Award Winning Independent Cinema

Reviled (or revered) as the Bad Boy of Italian Art, Caravaggio’s reputation seems to be unassailable. The bravura artist that deployed chiaroscuro to bring a cinematic flair to religious iconography, his fan base extends far beyond the art world. The director Martin Scorsese remarked on his ability to craft a scene from light and dark. In taking a deep dive into Caravaggio’s life and work (the two are deeply connected), the problem is not how to convey what we already know of the artist, it’s approaching him from a fresh perspective. For their ... Continue Reading

When it comes to making the transition from page to screen, there are few novels that can rival the track record of Jane Austen’s 1813 classic, Pride and Prejudice. The book’s blend of romance and comedy has proved an irresistible combination, with film and television adaptations appearing regularly over the decades, although they vary wildly in tone and attitude. We have Greer Garson’s frothy, morale-boosting comedy from 1940. It gets the lilt of Jane Austen’s humour, but purists scoff at the wardrobe choices, which leapfrog straight over the Georgian period and into the Victorian ... Continue Reading

It’s hard, from our perspective, to imagine a time when Impressionism wasn’t popular. It’s not only popular but ubiquitous. Images of sunlit meadows, leisurely riverbanks and ornate gardens have become artistic shorthand. Even if we think we know nothing about art, identifying a Monet would be easy enough. In their latest film, the Exhibition on Screen team take up the challenge of taking us back to the roots, and the inauspicious beginnings, of Impressionism itself. Dawn of Impressionism: Paris 1874 starts in a familiar place. We are watching an art auction take place. Impressionist paintings are selling for eye-watering sums. You ... Continue Reading

With a career spanning three decades, actor Ralph Fiennes has just received his third Oscar nomination. His role in Edward Berger’s ecclesiastical hit Conclave has impressed critics and audiences, and the nominations have been quick to follow. We may still think of Fiennes’ career high point as being the late 1990’s: Schindler’s List in 1994 and The English Patient in 1997 are still the films he is best known for, if we don’t count the recurring role of Voldemort in a certain franchise. But if we ... Continue Reading

At the age of 75, director Pedro Almodovar is still breaking new ground. In The Room Next Door, we have his first full-length feature in English. Taking its lead from Sigrid Nunez’s novel, What Are You Going Through, the film sees two friends reunite after years apart.  Ingrid (played by Julianne Moore) is a writer living in New York. During a book signing, she bumps into a friend who mentions that their mutual acquaintance, war correspondent Martha (Tilda Swinton), is dying from cervical cancer. Ingrid goes to the hospital, and after a few visits, Martha asks Ingrid if she ... Continue Reading

In approaching the reputation and legacy of modernist painter, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, film-maker Mark Cousins makes it clear that conventional story-telling will not do. A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things is a textural, emotive documentary of an artist he calls – and with good reason – a “forgotten visionary”. Born in 1912, Barns-Graham lived and worked in St. Ives at the same time as Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, but her name threatened to disappear entirely in the later 20th century. While her early career saw success: her work was regularly exhibited in the 1950’s; the ... Continue Reading