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Up The Yangtze (M)
Starts July 10
Exclusive to Cinema Nova
Director: Yung Chang
Mandarin and English dialogue with English subtitles
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A luxury cruise boat motors up the Yangtze, navigating the mythic waterway known in China simply as "The River." In the biggest engineering endeavour since the Great Wall, China has set out to harness the Yangtze with the world's largest mega-dam.
Meanwhile at the river's edge Yu Shui says goodbye to her family and turns to face the future. From their small patch of land, her parents watch the young woman walk away, her belongings clutched in a plastic shopping bag. The waters are rising.
The Three Gorges Dam, gargantuan and hotly contested symbol of the Chinese economic miracle, provides the epic and unsettling backdrop for UP THE YANGTZE, a dramatic and disquieting feature documentary on life inside the 21st century Chinese dream. Stunningly photographed and beautifully composed, UP THE YANGTZE juxtaposes the poignant and sharply observed details of Yu Shui's story against the monumental and ominous forces at work all around her. |
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Salute (PG)
Starts July 17
Director: Matt Norman (THE UMBRELLA MEN)
102mins
website
study guide
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SALUTE is a journey back to the 1960's and beyond, to examine what has now become one of the most famous Olympic moments in history.
The 1968 Mexico Olympics was notorious for so many reasons. When The Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia prior to the games, as well as the mass killings of Mexican Students during the Student protests, Vietnam, the Assassination of Robert Kennedy Junior and Martin Luther King Jr, sports and politics were destined to meet. The American outcry followed by complaints of unfair high-altitude, proved to be just the beginning. Nevertheless, America could never have foreseen the dramatic momentum that has prevailed over 35 years since the event that is “The civil rights movement”.
SALUTE being written, directed and produced by Peter Norman’s nephew Matt Norman, promises to be a fascinating and exclusive insight into the drama that was the Mexico Olympics, as well as the drama that followed in the lives of all three men on that dais. This film is personal. It’s about three men that consider themselves brothers for life. Matt Norman has been welcomed into this acceptance of brotherhood with both Tommie Smith and John Carlos which gives this film a truth all of it’s own; A family one. To find a truly amazing man you must first know that man from start to finish. This is Peter Norman’s untold story….. |
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How About You (M)
Starts July 24
Director: Anthony Byrne
110mins
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HOW ABOUT YOU, adapted from a short story by author Maeve Binchy and featuring a stellar cast, tells the story of Ellie (Hayley Atwell), a carefree young woman who is left in charge of a residential home in the beautiful Irish countryside owned and run by her older sister Kate (Orla Brady). Kate is the sensible one, while Ellie is impetuous. It's Christmas time, and most of the residents of the home have left to spend the festive period with their families. Remaining at the home are four grumpy old residents known as "the hardcore": retired screen beauty Georgia (Vanessa Redgrave), spinster sisters Hazel (Imelda Staunton) and Heather (Brenda Fricker), and a retired High Court judge, Donald (Joss Ackland). It's a baptism of fire for Ellie whose youth and inexperience bring her head to head with the cantankerous foursome. |
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The Savages (M)
Starts July 24
Director: Tamara Jenkins (THE SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS)
124mins
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Laura Linney was nominated for an Oscar for her lead performance in THE SAVAGES. Along with a best original screenplay Oscar nomination, the film also stars Philip Seymour Hoffman in an irreverent look at family, love and mortality as seen through the lens of one of modern life’s most bewildering and challenging experiences: when adult siblings find themselves plucked from their everyday, self-centred lives to care for an estranged elderly parent.
The last thing the two Savage siblings ever wanted to do was look back at their difficult family history. Having wriggles their way out from beneath their father’s domineering thumb, they are now firmly cocooned in their own complicated lives. Wendy (Linney, MYSTIC RIVER) is a struggling East Village playwright, AKA a temp who spends her day applying for grants, stealing office supplies and dating her very married neighbour. Jon (Seymour Hoffman, CAPOTE) is a neurotic college professor writing books on obscure subjects in Buffalo. Then comes the call that informs them that the father they have long feared and avoided, Lenny Savage (Philip Bosco, WONDER BOYS), is slowly being consumed by dementia and they are the only ones that can help.
