We are delighted to announce the theme and line up for the fifth film festival at Linden Hall Studio! The gallery team are particularly excited to present this cinematic selection and very much hope you enjoy seven films over four days in April...
IN AND OUT - Film Festival V at Linden Hall Studio
The choice is a spread of film across a variety of age, genre, period, location and language with the consistent theme being that each of these masterpieces of cinema all clock in a running time of less than 90 minutes.
Within this tight amount of time, the viewer is drawn IN and taken on a rollercoaster of emotion and experience. Each auteur behind these unique stories utilising different tempos and pace, style and rythyms, colour and narrative culminating in the audience being sent back OUT, heart and head still full of the whirlwind which has passed over seemingly as quick as it begun.
Some of these stories leave you having learnt something, some will leave you laughing, others leave you thinking. Yet all of theses stories, leave you knowing the moment the credits roll on that you, the viewer, have experienced something.
I very much hope you enjoy this season, and we look forward to seeing you there. As ever there will be a selection of themed drinks and wonderful speakers, with a few surprises thrown in…
I hope you enjoy the latest festival at Linden Hall Studio
Myles.
Myles Corley
Gallery Director
Linden Hall Studio
Wednesday 9th April - Festival Launch!
RASHOMON
Director - Akira Kurosawa
1950
88 mins
The asssault of a bride and the murder of her samurai husband are recalled from the perspectives of a bandit, the bride, the samurai's ghost and a woodcutter. A film brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, "Rashomon" is perhaps the finest film ever to investigate the philosophy of justice.
"the movie offers more rewards than a dazzling superstructure. It's beautifully shot, vividly performed and is ultimately an arresting pop treatise on the impossibility of objective truth"
- THE TIMES *****
♦ Golden Globe Winner
Wednesday 9th April 2025
Evening screening - Doors open: 6pm
Film Introduction by at ... : 6:30pm
Thursday 10th April 2025
RUN LOLA RUN
Director - Tom Tykwer
1998
81 mins
After a botched money delivery, Lola has 20 minutes to come up with 100,000 Deutschmarks, to save the life of her boyfriend Manni. If the money is not returned, there will be consequences. We see three possible scenarios, depending on Lola's encounters... An aldrelanine fueled experimental film, with a thumping 90's soundtrack. Tykwer threw everything at this now cult classic, with jump cuts, animation, split screens, 360 spins. Take a deep breath, and keep up!
"Run Lola Run" came out on the precipice of an age when people felt newly empowered by technology, yet also feared that technology had the potential to steal their souls. The film says: Use the power. Steal your soul back. Don't just grab your destiny. Run for it."
- EMPIRE MAGAZINE ****
"For me, that's the genius of Lola: it's a feminist story. Nineties action movies were about the cool guy with a deep voice who saves the girl. This was one of the first features where you had a woman - a regular woman, not a 6ft Amazonian with diamond triceps - who's just running to help her boyfriend. And she's got red hair!"
- Franke Potente, who plays LOLA
Thursday 10th April
Afternoon screening - Doors open: 1pm
Film introduction by... at 1:30pm
Thursday 10th April
SHANGHAI EXPRESS
Director - Josef von Sternberg
1932
80 mins
Donald Harvey meets his old flame Magdalen (Marlene Dietrich) and learns with dismay that she has become a lady of the night, known as Shanghai Lily. Both are traveling to Shanghai via train, and while they grow reacquainted, they remain unaware that they are traveling with spy and rebel army leader Henry Chang. On Chang's orders, his forces attack the train, terrorize the passengers and hold Donald hostage...
"Directed by Josef von Sternberg, this movie has style -- a triumphant fusion of sin, glamour, shamelessness, art, and, perhaps, a furtive sense of humor."
- THE NEW YORKER *****
"Von Sternberg, who was forever looking for new kinds of stylisation, said that he intended everything in Shanghai Express to have the rhythm of a train. The plot concerns an evacuation from Peking to Shanghai, but it's in every sense a vehicle for something else: a parade of deceptive appearances and identities..."
- TIME OUT *****
♦ Academy Award Winner
Thursday 10th April
Evening Screening - Doors open: 6pm
Film introduction by... at 6:30pm
Friday 11th April
PLAY IT AGAIN SAM
Director - Herbert Ross
Screenplay - Woody Allen
1972
1hr 25mins
Play It Again, Sam is a 1972 American comedy film written by and starring Woody Allen, based on his 1969 Broadway play of the same title. Overanxious film critic Allan (Woody Allen) sinks into a depression after his wife leaves him. Concerned, his married friends Dick and Linda (Diane Keaton) encourage him to meet new women. Allan attempts to emulate him in flirting with women. However, his frail personality ensures that his every attempt blows up in his face. His hapless romantic life reaches catastrophic levels when he develops feelings for Linda.
"Allen has the uncanny knack of magnifying our most unguarded, embarrassing, selfish and just plain silly moments into a blossoming garden of neuroses and phobias."
- LA PRESS
Friday 11th April
Afternoon Screening - Doors open: 1pm
Film Introduction by... at 1:30pm
Friday 11th April
ROPE
Director - Alfred Hitchcock
1948
1hr 20mins
Two men try to convince themselves they've committed the perfect murder by hosting a dinner party after strangling a former classmate to death. Hiding the body in a chest upon which they then arrange a buffet dinner, the pair welcome their guests, including the victim's oblivious fiancée...
"Rope is not merely a stunt that is justified by the extraordinary career that contains it, but one of the movies that makes that career extraordinary."
- NEW YORK TIMES
Friday 11th April
Evening Screening - Doors open: 6pm
Film introduction by... at 6:30pm
Saturday 12th April
FANTASTIC MR FOX
Director - Wes Anderson
2009
1hr 27mins
Mr. Fox (George Clooney) breaks a promise to his wife (Meryl Streep) and goes back to his ways of stealing, unable to resist his animal instincts. However, he finds himself trapped when three farmers decide to kill him and his kind. He has to resort to his natural craftiness to rise above the opposition...
"Other filmmakers turn to children's stories when they have kids of their own. Anderson seems to have made this one for his inner child"
- BOSTON GLOBE
Saturday 12th April
Afternoon Screening - Doors Open: 6pm
Film Introduction by... at 6:30pm
Saturday 12th April
IDA
Director - Pawel Pawlikowski
2013
1hr 22mins
In 1962, Anna is on the verge of taking vows as a Catholic nun. Orphaned as an infant during the German occupation of World War II, she must meet her aunt, a former Communist state prosecutor and only surviving relative, who tells her that her parents were Jewish. The two women embark on a road trip into the Polish countryside to learn the fate of their relatives and where they belong...
"This frugal, static film in black and white is wondrous with life and drama. First-time actress Agata Trzebuchowska has a face you could watch forever."
- FINANCIAL TIMES*****
♦ Academy Award for Best International Feature Film
♦ BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language
Saturday 12th April
Evening Screening - Doors Open: 6pm
Film Introduction by... at 6:30pm
The ticket options are variable, with the choice of purchasing tickets to individual screenings (£10) as well as Festival Passes which offer discounts on attending more than one film.
Bronze Festival Pass - Admission to two screenings