70-year-old Mahin has been widowed for 30 years and her two children live abroad. She is living a lonely life in Tehran. But one day, she decides to join her friends for the afternoon tea and finds a new spark in her heart. She meets someone who makes her feel alive again, and the evening brings unpredictable surprises and memories. She bakes her favourite cake, believing that she may have found love at her late age.
The female directors were banned from leaving Iran to attend it’s premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival. They were held in Evin prison awaiting trial for propaganda against the regime.
Persian with English subtitles. 97m Directed by Maryam Moghaddam & Behtash Sanaeeha
The biographical film about the iconic musician Bob Dylan is beautifully crafted and executed as it transports you back immersing you in the life, music and story of one of the most influential artists of our time.
The performances are exceptional with Timothee Chalamet as Dylan delivering a magnetic portrayal capturing both the vulnerability and genius of the man.
The music is thrilling, with Chalamet playing and singing the songs, and the galvanizing power of ‘The Times they are a Changin’ debuting before a crowd who spontaneously join in. The supporting cast are terrific with Monic Barbaro performing as Joan Baez.
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.
£7 Advance tickets on sale from Ditchling Post Office or on the door
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.
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 Miller sitting 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.
