La Chimera (15)

April 3 @ 8:00 PM 10:15 PM

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.

£7 Guest membership

Ditchling Film Society

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Ditchling Village Hall

18 Lewes Road
Ditchling, Hassocks, East Sussex BN6 8TT United Kingdom
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Lee (15) + Special Event

May 8 @ 8:00 PM 10:00 PM

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.

Directed by Ellen Kuras. English.

£7 Guest membership

Ditchling Film Society

View Organiser Website

Ditchling Village Hall

18 Lewes Road
Ditchling, Hassocks, East Sussex BN6 8TT United Kingdom
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Widow Clicquot (12A)

June 5 @ 8:00 PM 9:30 PM

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

£7 Guest membership

Ditchling Film Society

View Organiser Website

Ditchling Village Hall

18 Lewes Road
Ditchling, Hassocks, East Sussex BN6 8TT United Kingdom
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View Venue Website

The Old Oak (15)

July 3 @ 8:00 PM 9:45 PM

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.

£7

Ditchling Film Society

View Organiser Website

Ditchling Village Hall

18 Lewes Road
Ditchling, Hassocks, East Sussex BN6 8TT United Kingdom
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View Venue Website

Wilding (15)

September 4 @ 8:00 PM 9:15 PM

This documentry film based on Isabella Tree’s best-selling book
Wilding 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.

£7 Guest membership

Ditchling Film Society

View Organiser Website

Ditchling Village Hall

18 Lewes Road
Ditchling, Hassocks, East Sussex BN6 8TT United Kingdom
+ Google Map
View Venue Website