Film

The new film from acclaimed, BAFTA-winning director Rungano Nyoni (I Am Not a Witch), ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL is a compelling drama about community and sisterhood. Driving home from a party one night, Shula (Susan Chardy) seems unfazed by the sight of her uncle’s dead body on the deserted road. While preparations are made for his funeral, she finds herself plunged into the hidden secrets of her family. As tensions rise, Shula and her cousin Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela) join forces to reconcile the past for a more hopeful future.

A fierce and darkly funny portrait of one woman’s strength in the face of crisis, Nyoni’s award-winning second feature proves her to be a distinctive filmmaker blazing a unique trail.

KINDS OF KINDNESS is a triptych fable, following a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.

From filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and producer Emma Stone comes the incredible tale and fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter (Stone), a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Dafoe). Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.

An artist and her elderly mother confront long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home, now a hotel haunted by its mysterious past. Featuring a towering, deeply moving performance by Tilda Swinton, acclaimed filmmaker Joanna Hogg’s beguiling latest film is a brilliant and captivating exploration of parental relationships and the things we leave behind.

An adaptation of the acclaimed novel by Emma Donoghue, the film is set in the Irish Midlands in 1862. A psychological thriller inspired by the 19th century-phenomenon of the “fasting girls,” it follows 11-year-old Anna O’Donnell, who stops eating but remains miraculously alive and well, and an English nurse Lib Wright (Florence Pugh), who is brought to her tiny village to observe. Tourists and pilgrims amass to witness the girl who is said to have survived without food for months.

Seen through the eyes of eleven-year-old Sam, we are taken on a journey through the loveliest of days. A glorious, happy family gathering in a perfect English summer garden. There’ll be lunch under the mulberry tree and wine and games and dancing. And then, of course, this being a brilliant party, there’ll be a surprise.

Duration: 17 mins.

In early 18th-century England, a frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) occupies the throne, and her closest friend, Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz), governs the country while tending to Anne’s health. When new servant Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives, Sarah takes Abigail under her wing as she cunningly schemes to return to her aristocratic roots, setting off an outrageous rivalry to become the Queen’s favourite.

Inspired by the incredible true story of composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. The illegitimate son of an African slave and a French plantation owner, Bologne (Kelvin Harrison Jr. in a tour de force performance) rises to improbable heights in French society as a celebrated violinist-composer and fencer, complete with an ill-fated love affair and a falling out with Marie Antoinette (Lucy Boynton) and her court.

THE SOUVENIR – PART II follows Julie as she attempts to understand her relationship with Anthony. Over five years, Julie processes her experiences through her filmmaking, culminating in the creation of her graduation film. If Part One is the story of Julie and Anthony, then Part Two is the story of Julie and her creativity.

ROOM is a unique and touching exploration of the boundless love between a mother (Brie Larson) and her child (Jacob Tremblay). After 5-year-old Jack and his Ma escape from the enclosed surroundings that Jack has known his entire life, the boy makes a thrilling discovery: the outside world. ROOM is an intensely powerful and wonderfully life-affirming journey about the power of love, limitless imagination and the strength of the human spirit.

Friends since they were small boys, Adam and Paul – and we never learn which is which – have withered into two hapless, desperate Dublin junkies, tied together by habit and necessity. A stylized, downbeat comedy, the film follows the pair through a single day, which, like every other, is entirely devoted to the business of scrounging and robbing money for drugs. The difference today is that Adam and Paul – already near rock bottom – have finally run out of luck, credit and friends.

DISOBEDIENCE is an adaptation of Naomi Alderman’s book about a woman’s journey in the wake of her father’s death from her secular, even hedonist New York life, to the world of her childhood as a devout Jew in London. The film follows her as she struggles to figure out her identity, come to terms with her past, her love of a married woman, and the complex relationship with her father’s influence.

