitude, becoming a social outcast.
Though they initially seem completely at odds, the pair bond over Lily’s contempt for her oppressive stepfather, and as their friendship grows, they begin to bring out one another’s most destructive tendencies.
Their ambitions lead them to hire a local hustler, taking matters into their own hands to set their lives straight.
Ben and Rose are children from two different eras, who secretly wish their lives were different. Ben longs for the father he has never known, while Rose dreams of a mysterious actress whose life she chronicles in a scrapbook.
When Ben discovers a puzzling clue in his home and Rose reads an enticing headline in the newspaper, both children set out on quests to find what they are missing that unfold with mesmerising symmetry.
Moll is 27 and still living at home, stifled by the small island community around her and too attached to her family to break away.
When she meets Pascal, a free-spirited stranger, a whole new world opens up to her and she begins to feel alive for the first time, falling madly in love. Moll moves in with Pascal to start a new life, but when he is arrested as the key suspect in a series of brutal murders, she is left isolated and afraid.
Choosing to stand with him against the suspicions of the community, Moll finds herself forced to make choices that will impact her life forever.
Christian is a divorced but devoted father of two, and the respected curator of a contemporary art museum in Stockholm.
He’s gearing up to launch their next show ‘The Square’, a daring installation examining altruism and our duty to help others. However, Christian’s own views on social responsibility are put to the test when he becomes the victim of a scam, forcing him to question the world around him and his place in it.
Meanwhile, a shocking viral stunt cooked up by the museum’s PR agency is met with public outcry, sending Christian into an existential crisis.
With pitch-perfect performances and a cutting deadpan wit, The Square is a hilarious, unique and often surreal look at idealism and cynicism in the modern world.
Sebastián Lelio (Gloria) returns with a Academy Award-winning story about a trans woman’s fight for acceptance.
Anchored by a powerhouse central performance from rising star Daniela Vega, this Oscar-winning film is an urgent call for compassion towards a community that faces bigotry and hostility on a daily basis.
Marina Vidal life is thrown into turmoil following the sudden death of her partner, Orlando. Met with suspicion from the police and contempt from her lover’s relatives, Marina finds herself placed under intense scrutiny with no regard for her privacy.
As tensions rise between Marina and Orlando’s family, she is evicted from their shared home and banned from attending his funeral, and whilst faced with the threat of losing everything, Marina finds the strength to fight back.
A missing teenage girl, and a brutal, tormented enforcer on a rescue mission. Corrupt power and vengeance unleashes a storm of violence that may lead to an awakening.
A traumatised veteran, unafraid of violence, tracks down missing girls for a living. When a job spins out of control, Joe’s nightmares overtake him as a conspiracy is uncovered leading to what may be his death trip or his awakening.
Zhenya and Boris are going through a vicious divorce marked by resentment, frustration and recriminations.
Already embarking on new lives, each with a new partner, they are impatient to start again, even if it means threatening to abandon their 12-year-old son Alyosha.
Then one day, after witnessing one of their fights, Alyosha disappears.
Back in March 1918, C-company arrives to take its turn in the front-line trenches in northern France led by the war-weary Captain Stanhope.
A German offensive is imminent, and the officers distract themselves in their dugout with talk of food and their past lives. Stanhope meanwhile, soaks his fear in whisky, unable to deal with his dread of the inevitable.
A young new officer, Raleigh, has just arrived fresh out of training and abuzz with the excitement of his first real posting – not least because he is to serve under Stanhope, his former school house monitor and the object of his sister’s affections.
Each man is trapped with the days ticking by, the tension rising and the attack drawing ever closer…
Voodoo and terror meet within an innocent-looking doll inhabited by the soul of a serial killer who isn’t ready to die. From the director of Fright Night comes a stylish thriller with heart-pounding suspense guaranteed to scare!
After 6-year-old Andy Barclay’s (Alex Vincent) babysitter is violently pushed out of a window to her death, nobody believes him when he says that “Chucky,” his new birthday doll, did it! Until things start going terribly wrong…dead wrong.
An ensuing rampage of gruesome murders lead a detective (Chris Sarandon) back to the same toy, only to discover that the real terror has just begun, and the deranged doll has plans to transfer his evil spirit into young Andy!
Putting the Cult in the City of Culture. The original, challenging and just plain cool from the world of cult & genre film – life’s too short for bad movies.
Buster Keaton stars in the 1926 silent comedy film, The General.
He plays the part of a locomotive driver during the American Civil War, who has two loves, his gal (played by Marion Mack) and ‘The General’ – his locomotive. Thrilling adventures ensue when Buster ventures behind enemy lines. He befalls his own ploys on occasion but he comes out tops in the end.
There will be thrills and spills for everyone and to add to the big screen presentation, Donald MacKenzie, organist from London’s Odeon Leicester Square, returns to the City Hall to provide an equally exciting accompaniment to this spectacular silent film on the hall’s magnificent pipe organ
The Voice and The X Factor’s Uplifted Voices choir give powerful, goosebump-inducing performances of songs like My God, and I Will Follow Him accompanied by a live band while the feel-good film Sister Act, starring Whoopi Goldberg, plays out on a giant screen.
Plus special guest performance from Britain’s Got Talent semi-finalists, Gospel Singers Incognito (GSI).
A special free screening of the British Film Institute’s restored version of South, Frank Hurley’s silent film record of the Endurance expedition, with a piano performance by John Sweeney, a specialist in accompanying silent films.
The film is both a unique historical document, and a tribute to the indomitable courage of a small party of men who set out on a voyage of discovery that turned into an epic struggle for survival.
This restored version of the film has been constructed by the National Archive from a wide range of materials. The National Archive has applied its own tinting and toning to match the original prints, and has produced this handsome testament to a remarkable episode in the history of exploration.
John Sweeney has played for silent films since 1990 at diverse venues including Riverside Studios Cinema, National Film Theatre, Nottingham Broadway and the Barbican Centre, London. His performances bring to life the images on screen as they would have first been seen by audiences.
Film running time: 80 minutes
The tickets for this screening are free and booking is essential.
The OeAD lecturers at nine universities throughout the UK are screening the short films that were nominated for the Austrian Film Prize, as well as the winning film.
On Thursday, 22 March, the Austrian Short Film Festival is coming to the University of Hull. Films will be screened in German with English subtitles.
Free entrance. Thursday, 22 March, 6.30 pm, Wilberforce LR 13 All welcome!
The film festival is running thanks to the generous support of the Austrian Culture Forum London, the OeAD and the Academy of Austrian Films.
18+
