Lots more about the festival can be found on our social media - check them out
We have a really great bunch of volunteers; if you love film and want to join us, please get in touch. We are especially looking for anyone who might be good on the technical side of screening films, we also need social media enthusiasts who can help promote the festival, as well as anyone interested in film who can help setting up events (lots of lifting and carrying) and working at front of house (looking after and making events enjoyable for filmgoers).
Welcome back to the Cinema. Enough of streaming and the gogglebox, time to see a great
film on a big screen with an audience.
This is a slimmed down festival for 2021 but we will also be screening on the last Sunday
of the month, delivering a Christmas package, welcoming the return of the Langsett Short
Film Festival in the New Year and a long weekend 11-13 March 2022 centred on Climate
Change. A special thanks to our funders Film Hub North for making this possible.
Here are what we think where the best films of the last year from around the world.
Hope you find enjoyment and inspiration at the Festival.
Stephen Dorril, Festival Director
Festival Films for Sunday 31 October 2021
Following the economic collapse of a company town in rural Nevada, Fern ( the wonderful Frances McDormand) packs her van and sets off on the road to a new life. Based on Jessica Bruder’s non-fiction book, this Oscar-laden film mixes both actors and real people
Dir. Chloe Zhao (USA 2020, 108mins 12)
Festival Films for Monday 1 November 2021
Heartbreaking and deadpan funny, this is an excellent British independent about a young Syrian musician and other refugees seeking asylum on a remote and unforgiving Scottish island.
Dir. Ben Sharrock (UK 2020, 103mins 12)
Festival Films for Tuesday 2 November 2021
An introduction to the new Café Europe group in the Holme Valley. The first Remainer film is a droll take on Jacques Tati as a recent divorcé tootles down through France in a Fiat 500 meeting oddballs and adventures on the way. One of the best British films of the year. Wonderful
Dir. John Paul-Davidson & Stephen Warbeck (UK 2020, 95mins 12)
SCREENING AT HOLMFIRTH TECH
Festival Films for Wednesday 3 November 2021
With the current debate on male violence against women very much in view, a chance to see a brilliantly acted and totally gripping, stunning, tension-filled debut about a marriage made in hell and a wife seeking custody of their child.
Dir. Xavier Legrand (France 2019, 93mins 15)
Festival Films for Thursday 4 November 2021
THIS IS A FREE EVENT - IN ORDER TO ENSURE ENTRY (SEATING IS LIMITED) PLEASE REGISTER BY CLICKING ON 'BUY TICKETS ONLINE' OR PICK UP A TICKET FROM OXFAM BOOKSHOP, HUDDERSFIELD RD, HOLMFIRTH
In tribute to local photographer and film-maker, John Murray
John Murray was a stalwart of the Honley community. Less well-known was that he was a photographer on the great photojournalism magazine, Picture Post. West’s new documentary on this unique chronicle of Britain is brought to life with interviews and brilliant photographs.
Dir. Rob West (UK 2021, 90mins U)
Festival Films for Friday 5 November 2021
Highlighting the obstacles and successes in the career from Paris to Hollywood of the first female film-maker and one of the first directors to make a narrative film. Wonderful images and clips brought back to life by the detective work of Green in an outstanding documentary
Dir. Pamela B. Green (USA 2019, 103mins U)
Based on the bestselling book by Naoki Higashida, this is a remarkable, beautiful and powerful documentary about the lives of non-speaking autistic people which uses immersive cinematic language and visuals to simulate their sensory experiences. A game-changing film.
Dir. Jerry Rothwell (USA 2021, 82mins 12)
THIS IS A FREE EVENT - IN ORDER TO ENSURE ENTRY (SEATING IS LIMITED) PLEASE REGISTER BY CLICKING ON 'BUY TICKETS ONLINE' OR PICK UP A TICKET FROM OXFAM BOOKSHOP, HUDDERSFIELD RD, HOLMFIRTH
Wonderful performance from Mads Mikkelsen in a superbly directed Oscar winning drama comedy as one of four disillusioned schoolteachers who test out their tolerance for alcohol in a drinking experiment that initially boosts their passion for life but then…
Dir. Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark 2020, 117mins 15)
Jasnic Djurcic, who should have won the best actress Oscar, is utterly convincing as the English teacher and translator, who strives to save her husband and children from the invading Serbian forces and the coming Srebrenica massacre by taking refuge in a United Nations camp. An astonishing film.
Dir. Jasmila Zbanic (Bosnia, Austria 2021, 101mins 15)
The feel-good film of the year. Based on the true story of the racehorse bought by a small-town Welsh bartender that goes on to take on the racing elites. Warm, funny, inspiring and hugely enjoyable
Dir. Euros Lyn (UK 2021, 102mins 12)
Festival Films for Saturday 6 November 2021
Visually stunning puppet animation film about mortal enemies, a boastful little mouse and a reticent fox who meet in animal heaven after an accident.
A FREE EVENT - a free sweet bag for every child. (Children to be accompanied by a parent/responsible adult please.)