Now, as they put their already arrested lived on hold, Wendy and Jon are forced to live together under one roof for the first time since childhood, rediscovering the eccentricities that drove each other crazy. Faced with complete upheaval and battling over how to handle their father’s final days, they are confronted with what adulthood, family and, most surprisingly, each other are really about.
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MARRIED LIFE (M)
Starts July 24
Director: Ira Sachs (THE DELTA)
110mins
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A blend of suspense, star-crossed romance and comedy, MARRIED LIFE is an unconventional film about the irresistible power and utter madness of love. Harry (Chris Cooper) decided he must kill his wife Pat (Patricia Clarkson) - because he loves her too much to let her suffer - after making the decision to leave her. Harry and his much-younger girlfriend Kay (Amy McAdams) are head-over-heels in love, but Harry’s best friend Richard (Pierce Brosnan) decides to win Kay for himself. As Harry implements his awkward plans, others are occupied with their own deceptions. Like Harry they are overwhelmed by their passions, but still struggle to avoid hurting others. |
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And When Did You Lat See Your Father (M)
Starts July 31
Director: Anand Tucker (SHOPGIRL, HILLARY & JACKIE)
109mins
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AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOU FATHER? is from Blake Morrison's moving and candid memoir of his father in the weeks leading up to his death. When Arthur (Jim Broadbent) is diagnosed with terminal cancer he has only a few weeks left. Hi son Blake (Colin Firth) travels to Yorkshire to stay with his mother in the village where he grew up, visiting his father at the hospital where, as a doctor, he had spent so much time with his own patients. As his father's condition worsens, Morrison contemplates their shared experiences, the intimacies and the irritations of their relationship. A moving drama about the importance of family, Tucker’s new film deftly shifts between the melancholy and lighter sides of family. |
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The Bank Job (TBC)
Starts July 31
Director: Roger Donaldson (THE RECRUIT)
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In September 1971, thieves tunneled into the vault of a bank in London's Baker street and looted safe deposit boxes of cash and jewellery worth millions and millions of pounds. Nine of it was recovered, nobody was ever arrested. The robbery made headline for a few days and then disappeared – the result of a UK Government ‘D’ Notice, gagging the press. This film reveals what was hidden in those boxes. The story involves murder, corruption and a sex scandal with links to the royal family – a story in which the thieves were the most innocent people involved. |
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Redbelt (M)
Starts August 21
Director: David Mamet (State & Main)
109 mins
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Set in the Los Angeles martial arts underworld - a place inhabited by bouncers, cagefighters, cops and special forces types - REDBELT is the story of Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejofor), a Jiu-Jitsu teacher who has avoided the prize fighting circuit, choosing instead to pursue an honourable life by operating a self-defense studio with a samurai’s code. Terry and his wife Sondra (Alice Braga), struggle to keep the business running to make ends meet. An accident on a dark, rainy night at the Academy between an off duty officer (Maz Martini) and a distraught lawyer (Emily Moritimer) puts in motion a series of events that will change Terry’s life dramatically, introducing him to a world of promoters (Ricky Jay, Joe Mantegna) and movie star Chet Frank (Tim Allen). Faced with this, in order to pay off his debuts and regain his honour, Terry must step into this ring for the first time in his life. |
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The Edge Of Love (M)
Starts August 21
Director: John Maybury (THE JACKET)
116mins
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A beautifully drawn love story, THE EDGE OF LOVE revolves around two feisty, free-spirited women: Caitlin Thomas (Sienna Miller) and Vera Killick (Keira Knightly). Caught in the spell Caitlin and Vera cast are two men involved in the British armed forces in very different ways: William Killick (Cillian Murphy) and the brilliant, charismatic poet Dylan Thomas (Matthew Rhys). Broken promises, passion, betrayal, the shadow of war and the constant threat of imminent death push the protagonists to THE EDGE OF LOVE. By no means a biopic in the traditional vein, Maybery’s film explores the bohemian underworld of war-torn London and the intimate complexities of two young couples whose lives and loves become dangerously intertwined. |
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Persepolis (M)
Starts August 21
Directors: Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi
102mins
website |
Marjane Satrapi's critically acclaimed memoir, "Persepolis," comes to life in the witty and heartfelt animated feature directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud.
