Plymouth Arts Cinema May Programme
Where to find Plymouth Arts Cinema
You can find Plymouth Arts Cinema inside Arts University Plymouth’s main campus at Tavistock Place. Go through Arts University Plymouth’s main entrance and turn right, you will face their Box Office and Café-Bar.
Opening times and how to Book
The Box Office and Café-bar open Tuesday, Thursday and Friday: 5-8.30pm; Wednesday: 1-8.30pm; Saturday: 1-8pm). You can call Box Office during these times: 01752 206114.
Standard £9.00 | Matinees £7.00 | Bringing in Baby £4 | Over 60s £7.75 | 25 & Under, Students, AUP Staff, Unwaged and low income £4 | Friends 10% discount and £6 on Tuesdays. Please bring relevant ID if you are eligible for a discount.
Fnd out more on the Plymouth Arts Cinema website.
We have added extra captioned screenings to this programme for Deaf Awareness Week 1-7 May.
The Night of the 12th (15)
Friday 28 April – Thursday 4 May
Fri 28, 6pm
Sat 29, 8pm
Tue 2, 6pm
Wed 3, 2.30pm (Captioned Screening) & 8.30pm
Thu 4, 6pm
Dir. Dominik Moll, France, 2022, 113 mins, French with English subtitles. Cast. Bastien Bouillon, Bouli Lanners, Theo Cholbi.
Winner of six César awards, this is a deeply arresting and powerful crime thriller from acclaimed French director Dominik Moll. Detective Yohan Vivès has just taken over as head of the detective bureau of a local police department when he is assigned to the chilling murder of a young woman in her quiet mountain village. What starts as a meticulous investigation into the victim’s life soon turns into a haunting obsession for Yohan and his team as the killer remains at large.
Infinity Pool (18)
Friday 28 April – Thursday 4 May
Fri 28, 8.30pm
Sat 29, 5.30pm
Tue 2, 8.30pm
Wed 3, 6pm
Thu 4, 8.30pm (Captioned Screening)
Dir. Brandon Cronenberg, Canada, 2023, 118 mins. Cast. Alexander Skarsgard, Mia Goth, Cleopatra Coleman.
Brandon Cronenberg returns with a satirical look at the super-rich and the morality of getting away with crimes against humanity. While staying at an isolated island resort, James and Em are enjoying a perfect holiday of pristine beaches, exceptional staff, and soaking up the sun. But, guided by the seductive and mysterious Gabi, they venture outside the resort grounds and find themselves in a culture filled with violence, hedonism, and untold horror. When a tragic crime occurs, they uncover an unwritten punishment for the deed: either you’ll be executed, or (if you’re rich enough to afford it) you can watch yourself die instead.
Relaxed Screening: Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (PG)
Programmer’s Pick | MUBI GO
Saturday 29 April, 2.30pm
Dir. Pawo Choyning Dorji, Bhutan/China, 2019, 109 mins, subtitled. Cast. Sherab Dorji, Ugyen Norbu Lhendup, Kelden Lhamo Gurung.
Bhutan’s first-ever Oscar® nominee for Best International Feature is an enchanting comedy-drama about a daydreaming (but discontented) young teacher who is posted to a remote school in the country’s picturesque Himalayan highlands.
Ugyen is a disillusioned teacher whose dreams of making it big in Australia as a singer are cut short when he is reassigned to a school in the village of Lunana. There, he finds the yak herding community lacking basic amenities such as electricity or even a blackboard but Ugyen is presented with the chance for a new connection to music, and an unexpected sense of purpose within the community’s embrace.
Shot in staggeringly beautiful locations, balancing gentle humour with life-affirming drama, and performed with easy appeal by largely first-time actors, it’s an irresistibly uplifting tale about the power of a new environment to effect personal transformation.
A Clever Woman (15)
Friday 5 – Thursday 11 May
Fri 5, 6pm
Sat 6, 2.30pm & 8pm
Tue 9, 8.30pm
Wed 10, 6pm
Thu 11, 8.30pm
Dir. Jon Sanders, UK, 2022, 88 mins. Cast. Josie Lawrence, Tanya Myers, James Northcote, Anna Mottram.
