Ditchling Film Society

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (12A)
2024-07-11 20:00 - 21:30 (Europe/London) | Ditchling Village Hall, 18 Lewes Road, Ditchling, Hassocks, East Sussex, BN6 8TT, United Kingdom
This is a simple but heartwarming story of an ordinary and unassuming elderly man who walks to his local postbox to post a letter to his old friend Queenie, who is dying. But instead he walks the length of Britain to deliver the letter to her in person before she dies. It is a lovely exploration of an ordinary man who passes life on the sidelines until he decides to do something extraordinary. On the way he encounters many people from all backgrounds and walks of life who encourage him in his unlikely pilgrimage.

Starring Jim Broadbent as Harold Fry. Based on the novel by Rachel Joyce.

(2023). 93 mins. English. Director Hettie Macdonald

Past Lives (12A)
2024-06-06 20:00 - 22:00
A spine-tingling romance of lost chances.

Two childhood sweethearts are wrested apart when Nora is uprooted from Korea to America. Two decades later they are united for one fateful week as they confront destiny , love and the choices that make a life. An achingly effective love story and rare emotionally mature adult film.

(2023).106 mins. Drama. English/Korean subtitles. Dir Celine Song.

Bergman Island (15)
2024-05-09 20:00 - 22:00
A gentle, deep drama about two filmmakers, Chris, who is in a relationship with an older man, and Tony, well-known with a big fan base. They go on a working retreat to the island that inspired Ingmar Bergman. While there, Chris wonders whether society would ever allow her to have 9 children from 6 different partners, as Bergman had and shares it as a film idea with Tony.

We begin to see her film as she sees it, with her imaginary actors playing out her script. A film within a film emerges. Tony just wants to go on a Bergman “safari” and be feted by adoring younger fans. Reality and fiction start to blur as tensions increase in the relationship between them. It is a film that gently pokes fun at the great film director, while allowing women to drive the story.

(2021). 112 mins. Swedish (English subtitles). Director Mia Hansen-Love

The Banshees of Inisherin (15)
2024-04-04 20:00 - 22:00
Tragedy and comedy are paired in this end-of-friendship movie which is at times funny, horrifying and heartbreaking. Two men meet every lunchtime for a drink on this small remote Irish village in the 1920s – Padraic, a simple soul and dairy farmer, and his best friend Colm, a thinker and a fiddle-player. They lead uneventful lives until one day Colm no longer wants to see Padraic. Padraic asks his sister why Colm wouldn’t open the door to him and gets the reply ‘Perhaps he just doesn’t like you no more’ – a joke that soon turns out to be horribly true. This film reunites Brian Gleeson and Colin Farrell of In Bruges fame.

(2022) 114 mins. Golden globe winner. Drama some violence, strong language. English Director Martin McDonagh (of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri fame).

Return to Seoul (15)
2024-03-07 20:00 - 22:00
An absorbing and emotional film about adoption, loneliness, a search for identity and the meaning of existence. A 25 year-old French woman returns to Korea, where she was born before being adopted by a French couple, to try to track down her biological parents. During the search, set over an 8 year period, she meets her birth father, moves to Korea, emotionally misuses those who want to get close and begins to discover some aspects of her birth mother, which lead her to question where some of her own cruel behaviours come from. The film explores what makes us who we are, how much is upbringing, how much is genetic? It is sad and yet gripping storytelling.

(2022). 119 mins. English subtitles. Director David Chou. Korean

Saint Maud (15)
2024-02-01 20:00 - 21:30
In her directorial debut Rose Glass has created a very well-crafted horror film; a psychodrama with astute character observation and strong performances by Morfydd Clark and Jennifer Anne Ehle. The film earned a record seventeen nominations at the British Independent Film Awards 2020. Film critic Mark Kermode listed it as his favourite film of 2020, calling it an “electrifying debut”.

At its centre is a troubled young woman, Katie. She is a palliative nurse. We learn something of her own past trauma and find a woman who believes she is guided by God to save her clients’ soul.

(2019) 84 mins. Horror, This film contains sexual and violent scenes. English. Director Rose Glass.

Barbie - The Movie (12A)
2024-01-11 20:00 - 22:00
Yes! It’s about Barbie the Mattel doll! A riotously entertaining candy-coloured confection that manages simultaneously to celebrate, satirise and deconstruct its (apparently) happy-plastic subject.

Some call it a feminist fable and it definitely plays on stereotypes, both male and female. You will recognise them! It’s very pink. It’s very funny. And you know there’s some quite serious stuff in there as well.

(2023) 114 mins. English. Dir Greta Gerwig

Licorice Pizza (15)
2023-12-07 20:00 - 22:15
With audacity and insight, the filmmaker fuses a comedic romp of romance and self-discovery with a sharp debunking of classic Hollywood myths and heroes.

Set in the San Fernando Valley in the 1970’s it is a partly autobiographical , pugnaciously romantic coming of age story for a teenage actor and a hectic trip of self-discovery for a twentysomething dreamer.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson. (2021).