PERSEPOLIS is the poignant story of a young girl coming-of-age in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. It is through the eyes of precocious and outspoken nine-year-old Marjane that we see a people's hopes dashed as fundamentalists take power — forcing the veil on women and imprisoning thousands. Clever and fearless, she outsmarts the "social guardians" and discovers punk, ABBA and Iron Maiden. Yet when her uncle is senselessly executed and as bombs fall around Tehran in the Iran/Iraq war the daily fear that permeates life in Iran is palpable.
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In Bruges (TBC)
Starts September 4
Director: Martin McDonagh
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IN BRUGES was filmed on location; Bruges, the most well-preserved medieval city in the whole of Belgium, is a welcoming destination for travelers from all over the world. But for hit men Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson), it could be their final destination; a difficult job has resulted in the pair being ordered right before Christmas by their London boss Harry (two-time Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes) to go and cool their heels in the storybook Flemish city for a couple of weeks.
Very much out of place amidst the gothic architecture, canals, and cobbled streets, the two hit men fill their days living the lives of tourists. Ray, still haunted by the bloodshed in London, hates the place, while Ken, even as he keeps a fatherly eye on Ray's often profanely funny exploits, finds his mind and soul being expanded by the beauty and serenity of the city. But the longer they stay waiting for Harry's call, the more surreal their experience becomes, as they find themselves in weird encounters with locals, tourists, violent medieval art, a dwarf American actor (Jordan Prentice) shooting a European art film, Dutch prostitutes, and a potential romance for Ray in the form of Chloë (Clémence Poésy), who may have some dark secrets of her own.
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Son Of Rambow (PG)
Opens September 4
Director: Garth Jennings (THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY)
105mins |
SON OF RAMBOW is a hilariously fresh and visually inventive take on friendship, family, film heroes and the death-defying adventures of growing up in the video age. Filmed in a creatively mad-cap, homemade style with mostly amateur cast and a wry, comic-tinged nostalgia, creative visionaries Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith manage to capture both the agony and the giddy ecstasy of a camcorder childhood with humour, poignancy and a rousing dose of cinematic panache.
The story takes place in 1980s Britain, where young Will Proudfoot is raised in isolation among The Brethren, a puritanical religious sect in which music and TV are strictly forbidden. When Will encounters his first movie, a pirated copy of RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD his imagination is blown wide open. Now, Will sets out to join forces with the seemingly diabolical school bully, Lee Carter, to make their own action epic, devising wildly creative, on-the-fly stunts, all the while hiding out from The Brethren. When school popularity finally descends on Will and Lee Carter in the form of, oui, the supercool French exchange student, Didier Revol, their remarkable new friendship and previous film are pushed, quite literally, to breaking point. |
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Funny Games (TBC)
Opens September 11
Director: Michael Haneke (HIDDEN) |
At their lakeside holiday home, Ann (Naomi Watts), George (Tim Roth) and their young son have unexpected visitors: two well-spoken, seemingly well-bred young men wearing polite smiles and preppy sportswear (Michael Pitt & Brady Corbet). The visitors want to play a game: "You bet that you'll be alive tomorrow at 9:00,and we bet that you'll be dead. OK?"
In this stark thriller based on his acclaimed 1997 film of the same title, director Michael Haneke recreates an ever-tightening sense of suspense that balances on a knife's edge between icy fear and satiric surprise. As the family fights to survive thier every plan is thwarted, each option closed and each hour ticks closer to what could be their last. Want to come and play? |
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Waltz With Bashir (TBC)
Opens September 11
Director: Ari Folman |
This beautiful and critically lauded animation feature film tells the story of director Ari Folman, whose old friend, in a bar one night, recounts his recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. The two men conclude that there’s a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the Lebanon War of the early eighties. Ari is surprised that he can’t remember a thing anymore about that period of his life. Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images |
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