Stafford Gatehouse TheatreStafford Gatehouse Theatre
Join us for our legendary CLASSIC FILM AFTERNOONS! A hot drink, a cake and a great film all for just £6.00 (£10.00 for two). Film starts at 1.00pm, food and drink served from 10am.
A former San Francisco police detective (James Stewart) juggles wrestling with his personal demons and becoming obsessed with the hauntingly beautiful woman (Kim Novak) he has been hired to trail, who may be deeply disturbed.
Released to help mark International Men’s Day the previous day (Nov 19) and partnered with the UK men’s mental health charity Andy’s Man Club.
Why do so many men struggle to show their feelings?
Part therapy, part road trip, BAFTA award winning filmmaker Duncan Cowles asks men how they open up in order to directly address his own difficulties in being intimate and open with his loved ones.
With profound honesty and deadpan wit, SILENT MEN intertwines awkward conversations and the filmmaking process, asking what makes men tick, and more importantly, how to come to terms with all aspects of health, both physical and mental.
Exploring aspects of masculinity that all too often are little discussed, this film opens the door for other ways of being, communicating and healing, as well as attempting to define masculinity.
Cert: 12A
NEW RED FILM PROGRAMME
Get ready for an unforgettable evening of thrilling adventure on the big screen!
The Banff Mountain Film Festival is back with a brand-new line-up of captivating short films packed with extreme journeys, intriguing characters and stunning cinematography. Join the world’s top outdoor filmmakers and adventurers as they climb, ski, paddle, run and ride through the wildest corners of the planet!
With exciting nightly prize giveaways and a theatre packed with adventure lovers, this is an unmissable event from the world’s most prestigious mountain festival. Spark your passion for adventure, action and travel at the Banff Mountain Film Festival!
This is a screening of the Red Film Programme. See www.banff-uk.com for more.
Picture by Jordan Manoukian
Matteo Garrone / Italy/Belgium/France 2023 / 122 min / Cert 15 / Subtitles
Seydou and Mousa, two Senegalese teenagers seduced by the promise of a better, more exciting time in Europe, embark on a journey across Africa toward the Mediterranean Sea.
They face a series of grave hardships including a dangerous trek across open desert and potentially deadly encounters with counterfeiters, thieves and traffickers.
Bustling with energy, with vivid details from the director’s research and the real-life experiences of former migrants, and in turn both horrifying and beautiful, this timely film was Oscar nominated for best international feature.
The central actor, Seydou Sarr, won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor at the Venice Film Festival.
Luca Guadagnino / USA, Italy 2024 / 131 min / Cert 15
Following a triangle of relationships between tennis prodigies, Challengers vividly communicates the pains and gains of the professional tennis circuit, with a brilliantly innovative soundtrack.
Josh O’ Connor captures the charisma of talented but wayward Patrick; Mike Faist exemplifies boyhood buddy Art’s dogged discipline; Zendaya personifies beautiful Tashi’s talent, discipline and love for the game (that treats her cruelly).
We see the single-mindedness of elite athletes – attractive maybe but not necessarily nice or loveable?
Former world Top-10 player Andrea Petkovic wrote: “It’s not the best movie I have ever seen. But it is the best tennis movie. Maybe even the best sports movie. Sorry, Moneyball”
PLEASE NOTE NEW DATE
Wim Wenders / Japan, Germany 2023 / 125 min / Cert PG / Subtitles
Wenders’ best film since Wings of Desire is a heart-warming Oscar-nominated drama which finds beauty and serenity in the everyday.
Kôji Yakusho won Best Actor in Cannes for his portrayal of Hirayama, a fastidious, solitary man who takes pride in his work as a toilet cleaner and finds joy through music (his collection of classic rock and pop cassettes), reading (second-hand paperbacks), photography (film camera) and trees.
Perfect Days is a gentle and quietly profound character study of an analogue man in a digital world, a love letter to Tokyo and a case for leading a simpler way of life.
Richard Peppiat / Ireland, UK, 2024 / 105 min / Cert 18
Kneecap is a comedy/drama set in west Belfast in 2019, describing the rise of Belfast based hip hop trio, Kneecap.
Fate brings together disillusioned music teacher, JJ, and self-confessed low-life scum, Naoise and Liam Og.
Under the name ‘Kneecap’, the band begin moulding their language to fit their anarchic and hedonistic lives.
However, to get their voices heard the trio must overcome police, paramilitaries and politicians as well as realising that their worst enemies are often themselves.
This is an original and exhilarating biopic.
Hiyao Miyazaki / Japan 2023 / 124 min / Cert 12A / Subtitles
Hayao Miyazaki’s first film in 10 years The Boy and the Heron is set in 1940’s wartime Japan and follows the story of Mahito a twelve-year-old boy who has lost his mother and moves with his father to a new rural town, following his father’s re-marriage.
There Mahito struggles to fit in, then meets a talking heron who leads him into a forbidden tower and then on into a fantastical world full of strange animals and magical characters that echo the world he has left.
A coming-of-age story, the Boy and the Heron explores grief, acceptance, and redemption.
“A strikingly beautiful densely detailed fantasy”(The Guardian) Wendy Ide- The Guardian.
“Thrilling, adventurous, spikily funny and beautifully crafted, a feast for the eyes, mind, heart and soul.” Ben Travis- Empire On-line
Niels Arden Oplev / Denmark / 2022 /106 min / Cert 12A / Subtitles
Sophie Gråbøl (The Killing) stars as Inger in this poignant and tender film, involving the relationship she has with her sister which is greatly challenged on a coach trip to Paris.
In response to Inger’s announcement on the coach that she has mental health issues, there is a mixture of responses from pity to discrimination from the other coach passengers.
On arrival in Paris, it becomes clear that Inger has a hidden agenda involving somebody from her past.
This is a funny and uplifting film which handles the issues and related discrimination with sensitivity and tenderness.
Hilmar Oddson / Iceland, Estonia 2022 / 113 min / Cert 12 / Subtitles
Middle-aged and disappointed, Jón, spends his days knitting and listening to the radio with his domineering elderly mother, on their rural Icelandic farmstead.
With his life overtaken with looking after his home and his mother’s needs, Jón’s isolated world is upended when she suddenly dies. Having left him a series of instructions to follow upon her death, Jón sets out on a journey across Iceland to honour her final wishes – including being buried in her home village.
Strapping her into his Ford Cortina, and with the beloved family dog Brezhnev in tow, he sets off on his strange odyssey.
With his late mum still nagging him from the back seat, he meets a variety of peculiar and charming strangers en route, and encounters some ghosts from his past too…