Sisters and performance artists Phoebe and Dot have returned to their family home on the Isle of Wight a year after the death of their composer mother. As they prepare the house for its sale, clearing decades of family clutter, they have started to work on a site-specific performance piece about their complex relationship with their mother and her serial infidelities; this incorporates her compositions for pianola and songs using the poems of Mary Coleridge, one of which, ‘A Clever Woman’, gives the film its title. Over one day, they are forced to engage with the ghosts of the past and the void left behind.
Beguiling and free-spirited, Jon Sanders and Anna Mottram’s uplifting film explores family bonds and the process of mourning.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (12A)
Friday 5 – Thursday 11 May
Fri 5, 8.30pm
Sat 6, 5.30pm (Captioned Screening)
Tue 9, 6pm
Wed 10, 2.30pm & 8.30pm
Thu 11, 6pm
Dir. Hettie Macdonald, UK, 2023, 108 mins. Cast. Jim Broadbent, Penelope Wilton, Monika Gossman, Linda Bassett.
Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton star in film, TV and theatre director Hettie Macdonald’s (Beautiful Thing, White Girl, TV’s Normal People) adaptation of Rachel Joyce’s best-selling, award-winning 2012 novel The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.
South Devon: A seemingly unremarkable man, Harold (Broadbent) has made mistakes with all the important things: being a husband, a father and a friend. Well into his 60s, he is now content to fade quietly into the background. But when he learns his old friend Queenie (Linda Bassett) is unwell, he walks to his local post office to send her a letter, and out of the blue, decides to keep walking – all the way to her hospice, 450 miles away in Berwick-upon-Tweed, and much to the despair of his wife Maureen (Wilton), who’s left reeling at home.
Shot sequentially and entirely on location across the UK, from Devon to Northumberland, The Unlikely Pilgrimage… follows Harold as he reconsiders his troubled past, comes into life-changing contact with strangers and engages with the restorative natural world, and promises to be a poignant, philosophical film about the continued potential for redemption and renewal in later life.
Trigger warning: suicide.
Love According to Dalva (15)
F-Rated
Friday 12 – Wednesday 17 May
Fri 12, 6pm
Tue 16, 8.30pm
Wed 17, 8.30pm
Dir. Emmanuelle Nicot, France/Belgium, 2022, 87 mins, French with English subtitles. Cast. Zelda Samson, Alexis Manenti, Fanta Guirassy.
Dalva lives alone with her father. She’s only 12 years old and baby-faced, but wears grown-up clothes and heavy make-up, with her hair scraped into a bun. When the police storm into their home and take Dalva into care, her whole world view shifts. Befriending her new roommate Samia and looked after by kindly social worker Jayden she gradually comes to understand that the relationship she shared with her father was not what she believed it to be. With their help, she begins to learn how to be a child again.
In her poignant feature debut, director Emmanuelle Nicot explores the ramifications of childhood sexual abuse with sensitivity and grace, rejecting a sensationalised depiction of trauma and examining the complexity of coercive, controlling parental relationships in detail. It’s strengthened by a luminous performance from Samson, who fully expresses Dalva’s bewilderment and brings us inside her turbulent emotional journey with honesty and insight.
Polite Society
F-Rated | Programmer’s Pick
Friday 12 – Thursday 18 May
Fri 12, 8.30pm
Sat 13, 8pm
Wed 17, 11am (Bringing in Baby), 2.30pm & 6pm (Captioned Screening)
Thu 18, 8.30pm
Dir. Nida Mansoor, UK, 2023, 105 mins. Cast. Ritu Arya, Priya Kansara, Nimra Bucha, Shobu Kapoor.
16-year-old Ria Khan is an aspiring stuntwoman living in London with her family. Loyal to her older sister Lena, she’s aghast when Lena becomes engaged to surgeon Salim – the charming, wealthy scion of the prominent Shah family. 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.
