Second Mother, The Que Horas Ela Volta? Director: Anna Muylaert  Brazil   2014   112 mins   Cert: Club Starring: Regina Case, Antonio Abujamra, Helena Albergaria Language: Portuguese Trailer: https://vimeo.com/120686781 When Val (Regina Casé) left her home to work thousands of miles away as a live-in housekeeper for Fabinho (Michel Joelsas) in Sao Paulo, she carried the guilt of leaving her young daughter Jessica behind with relatives. Now, 13 years later, Jessica (Camila Márdila) shows up in Sao Paulo, and…

    In the Courtyard (Dans La Cours) Director: Pierre Salvadori 97 minutes, France, 2013, CLUB Language: French Presented with the support of the French Embassy and the Institut Français The courtyard of a Parisian tenement building and its endearing, quirky inhabitants with their fears and desires are at the centre of this poignant tragicomedy from director Pierre Salvadori (Priceless, Beautiful Lies) and starring Catherine Deneuve (Potiche, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and actor-director Gustave Kervern (Mammuth, Louise-Michel). Antoine (Gustave Kervern)…

  President, The Dir:Mohsen Makhmalbaf France, Georgia, Germany, UK2014 118 minsCert: CLUB Language: Georgian Starring: Mikheil Gomiashvili, Dachi Orvelashvili, la Sukhitashvili, Guja Burduli In an unnamed state ruled by an ageing, despotic dictator, revolution is afoot. The President sees his wife and children to the aeroplanes that will escort them to safety, but his strong-willed young grandson refuses to get on board, insisting that he stays with his beleaguered grandfather. Drivingback to their palace, they witness street battles and the…

99 Homes Dir: Ramin Bahrani USA   2014   110 mins   Cert: 15A Language: English Starring: Michael Shannon, Andrew Garfield, Laura Dern  Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDrRr3txA_4 99 Homes is a searing, impeccably acted indictment of capitalism, especially as it functions in present-day American real estate. The film focuses on Florida construction worker Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield), who has fallen irretrievably behind on his mortgage payments due to lack of work. Desperate to keep the home he shares with his mother and…

Tangerines (Mandariinid) Director: Zaza Urushadze 89 minutes    Estonia/Georgia    2013   Cert: CLUB Language: Estonian, Russian The first Estonian film to make the foreign language Oscar nominations shortlist since the country started entering films in 1992, Zaza Urushadze's humanistic and moving story of how an innocent villager get caught up in the 1992 Georgian-Abkhazian conflict after he takes in a pair of men from opposites sides of the war, is fully deserving of the recognition. Set during the brutal 1992…

The Grump Mielensäpahoittaja Director: Dome Karukoski 98 mins   Finland   2014  Starring : Antti Litja, Petra Frey, Mari Perankoski, Iikka Forss Language: Finnish; Russian; English The Grump is a man from the past. A man who knows that everything used to be so much better in the old days. Pretty much everything that’s been done after 1953 has always managed to ruin The Grump’s day. Our story unfolds as The Grump takes a fall from his basement steps, hurting his ankle. He has to…

Lesson, The Director: Kristina Grozeva, Petar Valchanov 107 mins   Bulgaria, Greece    2014   Cert: CLUB Starring: Margita Gosheva, Ivan Burnev, Ivanka Bratoeva, Ivan Savov, Stefan Denolyubov Language: Bulgarian Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCIQvmTMQr0 Playing upon the universality of being anxiously broke, Bulgarian filmmaking duo Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov's stark, stealthy, and dispassionately shot social-realist drama traps viewers in what turns out to be a precisely paced, nightmarish thriller. The industriousness and Larry David–rivaling pedantry of rural small-town schoolteacher and mother Nadezhda…

Being screened as part of  access>CINEMA's May Film Tour happening during the Bealtaine Festival USA                1939                129 mins                     U Dir: Frank Capra  Starring: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold Language: English Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUynldESkLE  Frank Capra’s classic comedy casts a young James Stewart (in a star-making turn), as the idealistic and naive Jefferson Smith, a country politician newly appointed to the US Senate. When he comes face-to-face with the reality of widespread corruption and cynicism in Washington politics, he becomes…