UK/USA, 2001

Cert: 15

137 minutes

Dir: Robert Altman

Starring: Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Kristin Scott Thomas

Robert Altman’s first British film is a whodunit’ set in the 1930s against the backdrop of a weekend shooting party at an aristocratic stately home. Multi-award-winning and with a glittering cast, Gosford Park should kick the season off to a great start.

France/Germany 2001

Cert: 15

122 minutes

Dir:  Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Starring: Audrey Tautou, Matthieu karsovitz, Dominique Pinon

Multi-award-winning film from the co-director of Delicatessen, AméIic is the beguiling fable of an innocent young girl who is too pre-occupied with solving the problems of those around her to worry about herself. Ravishing to look at, very funny, and boasting a new French star: Audrey Tautou.

Ire/Germ/Fr./UK, 1997

Cert: 15

94 minutes

Dir:  Mike Hodges

Starring: Starring Clive Owen, Gina McKee. Alex Kingston

Mike Hodges, director of the legendary Get Carter, is back on cracking form. A cool, detached, budding writer takes a job as a croupier in a seedy casino. He becomes embroiled in a web of women, robbery and intrigue, and finds the perfect subject for his first novel.  

More info from

Fr/Tunisia, 1999

Cert: 12

122 minutes

Dir: Moufida Tiatli. 

Starring Rabiaa Ben Abdallah. Sabah Bouzouita. Ghalia Ben All.

 Despite the title this is a film about women — three generations of Tunisian women and an autistic boy. Moufida Tlatli is committed to examining, defiantly and with great sympathy, her countyi’s ritualized oppression of women’ (Telegraph). Beautiful to look at and superbly performed.

Brazil/Switz/Fr., 2001  

Cert: 12

92 minutes

Dir: Walter Salles.

Starring Jose Dumont, Rodrigo Santoro, Rita Assemany.

From the director of Central Station this Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated Brazilian film is an account of a blood feud over a land dispute between two neighbouring families. Set in 1910 in the remote hinterlands of Brazil it is stunningly brought to life by director Salles and his brilliant cinematographer, Walter Carvalho.  

More info from

France , 2000  

Cert: 18

132 minutes

Dir: Robert Guédigan. 

Starring Ariane Ascaride, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Gerard Meylan.

Another film set in present-day Marseille from the director of the wonderful Marius & Jeannette. A host of vivid, credible characters, the director’s vision of a hard-edged and seamy city. “As dramatically engrossing as it is emotionally powerful” (Time Out).

Our society President, the leading Cinematographer Ossie Morris, will be talking about the making of Franco Zeffirelli’s 1967 film The Taming of the Shrew (La Bisbetica Domata). 

Loads of clips, lots of gossip! This event will take place at the school.

Germany 2000

Cert: 15

135 minutes

Dir: Tom Tykwer.

 Starring Franka Potente, Benno Furman, Joachim Drol

From the director of Run Lola Run, again starring Franka Potente who played Lola, Tom Tykwer’s new film also follows the fate of two outlaw lovers, Sissy, an introverted lonely blonde who works in a psychiatric clinic, and a young desperado who saves her life.

USA, 2000

Cert: 15

97 minutes

Dir: Bob Giraldi. 

Starring Danir Aiello, Edoardo Ballerini, Vivian Wu.

One night’s frenetic activity in a chic New York restaurant, actually owned by the film’s director, Dinner Rush accurately captures the theatricality of the restaurant’s main room, and the raucous food preparations in the kitchens below. Spiced with the unwelcome attention of local mobsters, innumerable characters and sub-plots the film captures the exhilarating drama and chaos of a successful restaurant.

USA/UK, 2001   2001

Cert: 15

115 minutes

Dir: Joel Coën. 

Starring Billy Bob Thornton. Frances McDormand. Adam Alexi-Malle

The Coen brothers’ latest film is an homage to the film noir of the 1940s and accordingly shot in black and white. A small-town barber accidentally gets his wife arrested for murder! “Another immaculately executed, serio-comic pastiche from the Coen brothers”

Sweden , 1955   

Cert: PG

105 minutes

Dir: tngmar Bergman.   

Starring Gunnar BjOrnstrand, Eva Dahlbeck, Ulla Jacobson.

Classic Swedish cinema is the Purbeck Film Festival’s choice this year and we are delighted to accept their sponsorship of Bergman’s famous sex-comedy (‘X’ rated in 1955, PG now! How times change!). It is played in the style of theatrical farce with the men played as pompous buffoons and the women as scheming vixens.

USA/It/Germ/Fr., 2001   

Cert: 15

113 minutes

Dir: Mira Nair.

Starring Nasceruddin Shah, Lillctc Dubev, Shafali Shetty.

Mira Nair’s multi-award-winning film revolves around a large New Delhi family preparing for an arranged marriage at the height of summer. Vibrant, funny, and sumptuously filmed, Monsoon Wedding uses the wedding as a barometer of social change and an exposé of sexuality and class in modem India .

Canada , 2000      

No Certificate.            

172 minutes

Dir: Zacharias Kunuk

Starring Nater Ungalaak, Sylvia Ivalu. Peter Henry Arnatsiaq.

“It is a three-hour sensory saturation in Eskimo culture beneath the luminous Arctic skies. Not only breathtakingly beautiful, it’s also funny, sexy, psychologically acute and a staggering piece of storytelling” (Telegraph). Winner of the Camera d’Or at Cannes

Japan , 2001                                                                                    

15                

 1 19 minutes

Dir: Shohei Imamura. 

Starring Koji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, Mitsuko Baisho.

From the director of  The Eel this is a bizarre love story. “a male tribute to the amazing strength and fecundity of women! He (Imamura) films with the simplicity which comes only with absolute mastery” (London Film Festival). Shown also at the Cannes and Toronto film festivals

Another evening of Film and Food in the Sealy Suite. More details will be available in about October.

Czech Rep/UK/Germ/Den/It, 2001

12                                                                            

112 minutes

Dir: Jan Sverak. 

Starring Ondrej Vetchv, KrystofHadek, Tara Fitzgerald.

A new film from the Czech director of  Kolya, one of the most admired films the society has ever presented, Dark Blue World, set in WW2, portrays a love triangle among two Czech pilots in the RAF voluntary reserve and a lonely Englishwoman. Fine performances and the stunning flying sequences convey a haunting sense of space and speed.

It/Fr., 2001                                                        

Cert: 15                        

87 minutes

Dir: Nanni Moretti. 

Starring Nanni Moretti. Laura Moraine, Jasmine Trinca

Nanni Moretti’s superb film., winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes , sounds bleak with its story line of a couple trying to come to terms with the death of their son, but it is far from being so. “This is a hugely impressive, beautifully understated and deeply affecting drama’

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