From the creators of We Are Lady Parts, the smash-hit Channel 4 comedy, this film is dynamic, energetic and wickedly funny. An action comedy, martial arts, Bollywood extravaganza.
Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power (18)
F-Rated | Programmer’s Pick
Saturday 13 – Thursday 18 May
Sat 13, 5.30pm
Thu 18, 6pm
Dir. Nina Menkes, US, 2022, 108 mins. With. Rhiannon Aarons, Kathleen Antonia, Rosanna Arquette.
Screening as part of the Cine Sisters SW film festival. Nina Menkes’ compelling new documentary is a mesmerising visual journey through cinema’s sexist bloodstream, investigating the use of gendered techniques in filmmaking and how these impact the representation of women in society.
A deep dive into cinema history, using more than 175 film clips from Hollywood favourites and cult classics, from 1896 through to the present, as well as interviews with filmmakers and scholars, Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power reveals a sinister framework of misogyny and paternalism that, from early cinema to the present day, infiltrates some of our best loved films.
Cine Sisters SW Film Festival
Saturday 13 May, 11.30am
Cine Sisters SW are pleased to present their inaugural short film festival championing the innovative work of womxn working within the boundaries of filmmaking within Devon, Cornwall and the South West.
Cine Sisters SW are a collective of womxn working in film and living in Devon & Cornwall. They launched in September 2020 with the aim of developing a network that provides inspiration and support to its members to create projects on a wide range of platforms.
Tree Festival Screening
Tuesday 16 May, 6pm
Part of a national event celebrating the importance of urban trees. Film to be announced.
How to Blow up a Pipeline (15)
MUBI GO
Friday 19 – Wednesday 24 May
Fri 19, 6pm
Sat 20, 2.30pm & 8pm
Tue 23, 6pm
Wed 24, 8.30pm
Dir. Daniel Goldhaber, US, 2023, 103 mins. Cast. Lukas Gage, Sasha Lane, Ariela Barer, Marcus Scribner.
Featuring a tremendous ensemble cast, How to Blow Up a Pipeline follows a crew of young activists who plan a mission to sabotage an oil pipeline. With their daredevil plan in motion, each character’s motivations are revealed via flashbacks as the film barrels towards its explosive climax, in a timely and vital call to arms. Inspired by Andreas Malm’s book of the same name, director Daniel Goldhaber spins a tense and taut thriller that is part heist movie, part exploration of the climate crisis.
Plan 75 (15)
F-Rated | Programmer’s Pick
Friday 19 – Thursday 25 May
Fri 19, 8.30pm
Sat 20, 5.30pm
Tue 23, 8.30pm
Wed 24, 2.30pm & 6pm
Thu 25, 8.30pm
Dir. Chie Hayakawa, Japan/Philippines, 2022, 113 mins, subtitled. Cast. Chieko Baisho, Hayato Isomura, Stefanie Arianne. Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Japan’s submission for this year’s Oscars, is set in a chilling, near future in which the country has gone to extreme lengths to manage its ageing population and consequent economic distress.
‘Plan 75’ is the government’s new programme, in which citizens aged 75+ are invited to be voluntarily euthanised, receiving a small payment for their (self) sacrifice, but there’s mission creep afoot, as within 10 years, people 65 and over will become eligible for the opportunity too.
Recalling films like Never Let Me Go and Children of Men in its uncanny grounding of a disquieting dystopian vision in an otherwise recognisable world, Plan 75 is both a provocative critique of a society so in thrall to market forces it loses its humanity, and a beautifully tender yet unsentimental character study.
Exhibition on Screen – Tokyo Stories
Thursday 25 May, 6pm
Season Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqcXicjs8Tg
Dir. David Bickerstaff, 90 mins.
Based on a major exhibition at the Ashmolean in Oxford, Tokyo Stories spans 400 years of incredibly dynamic art – ranging from the delicate woodblock prints of Hokusai and Hiroshige, to Pop Art posters, contemporary photography, Manga, film, and brand-new artworks that were created on the streets.
