<img src='' title='Event Category: Film' alt='' id='templ_icon_' width='' height='' /> Event Category: Film

Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour

Witness a night of thrilling adventure – up on the big screen!

The Banff Mountain Film Festival features a brand-new collection of short films filled with extreme journeys, untamed characters and captivating cinematography! Join the world’s top adventure filmmakers and thrill-seekers as they climb, ski, paddle and ride into the wildest corners of the planet!

With free prize giveaways, this is an unmissable event from the world’s most prestigious mountain festival – guaranteed to ignite your passion for adventure, action and travel!

This is a screening of the Red Film Programme. See www.banff-uk.com for more.

 

 

Sponsor A Seat

Here’s your chance to become part of the furniture at the Gatehouse for the next 10 years, with our new ‘Sponsor a Seat’ programme.

Whether you’re looking for the perfect gift for a loved one, mark a special moment, say thank you to a friend, or honour a fellow theatre lover, sponsoring a seat in the main auditorium is the perfect memento of happy hours spent at the Gatehouse down the years.

It might just be a memorable quote, or a tribute to your favourite act – the choice is yours.

 

Your support will make a big difference and help towards projects including our Gatehouse Youth Theatre groups, which give local youngsters their first taste of theatre, our Dementia Friendly Classic Film Afternoons, or our ongoing support for local community groups.

Simply choose what you’d like to say on your specially-engraved metal plaque and we’ll proudly display it on a seat of your choice for the next 10 years. The plaques are 76mm x 50mm Gilt Self Anodised aluminium plate, which can be engraved with up to four lines of text or a maximum of 75 characters.

Donations are £150 per seat (although you can add an extra amount if you wish).

You will also receive a downloadable Certificate of Thanks and a picture of the plaque in place (we will also happily arrange a visit to the theatre for you to grab your own photo).

So sponsor a seat today – and there’ll always be a part of you at the Gatehouse.

For further information, please contact the Box Office on 01785 619080.

 

Stafford Film Theatre – Film Membership Autumn 2023

12 Film Membership: See all twelve films in the Stafford Film Theatre Autumn/Winter 2023/24 season for just £90 (£78 concessions).

Stafford Film Theatre – Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

Kelly Fremon Craig / USA 2023 / 105 min / Cert PG

Based on Judy Blume’s much-loved novel of the same name, this delightful film is a timeless coming of age story. Abby Ryder Fortson stars as Margaret, a young girl uprooted from her life in New York City to the suburbs of New Jersey. We follow Margaret as she navigates the perils and uncertainties of puberty. Her mother Barbara, played by Rachel McAdams, has her own crisis of identity “It’s a film that’s both warmly entertaining and downright revolutionary. Kelly delivers a wonderful lived-in family dramedy about religion and sexuality” (Katie Walsh Los Angeles Times)

Stafford Film Theatre – Asteroid City

Wes Anderson / USA, Spain, Germany 2023 / 105min / Cert 12A

A monochrome 1950s American TV show presents a play set in the American West. In the play, presented in colour, photographer Augie Steenbeck and his children make a stop in the remote desert town of Asteroid City (population: 87), to repair his car. Whilst there he encounters some unusual characters, and life from another world. Full of Anderson’s trademark eccentricities, and beautifully, painstakingly, lovingly crafted to within an inch of its life, this film demonstrates that Anderson can still surprise. With a starry ensemble cast, including Tom Hanks and Tilda Swinton, this is, according to Empire, ‘truly delightful’.

Stafford Film Theatre – Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Pierre Foldes / Canada, France, Luxembourg, The Netherlands 2022 / 108 min / Cert 15 / Subtitles

An animated adaptation of stories by Haruki Murakami, from his anthology of the same name. Vignettes about an unambitious bank employee, his frustrated wife and a schizophrenic accountant, interweave in the aftermath of an earthquake. Confronting assorted personal problems, the trio find new meaning in their lives with help from unexpected sources. ‘An invigorating translation of prose to the animated form’ Sight and Sound. And the Guardian notes that “It has the ruminative lightness, almost weightlessness, the watercolour delicacy and reticence of the emotions, the sense of the uncanny, the insistent play of erotic possibility and that Murakami keynote: a cat.”

Stafford Film Theatre – Close

Lukas Dhont / Belguim, France, The Netherlands 2022 / 104 min / Cert 12 / Subtitles

Both a Cannes prizewinner and Oscar nominee for Best International Film, this exquisitely acted production evokes the fragile beauty of boyhood. Léo and Rémi are two 13-year old boys who are so close that ‘best friends’ hardly seems to describe their bond. On starting secondary school, their schoolmates’ prying questions about their friendship make Léo uncomfortable, leading him to distance himself from Rémi. Eden Dambrine plays Léo with wondrous sensitivity, while Gustav De Waele’s performance as Rémi is heartbreaking. Set among the flower fields of the Belgian countryside, Lukas Dhont’s profoundly empathetic look at adolescent intimacy reveals the trappings of masculinity

Stafford Film Theatre – Love According to Dalva

Emmanuelle Nicot / France, Belgium 2023 / 83 min / Cert 15 / Subtitles

This deservedly multi-award-winning film will blow you away. Twelve-year-old Zelda Samson gives an exceptional performance as Dalva, a girl who was groomed by her father. The viewer follows the young girl from the moment she was taken into care and through her journey to recovery. The director paints an achingly beautiful portrait of friendship, recovery and identity, without falling into the trap of sensationalising or melodrama, yet there is room for humour and laughter, pathos and catharsis. “Dalva, the film, Dalva, the character is rebellious, full of pain, festive, tough, candid and scandalously human.” Erick Estrata, Cinegarage.

Stafford Film Theatre – Polite Society

Nida Manzoor / UK 2023 / 105 min / Cert 12A

Dynamic, energetic and wickedly funny, Polite Society tells its story via anarchic genre shifts that take in action comedy, martial arts, Bollywood and social horror. 16-year-old Ria Khan is desperate to become a stuntwoman regardless of the disapproval of her British-Pakistani family and posh school. Loyal to her older sister Lena, she’s horrified when Lena becomes engaged to surgeon Salim – who somehow only Ria can see is a sinister creep. Is it sibling envy or loss Ria feels, or is something genuinely awry? After enlisting the help of her friends, Ria attempts to pull off the most ambitious of all wedding heists in the name of independence and sisterhood. Beautifully designed and boasting a tremendously witty, punchy script, it’s a light-hearted, exuberant and distinctive study of sibling affection.

Stafford Film Theatre – Rye Lane

Raine Allen Miller / UK 2023 / 82 min / 15 / Subtitles

Set over the course of a single day in South London, this vivacious debut from director Raine Allen-Miller is a wonderfully fresh take on the romcom genre. Yas and Dom meet, somewhat unconventionally, at a mutual friend’s art show before they step out into the chaos and vibrancy of Peckham’s Rye Lane, so beginning their adventure. During which, in a nod to the genre, Colin Firth serves them burritos from a cafe called Love Guac’tually. This is a lovely feel-good film where comedy, heartbreak and romance intersect beautifully.