Award Winning Independent Cinema

A fantasy that blends science fiction with High Victoriana, Poor Things – a 1992 novel from Glaswegian author Alasdair Gray – seems a project tailor-made for director Yorgos Lanthimos.  The story is mired in Gothic horror. A young Victorian woman – wealthy, well-dressed – stands on a bridge, contemplating the water below. She jumps to her death. A pioneering doctor, Godwin Baxter (played by Willem Dafoe), rescues the body from the river, and in a gleeful homage to classic cinema, we see the woman hooked up to electrodes and crudely (but successfully) resurrected. She is named Bella Baxter (Emma ... Continue Reading

A documentary that reframes the perception of the “working-class experience”, Tish is the story of Tyneside documentary photographer, Tish Murtha. Directed by Paul Sng, and featuring Tish’s daughter, Ella, this haunting documentary charts the span of the photographer’s life. Tish is screening at Plymouth Arts Cinema from Saturday 20th - Wednesday 24th January. On Saturday 20th January, Emma Booth from Fotonow will give an introduction to the film and talk about Fotonow’s socially engaged approach to photography. Book tickets here. Fotonow will also run a guided photography walk exploring Plymouth in the afternoon. Click here for more ... Continue Reading

Balanced somewhere between a “gothic love story” and horror, according to its director, Saltburn is a film with serious pedigree. Loosely based on the family featured in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, this later-generation story begins in 2006, and owes as much to cinematic references as Waugh’s examination of Britain’s class structure: think Kubrick’s chancing hero Barry Lyndon meets The Talented Mr Ripley. Director Emerald Fennell uses her own experiences to depict life at an Oxford college. A scholarship boy, Oliver Quick (played by Barry Keoghan), arrives at the university, very much a fish out of water. His first introduction to the ... Continue Reading

A project of time and reflection, The Nettle Dress records a seven-year mission by textile artist, Allan Brown, to make a garment entirely from wild nettles. Filmed by Dylan Howitt, Allan explains the painstaking process of collecting, threading and weaving nettles into fabric, while recounting his first encounter with the prickly plant. He remembers falling into a bush of nettles as a kid, and the sensation of being stung left an impression that ran deeper than the initial burn. The film follows Allan into his local woods as the artist seeks more materials to work with. Nettles, of course, are everywhere. “They ... Continue Reading

Trying to pin down the chaotic, surrealist world of Salvador Dali, Daliland is a biopic that doesn’t lack ambition. Directed by Mary Harron and scripted by John Walsh, this film explores the last decade of the artist’s life.  We enter Daliland from the perspective of gallery assistant, James (played by Christopher Briney). It is New York,1974, and his boss has asked him to deliver a suitcase stuffed with money to the St. Regent Hotel. This money is for Gala, Dali’s wife. A fearsome, intimidating presence, and in charge of ... Continue Reading

A pitch-perfect satire, celebrating the proudly insular world of musical theatre, mockumentary Theater Camp chronicles life at a kids’ performing arts retreat. The film starts at the camp’s final performance of the season, and gives us the drama with an early narrative twist. As we follow camp founder Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris), working the audience for donations, she suddenly becomes not the lead, but the background. Sitting down to enjoy a particularly jazzy, strobe-lighted performance, Joan is hospitalised by a seizure, which leaves her in a coma. Her son Troy (Jimmy Tatro) is given the reins for the next ... Continue Reading