The exhibition was a smash-hit five-star success and brought a younger and more diverse audience to the museum. The film uses the exhibition as a launchpad to travel to Tokyo itself, and explore the art and artists of the city more fully.
A beautifully illustrated and richly detailed film, looking at a city which has undergone constant destruction and renewal over its 400-year history, resulting in one of the most vibrant and interesting cities on the planet…
This film tells the stories of the artists and people who have made Tokyo famous for its boundless drive for the new and innovative.
“Tokyo has a powerful engine that just doesn’t stop. There is an energy, a particular floating power in Tokyo. Whatever happens, this city gets rebuilt again and continues to move forwards.” – Machida Kumi
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (PG)
F-Rated
Friday 26 May – Thursday 1 June
Fri 26, 5.45pm
Sat 27, 2.30pm (Relaxed and Captioned Screening) & 8pm
Tue 30, 6pm
Wed 31, 2.30pm & 8.30pm
Thu 1, 8.30pm
Dir. Kelly Fremon Craig, US, 2023, 106 mins. Cast. Rachel McAdams, Abby Ryder Fortson, Kathy Bates, Benny Safdie.
Based on the best-selling book by Judy Blume, 11-year-old Margaret is uprooted from her life in New York City for the suburbs of New Jersey, and contemplates everything about life, friendship, and adolescence. She relies on her mother, Barbara, who is also struggling to adjust to life outside the big city, and her adoring grandmother, Sylvia, who isn’t happy they moved away. A compelling, big-hearted, frank and funny adaptation of one of Blume’s most successful (and most often banned) books that should appeal to both newcomers to her work and nostalgic readers alike.
I Get Knocked Down with Intro + Q&A from Director Dunstan Bruce (15)
Friday 26 May, 8pm
Dir. Dunstan Bruce, Sophie Robinson, UK, 87 mins. Join us after the film for a live Q&A with Dunstan Bruce.
I Get Knocked Down is the untold story of Leeds-based anarcho-pop band Chumbawamba. Founding band-member Dunstan Bruce is 59, and he is struggling with the fact that the world seems to be going to hell in a handcart. Twenty years after his fall from grace, Bruce is angry and frustrated, but how does a retired middle-aged radical get back up again?
In this punk version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Dunstan is visited by the antagonistic ghost of his anarchist past, his alter ego, ‘Babyhead’, who forces him to question his own life, sending him on a search for his long-lost anarchist mojo. Following Bruce’s personal voyage of rediscovery, redemption, and reawakening, I Get Knocked Down acts as a call to arms to those who think activism is best undertaken by someone else.
Vive la France! French film and music evening
Join us for a special evening on Saturday 3 June as we celebrate French cinema and music with a one-off screening of beloved classic Amélie followed by a live music performance taking us on a journey into 100 years of French music from Offenbach to Gainsbourg.
Dress up for the occasion, the band will give away a CD for the best costume or outfit.
5pm: Amélie
8pm: A Journey into French Music
Amélie (15)
Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France, 2001, 117 mins, subtitled. Cast. Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Jamel Debbouze. Language: French with English subtitles
Bursting with imagination and having seen her fair share of tragedy and fantasy, Amélie is not like any other girl. As she grows up, she becomes a waitress in a Montmartre bar. One day, she discovers that her goal in life is to fix up other people’s troubles by influencing their destinies.
Possibly the most beautiful, fanciful, funny poem to unrequited love and to Paris ever made, Amélie is whimsical and wonderful but also has a rich seam of melancholy to counter the sweetness.
A Journey into French Music
Runtime: 2 sets of 45 mins with a 30 min interval.
Parisian born Fifi la Mer and Oliver Wilby present a unique, brand-new show that will take you on a journey through 100 years of French music, from Offenbach to Gainsbourg. The show features the dulcet tones of Fifi on accordion and voice, and the talents of Oliver on clarinet, members of the saxophone family, and accordion. Together they will transport you to “the city of lights” with their repertoire of musical gems, and along the way you will get to enjoy tales of mystery, romance, and heartache that we so often associate with Paris.