Dir. Jan Bubenicek & Denisa Grimmova (Czech Republic 2021, 80mins U)
THIS IS A FREE EVENT - IN ORDER TO ENSURE ENTRY (SEATING IS LIMITED) PLEASE REGISTER BY CLICKING ON 'BUY TICKETS ONLINE' OR PICK UP A TICKET FROM OXFAM BOOKSHOP, HUDDERSFIELD RD, HOLMFIRTH
Film and Talk with author Michael Stewart
Michael talks about his excellent new book, Walking the Invisible, a guide to the walks and nature of the Bronte sisters, and introduces Bunuel’s rarely-seen take on the Bronte classic, relocated to 19th century Mexico where inflamed passions and psychosexual sadism run wild
Dir. Luis Bunuel (Mexico 1954, 90mins 12)
THIS IS A FREE EVENT - IN ORDER TO ENSURE ENTRY (SEATING IS LIMITED) PLEASE REGISTER BY CLICKING ON 'BUY TICKETS ONLINE' OR PICK UP A TICKET FROM OXFAM BOOKSHOP, HUDDERSFIELD RD, HOLMFIRTH
Multi-award winning period romance film of the love between a female painter and an affluent countess, who has commissioned a wedding portrait. It needs a big screen to fully display its sumptuous filming which is scintillating and sensual.
Dir. Celine Sciamma (France 2020, 122mins 15)
Everyone’s favourite Scandi actor, Mads Mikkelsen delivers another sensational performance in this hugely entertaining and very different revenge thriller that has very dark comical overtones
Dir. Anders Thomas Jensen (Denmark 2021, 112mins 15)
A chance to see the original Oscar laden popular musical classic before Spielberg’s version arrives at the end of the year. All that singing, memorable songs, flash dancing as Tony and Maria struggle with life among the gangs of New York. ‘I once met a girl named Maria...’
Dir. Jerome Robbins & Robert Wise (USA 1961, 153mins 12)
A recent award-winning European film that we consider to be one of the best of the year.
THIS IS A FREE EVENT - IN ORDER TO ENSURE ENTRY (SEATING IS LIMITED) PLEASE REGISTER BY CLICKING ON 'BUY TICKETS ONLINE' OR PICK UP A TICKET FROM OXFAM BOOKSHOP, HUDDERSFIELD RD, HOLMFIRTH
Anthony Hopkins fully deserved the Oscar for best actor as a man suffering from dementia. Cleverly directed, Zeller finds a way to open up the play on which it was based to show the devastating consequences of memory loss. Excellent support from Olivia Colman in a film of the year
Dir. Florian Zeller (UK 2021, 97mins 12)
Festival Films for Sunday 7 November 2021
Remastered and re-released Mirror is now in the top ten of Sight and Sound’s greatest films ever made and has become a major influence on today’s directors. Tarkovsky’s autobiographical film is a collage of stunning images that merge into something deeply emotional.
Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky (Russia 1975, 108mins 12)
THIS IS A FREE EVENT - IN ORDER TO ENSURE ENTRY (SEATING IS LIMITED) PLEASE REGISTER BY CLICKING ON 'BUY TICKETS ONLINE' OR PICK UP A TICKET FROM OXFAM BOOKSHOP, HUDDERSFIELD RD, HOLMFIRTH
Epic in scope, anger burns through the screen in this devastating and brilliant historical true story of what happened in 1962, and what was hidden for decades, when rebellious workers went on strike in Novocherkassk over rising food prices. A Soviet State massacre followed.
Dir. Andrei Konchalovsky (Russia 2020, 121mins 15)
A film that didn’t get a full release in the UK but is a must-see. Daniel Auteuil gives another great performance in a joyous time-travel trip to the 1970s where fantasy and reality blur in a cinematic triumph, and also reveals the artificial and manipulative nature of movies.
Dir. Nicolas Bedos (France 2019, 115mins 12)
With recent French headlines revealing that 330,000 children were abused by the Catholic Church, this deeply impressive and beautifully acted film is entirely timely. Simmering with anger it is the true story of a man who discovers that the priest who abused him as a boy scout is still working in the Church.
Dir. Francois Ozon (France 2019, 127mins 12)
Introduced by the film's Director, followed by discussion.
Former Northern Ireland Senior Information Officer, Colin Wallace, is the UK’s most important whistleblower about military and intelligence affairs during the mid-seventies Troubles. Oswald does an excellent job of detailing Wallace’s extraordinary story – the scandals, State cover-ups, wrongful imprisonment, the decades of search for truth
Dir. Michael Oswald (UK 2021, 70mins 12)
THIS IS A FREE EVENT - IN ORDER TO ENSURE ENTRY (SEATING IS LIMITED) PLEASE REGISTER BY CLICKING ON 'BUY TICKETS ONLINE' OR PICK UP A TICKET FROM OXFAM BOOKSHOP, HUDDERSFIELD RD, HOLMFIRTH
Great Holmfirth stuff here:
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