Ditchling Film Society

The Eight Mountains (12A)
2024-09-05 20:00 - 22:30 (Europe/London) | Ditchling Village Hall, 18 Lewes Road, Ditchling, Hassocks, East Sussex, BN6 8TT, United Kingdom
This rich, beautiful, and inexpressibly sad film is about the friendship between two men who were best childhood friends growing up in the Italian mountains. They now unite as grown men to build a shack in the valley which will be their special place. It is set in the Italian alpine valley of Aosta with breathtaking photography as the two men try to talk about their feelings, rekindle their friendship and deal with the difficult past.

“A movie with air in its lungs and love in its heart”.

(2022). 147mins. Italian, English subtitles. Directors Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch.

Anatomy of a Fall (12A)
2024-10-03 20:00 - 22:20
Sandra, a writer and her husband Samuel and their eleven-year-old son live a secluded life in a remote town in the French Alps. Samuel is found dead in the snow and the police question whether this is a suicide or a murder with Sandra being the main suspect and her son the only witness. The trial becomes an unsettling journey into the depths of Sandra and Samuel’s conflicted relationship.

(2023). 140 mins Palme d’or winner. Drama. French, English subtitles.Director Justine Triet

One Life (12A)
2024-11-07 20:00 - 22:00
Based on the true story of British humanitarian Nicholas Winton. The film alternates between following Anthony Hopkins as a 79-year old Winton reminiscing on his past, and Johnny Flynn as a 29-year old Winton who successfully helps 669 predominantly Jewish children in German-occupied Czechoslovakia to hide and flee in 1938–39, just before the beginning of World War II.

Directed by James Hawes.

1h49m, English

Rye Lane (15)
2024-12-05 20:00 - 21:30
Yas overhears recently heartbroken Dom sobbing in the gender-neutral lavatories. Two young strangers, both having had recent break ups, meet. She befriends him as he is about to lunch with his ex and her new boyfriend. She goes along pretending to be his new girlfriend all of which ends in chaos. They cheerfully connect with each other as they move around the sunny streets of south London. A film with street- smart grit and warmth and charm.

(2023). 82 mins. Comedy/romance. English. Dir. Raine Allen-Miller

Another Round (12A)
2025-01-16 20:00 - 21:45
Played by Mads Mikkelsen, Martin is a high school teacher in a mid life crisis. He and his three colleagues embark on an “study” to see what level of alcohol makes them better people.

Measuring social and professional performance they drink only during working hours. Intoxicating, very funny and sobering. The film won a Bafta for Best Film not in the English Language and an Oscar for best international feature.

Directed by Thomas Vintenburg. Danish with English Subtitles.

Perfect Days (PG)
2025-02-06 20:00 - 22:05
Wim Wenders’s Oscar-nominated zen Japanese drama is his best feature film in years. Hirayama cleans public toilets in Tokyo, lives his life in simplicity, appreciating each moment, alongside encounters that lead him to reflect on himself.

This zen meditation on beauty, fulfilment and simplicity is an achingly lovely and unexpectedly life-affirming picture.

Directed by Wim Wenders. English / Japanese with subtitles.

Fallen Leaves (12A)
2025-03-06 20:00 - 21:25
Two lonely souls connect in a rain-lashed Helsinki in this unexpectedly uplifting drama from the Finnish master of melancholy.

Meeting by chance the two look at last to have found love. However, various obstacles thwart their hopes and dreams – lost phone numbers, mistaken addresses, alcoholism and a charming dog. Won the Jury prize at Cannes. Tragicomic romance set in modern-day Helsinki.

Directed by Aki Kaurismäki. Finnish with English Subtitles.

An Evening with Greta Scacchi
2025-03-28 19:30 - 22:00
Ditchling Film Society is proud to host an evening in conversation with Greta Scacchi. Join us for a screening of White Mischief (15) followed by Greta Scacchi in coversation with Peter Guttridge author and former film journalist.

Set in 1940s colonial Kenya, White Mischief (1987) follows Diana Broughton (Greta Scacchi), a young aristocrat trapped in a loveless marriage to the much older Sir Jock Broughton (Charles Dance). Seeking escape, she falls for the charismatic Josslyn Hay, Earl of Erroll (Joss Ackland), a notorious figure in the decadent Happy Valley set. Their affair sparks jealousy and scandal within the insular expatriate community, leading to Erroll’s mysterious murder—a crime that exposes the moral decay beneath the group’s glamorous facade. Directed by Michael Radford (1984), the film blends historical drama with an atmospheric murder mystery, set against the striking landscapes of East Africa.

Radford’s direction highlights the tension between Diana’s yearning for freedom and the rigid constraints of her world. Scacchi delivers a nuanced performance, portraying Diana as both vulnerable and defiant, caught in a web of passion and power. John Hurt’s narration adds a reflective tone, while the film’s restrained pacing builds a quiet inevitability. With its mix of romance, intrigue, and social critique, White Mischief offers a compelling portrait of colonial excess and the personal tragedies it leaves in its wake.

Free for members.

La Chimera (15)
2025-04-03 20:00 - 22:15
La Chimera is a fantasy created from fragments. For the thieves of ancient grave goods and archaeological wonders, the Chimera means redemption from work and the dream of easy wealth.

For Arthur (Josh O’Connor), fresh out of prison, the chimera means a search through time and the underworld for his love Beniamina. A piece of cinematic magical realism using the ancient and modern landscapes of Tuscany against an unexpectedly rich musical score.

The film has received 11 film awards and 26 nominations.