Sandra (Clare Dunne), on the surface of it, is a young Mum struggling to provide her two young daughters with a warm, safe, happy home to grow up in. Beneath the surface, Sandra has a steely determination to change their lives for the better and when it becomes clear that there are no other options left to her, she decides to build it herself from scratch. HERSELF also stars Harriet Walker and Conleth Hill.

Entrepreneur Rory (Jude Law), relocates his wife Allison (Carrie Coon) and their children from suburban America to his native England with dreams of profiting from booming 1980’s London. While Rory thrives chasing lofty deals in the city, Allison and the kids struggle to adapt. Once a businesswoman in her own right, Allison now finds herself idle in a run-down mansion they can’t afford to furnish. As the isolation of their new home drives the family further apart, and the promise of a lucrative new beginning starts to unravel, Rory and Allison have to face the unwelcome truths lying beneath the surface of their marriage.

Steven (Colin Farrell), an eminent cardiothoracic surgeon is married to Anna (Nicole Kidman), a respected ophthalmologist. They are well off and live a happy and healthy family life with their two children, Kim, 14 (Raffey Cassidy) and Bob, 12 (Sunny Suljic). Steven forms a friendship with Martin (Barry Keoghan), a fatherless 16 year-old boy. Things take a sinister turn when Steven introduces Martin to his family, forcing Steven to make a shocking sacrifice or run the risk of losing everything.

A love story set in the near future where single people, according to the rules of The City, are arrested and transferred to The Hotel. There they are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days. If they fail, they are transformed into an animal of their choosing and released into The Woods. A desperate Man (Colin Farrell) escapes from The Hotel to The Woods where The Loners live and falls in love, although it is against their rules. THE LOBSTER also stars Rachel Weisz, Olivia Colman and Ben Winshaw.

In ROSIE, award-winning Irish novelist Roddy Doyle brings his signature brand of warmth and authenticity to a modern story of a Dublin family who has found themselves with nowhere left to go. Hailed as the most important Irish film of the year, ROSIE follows a young mother (Sarah Greene) as she searches to find a room for the night for her family.

FRANK is an offbeat comedy about a wannabe musician (Domhnall Gleeson) who finds himself out of his depth when he joins an avant-garde pop band led by the enigmatic Frank (Michael Fassbender) -a musical genius who hides himself inside a large fake head.

THE GUARD is a comedy-thriller set on the west coast of Ireland. Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is a small-town cop with a confrontational personality, a subversive sense of humour, a dying mother, a fondness for prostitutes, and absolutely no interest whatsoever in the international cocaine-smuggling ring that has brought FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) to his door.

WHAT RICHARD DID follows Richard Karlsen (Jack Reynor), golden-boy athlete and undisputed alpha-male of his privileged set of South Dublin teenagers, through the summer between the end of school and the beginning of university. The world is bright and everything seems possible, until one summer night Richard does something that destroys it all and shatters the lives of the people closest to him.

Ireland 1919: Damian (Cillian Murphy) and Teddy (Pádric Delaney) are brothers fighting in a guerrilla war for Irish independence from the British. Workers from field and country unite to ambush the notorious Black and Tans squads. Through his military experience Damian, becomes politicised. When a treaty giving an apparent level of victory to the fighters is signed in 1921 the brothers find themselves pitted against each other in terms of their ideals for the country’s future.

Single mother, Collette McVeigh, is a Republican living in Belfast with her mother and hardline brothers Connor and Gerry. When she is arrested during an aborted bomb plot in London, an MI5 officer offers her a choice: lose everything and go to prison for 25 years or return to Belfast to spy on her own family. Collette chooses to place her trust in Mac and return home, but when her brothers’ secret operation is ambushed suspicions of an informer are raised within the cell and Collette finds herself and her family in grave danger.

Regarded by his neighbours as a harmless misfit, Josie (Pat Shortt) has spent all his adult life as the caretaker of a crumbling petrol station on the outskirts of a small town in the mid-west of Ireland. He is limited, lonely, yet relentlessly optimistic and, in his own peculiar way, happy. GARAGE is the story of Josie’s hapless search for intimacy over the course of a summer which sees his life changed forever.