English

Doors open from 7:30pm for wine and soft drinks.

Annual membership £50 (11 films).

The Farewell (12A)
2023-11-02 20:00 - 21:40
A Chinese-American film that captures the push and pull between the bonds of blood and the ties of culture as they are explored with a light touch and a perceptive eye in this family story. A hastily convened wedding provides the cover story to bring the extended American- living family back to China to say farewell to their elderly matriarch who is the only one not to know she is terminally ill. A film about balance, a yin and yang of roots and identities, humour and pathos that comes together in a bittersweet drama. Director Lulu Wang. (2019).

English, Japanese, Mandarin.

Doors open from 7:30pm for wine and soft drinks.

Annual membership £50 (11 films).

Pina (PG)
2023-10-05 20:00 - 21:50
Pina is a documentary about German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch. Directed by Wim Wenders.

With Pina’s sudden death during filming of the documentary Wenders cancelled the production, but the other dancers of Tanztheater Wuppertal convinced him to go ahead with the film.

Bausch was a leading exponent of “dance theatre” and this documentary shows her legendary approach to choreography and to her dancers. The dancers talk about Pina and perform some of her best-known pieces inside the Tanztheater Wuppertal. Wenders also filmed the dancers’ personal tributes to her in locations around Wuppertal bringing together dance, cinematography and the most fabulous music.

German. This is the 2D version.

Doors open from 7:30pm for wine and soft drinks.

Annual membership £50 (11 films).

Aftersun (12A)
2023-09-07 20:00 - 21:40
This extraordinary debut by director Charlotte Wells tells the poignant story of a father-daughter relationship . Understated, deceptively simple it is a tale of memory, love and loss. Featuring Paul Mescal and newcomer Frankie Corio it is about a holiday for a recently divorced father and his eleven year old daughter in Turkey that is a summer break but also a kind of farewell. (2022)

English.

Doors open from 7:30pm for wine and soft drinks.

Annual membership £50 (11 films).

Hit the Road (12A)
2023-07-06 20:00 - 21:40
An Iranian family (including ailing dog) travel in their car through remote northwest Iran towards the Turkish border. Funny and devastating with a strong political message. The father of this first-time director is in prison for criticizing the Iranian government and the film was made covertly. (2021)

Farsi

Doors open from 7:30 pm for wine and soft drinks.

Annual membership £50 (11 films).

Utama (12A)
2023-06-01 20:00 - 21:30
An elderly Quechuan couple living in the highlands of Bolivia have a quiet tranquil life for years until a drought changes it. Genuine poignancy and stunning visuals. (2022)

Spanish

Doors open from 7:30pm for wine and soft drinks.

Annual membership £50 (11 films).

Limbo (PG)
2023-05-18 20:00 - 21:45
Explores the lives of four asylum seekers who are staying on a remote island in Scotland, including young oud-playing new arrival as they attend cultural awareness classes. Cannes film festival selection and nominated for several awards. (2020)

English

Doors open from 7:30pm for wine and soft drinks.

Annual membership £50 (11 films).

The Duke (12A)
2023-04-06 20:00 - 21:40
The final film of director Roger Michell stars the British character actor Jim Broadbent as the funny, scheming miscreant who believes crime is justified if it serves a greater purpose when he steals Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington. A sweet natured and genial comedy. (2020)

English

Doors open from 7:30pm for wine and soft drinks.

Annual membership £50 (11 films).

The Quiet Girl (12A)
2023-03-02 20:00 - 21:40
A young girl from a dysfunctional family in rural Ireland is sent to live with a distant relative and discovers a new way of living.(2022).

Irish

£50 for season membership of all 11 films during 2023.

Doors open from 7:30pm for wine and soft drinks.

Olga (15)
2023-02-02 20:00 - 21:30
Talented Ukrainian gymnast exiled to Switzerland dreams of OlympicGold. Given fierce new focus by the war now. (2021)

February will mark the 1 year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Ditchling FIlm Society are offering free tickets to this film for local Ukranian refugees and their host families. Please contact info@ditchlingfilm.org.uk

Ukrainian

Doors open from 7:30pm for wine and soft drinks.

Season membership £50 for all 11 films during 2023.

Belfast (12A)
2023-01-12 20:00 - 21:45
Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical film as a young boy in sixties Belfast as tensions grow and violence kicks off. (2021).English

Doors open from 7:30pm for wine and soft drinks.

Annual membership is £50 for all 11 films in the 2023 season.

Love Actually (15)
2022-12-01 19:15 - 22:15
Mince pies and mulled wine from 7:15, film starts at 8pm.

The ultimate romantic comedy:
From the makers of Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary comes this blockbuster film including a fantastic all-star cast and an outstanding soundtrack.
The hilarious Love Actually explores the ups and downs of relationships in the weeks building up to Christmas. Boyfriends & girlfriends, husbands & wives, fathers & sons and rock stars & managers all combine to make Love Actually not just one story but ten very different ones.
Because if you look hard enough you will find love actually is all around.