Directed by Alice Rohrwacher. English, Italian, French with subtitles.

Lee (15) + Special Event
2025-05-08 20:00 - 22:00
NB: This film is being shown on 8th May due to County Council elections on 1st May 2025.

On May 8th, Lee Miller’s granddaughter Ami Bouhassane, Co-Director of the Lee Miller Archives at the Farley Arts Trust will be joining us for a Q&A session. Don’t miss it! It will be a privilege to hear Ami talk about her grandmother’s life and work and answer our questions.

We are also very grateful to Anthony Penrose of the Farley Trust for offering to waive their normal performance fee for our event, however a donation from every ticket sold will go to the Trust.

In Lee, Kate Winslet stars as Lee Miller – the fashion model turned war photojournalist for British Vogue. The film shows Miller as she “documents war as historical evidence”. As a female war correspondent at that time, she was barred from entering active battle zones but none the less was not spared from witnessing and recording moving and horrific scenes beyond the areas of immediate combat.

In the film Lee Miller works along side Life Magazine photojournalist David E. Scherman, played by Andy Samberg. They worked on many shared assignments, including documenting the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau . Scherman’s iconic photograph of Millersitting in the bathtub in Adolf Hitler’s private apartment in Munich, with the dried mud of that morning’s visit to Dachau on her boots – deliberately dirtying Hitler’s bathroom, – was taken in the evening of 30 April 1945, coincidentally the same day that Hitler committed suicide . After posing for the bathtub photograph, Miller took a bath in the tub, and then slept in Hitler’s bed.

After the war Miller fought hard against the repression of her confronting war images in a world that preferred to forget the atrocities that had taken place.That Miller’s work is known today is mainly due to the efforts of her son, Antony Penrose, who has been studying, conserving, and promoting his mother’s work since the early 1980s. Never having known about her war work while she was alive, Penrose later discovered sixty thousand or so photographs, negatives , documents, journals, cameras, love letters, and souvenirs in cardboard boxes and trunks in the attic of Farley Farm, the family home.

Lee (2023) Certificate 15. Directed by Ellen Kuras. 117 minutes. English.

Directed by Ellen Kuras. English.

Widow Clicquot (12A)
2025-06-05 20:00 - 21:30
On June 5th we will be having another special event.

At the showing of Widow Clicquot (2023, Director Thomas Napper) we will be hosting a presentation by Esther Dawson from Ridgeview vineyard. She will be talking about the vision and development that has created Ridgeview as a very successful local winery.

There will be free tastings and Ridgeview wine will be on offer for sale.

A tale of Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot who defied French vintner patriarchy and survived calamities to create one of the world’s finest champagnes.

Underlying the movie is a love story told in flashbacks, but what prevails is a fascinating tale of a celebrated drink that, even with a certain conventionality, never loses its subtle charm and remarkable tastefulness.

Winning three major film awards.

Directed by Thomas Napper. English

The Old Oak (15)
2025-07-03 20:00 - 21:45
A tale of Syrian refugees and asylum seekers set in the summer of 2016, just after the Brexit vote. The Old Oak is the local pub where the landlord is only just hanging on due to deprivation and poverty in the village. Не refuses to get involved in the issues of the refugees. While some in the community have some sympathy with the refugees there is hostility at the apparent benefits the refugees get.

He gradually softens towards the refugees and together with Yara, the young Syrian woman, organises a food kitchen where the community can get together socialise and gradually get to understand each other. It is a complex film with issues such as Brexit, racism, poverty and alienation running throughout.

Directed by Ken Loach. English.

Wilding (15)
2025-09-04 20:00 - 21:15
This documentry film based on Isabella Tree’s best-selling bookWilding tells the story of Knepp, and how a dying landscape is healed against the odds and becomes a place where mussel-diving pigs, storks and butterflies find sanctuary, and where thriving flora and a vast array of animals have taken back the land.

Watch this incredible story of a young couple that set to work with their ground-breaking vision, battling entrenched tradition and daring to place the fate of their farm in the hands of nature, and be inspired by this story of rewilding and ecological regeneration.

Directed by David Allen. English.

The Outrun (15)
2025-10-02 20:00 - 22:20
Based on a memoir by Amy Liptrot, the film is set in the other worldly Orkney Islands where Rona goes to recover from her life of addiction to drugs and drink in London.

Saoirse Ronan is outstanding in this sometimes painful drama. The cinematography is at times breathtaking and the film is brilliantly directed by Nora Fingscheidt.

(2024) 1h55 min. English. Directed by Nora Fingscheidt.

The Critic (15)
2025-11-06 20:00 - 21:40
Based on a novel by Anthony Quinn The Critic is a period thriller drama with wicked humour and a twisty plot not to mention sumptous costumes and an all cast.

lan McKellen is an acerbic, conniving and brutally honest newspaper theatre critic in 1930’s London but as the film progresses it becomes darker and more violent and more of a thriller. One critic has said McKellen’s star quality makes him the only possible casting for this role.

Directed by Anand Tucker. English.

The Holdovers (15)
2025-12-04 20:00 - 22:15
Holdovers is the name given to children in exclusive private boarding schools in America, who are held over in school during Christmas, because they are unable to go home to their families.

The film takes place at the end of 1970, when US troops were still fighting in the Vietnam War and explores the relationship between a hated teacher, the school cook and one of the boys “held over”. It is both funny and tragic, with stunning performances by Paul Giamatti (Sideways), Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Dominic Sessa. 2023

Directed by Alexander Payne. English.
