5 January

Asteroid City still

Asteroid City

USA  2023  105 mins  12A

As quirkily original as mainstream movies get these days, director Wes Anderson’s latest will be warmly welcomed by fans of The Royal Tenenbaums and The Grand Budapest Hotel. From the film’s super-bright pastel colour palette to the deadpan wit of the dialogue, we’re quickly drawn into a singular take on America’s western outback. And this time there’s a spoof mid-50s setting as well – a tiny community where atomic bomb testing seems to be part of the local scenery. As usual, Anderson has attracted a gloriously amusing – and amused – A-list cast, including Tom Hanks, Tilda Swinton, Willem Dafoe, Scarlet Johansson, Bryan Cranston and Jeff Goldblum.

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Online tickets now sold out. Get there early for remaining door tickets...

19 January

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The Five Devils

France  2022  103 mins  15

An intriguing psychodrama with a magic-realist plot from French writer–director Léa Mysius. Unhappily married Joanne (Adèle Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Colour) and Jimmy live a simple life in a quaint village near the French Alps with their young daughter Vicky. But this is no ordinary girl. The child has a superhuman sense of smell so potent that she is able to transport herself back in time and witness scenes from an individual’s past at the merest scent of a person’s clothing or possessions. And so, when Jimmy’s sister Julia arrives to stay after a decade away tensions grow as Vicky checks in on key moments of her aunt’s and parents’ troubled history. (S)

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2 February

The Old Oak still

The Old Oak

UK/Fra/Bel  2023  113 mins  15

A deeply felt swansong from 87-year-old Ken Loach whose career dates from his renowned 1960s debut feature Cathy Come Home, and progressed via Kes and I, Daniel Blake. This time the drama is located in a Geordie mining town and pub in 2016. Both The Old Oak and its landlord, along with the town itself, are coming to the end of their collective tethers, dating their decline from the pit closures of the 1980s. And now, faced with the needs of incoming Syrian immigrants, feelings run raw and compassion is rare. So, step forward The Old Oak’s landlord, TJ, and Yara, a young Syrian refugee. “A film as fired up and human as any you’ll see this year,” says Time Out.

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16 February

Charcoal still

Charcoal

South Korea  2022  139 mins  15

When a Brazilian crime boss needs to lie low after faking his own death, a move into a desperately poor family after first bumping off their bedridden grandfather seems like a cunning ruse. But the family’s overly inquisitive and prying neighbours begin to wonder what’s going on. The visitor is charming but tricky and holds a particular fascination for their nine-year-old son who is eventually caught trying to deal cocaine. Both dark and touching with flashes of black humour, this first feature from director Carolina Markowicz, draws note-perfect performances from her actors whose characters are well grounded in the everyday while living on the edge of desperation. (S)

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Borderlines logo

Borderlines Film Festival

2024 FESTIVAL RUNS FROM 1st TO 17th MARCH

Each year the Borderlines Film Festival, the largest rural film festival in the UK, centred on Hereford's Courtyard Arts Centre but also spread across numerous venues in Herefordshire, Shropshire and Powys, brings us a vast selection of new and old films. Presteigne Film Society participated as a venue for many years and as we continue this association Presteigne Screen will feature three movies under the Borderlines umbrella. More information available at the comprehensive website at www.borderlinesfilmfestival.co.uk.



1 March

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Anatomy of a Fall  (Borderlines) £5.50

France  2023  151 mins  15

A whodunnit? A suicide? An accident? According to critic Mark Kermode, whatever the result of the fatal fall in this French thriller, the storyline is proper edge-of-the-seat stuff, the sort of plotting that Hitchcock once made his own. “You can feel your brain firing on all cylinders,” says Kermode. “And you are making a judgement on what you believe emotionally. I think the film is brilliant.” In other words, don’t miss it – and don’t forget that becoming emotionally involved is a trap that plays false with our expectations. Even the director, Justine Triet, apparently kept the outcome of the eventual trial to herself during the film’s early shooting process.

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We're sorry, the online ticket allocation is now sold out.

25 TICKETS WILL BE AVAILABLE ON THE DOOR. Get there early for those. Seats are unnumbered.

8 March

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The Nettle Dress  (Borderlines) £5.50

UK  2023  68 mins  U

An acclaimed documentary, seven years in the making, built on love for a deceased wife. Textile artist Allan Brown harvests nettles, strips them of unwanted fibre (and their sting!) before spinning and weaving them into cloth. It’s a long and almost devotional process, willingly embraced in memory of Brown’s wife Alex who died of cancer. His familiarity with the processes is lovingly conveyed during touching on-camera sequences. “Cloth made this way must be magical,” says Brown. “It was like I was being transformed by the process rather than the other way around.”

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This screening includes the short film Jill, Uncredited (see below)

This will be a busy night! The online ticket allocation is sold out. Check if returns have been put up for sale.

30 TICKETS WILL BE AVAILABLE ON THE DOOR. Get there early for those. Seats are unnumbered.

8 March

Jill, Uncredited still

Jill, Uncredited  (with The Nettle Dress)

UK  2023  18 mins  U

Jill Goldston has graced more films than virtually any other actor in the history of movie-making – more than 2,000. And she’s worked with a huge range of directors, including Ken Russell, John Schlesinger, Alfred Hitchcock, Lindsay Anderson and David Lynch. The secret of her success? Disappearing into the crowd and making up the numbers as an unnamed and uncredited extra. Look hard and you’ll find her in franchises such as the Bond films and the Carry Ons. Ballroom scenes, street, battlefield and café scenes were all professionally and anonymously populated by stalwarts such as Jill, and that’s what Jill, Uncredited focuses on and celebrates in this 18-minute short.

15 March

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Typist Artist Pirate King  (Borderlines) £5.50

UK  2022  108 mins  12A

A road movie like no other. Underrated English artist Audrey Amiss (Monica Nolan) has suffered from mental illness for decades, and now persuades her psychiatric nurse, Sandra (Kelly MacDonald), to drive her and her work to a “local” art gallery (in fact it’s hundreds of miles away). It’s a lively trip to put it mildly. Inspired by her actual archive of diaries, letters and art held by the Wellcome Collection, including her “Typist, Artist, Pirate, King” job description in her passport, director Carol Morley weaves real events into this imaginary journey. It’s a dark, funny exploration of friendship, adventure and compassion that refuses to sentimentalise mental illness.

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The online ticket allocation is selling well. If it sells out check if returns have been put up for sale.

30 TICKETS WILL BE AVAILABLE ON THE DOOR. Get there early for those. Seats are unnumbered.

22 March

Fremont still

Fremont

USA  2022  91 mins  12A

Shot in scintillating black and white, this drama is a delightful exploration of the immigrant experience for Afghani girl Donya (a superb Anaita Wali Zada). A former US army translator, she has fled to Fremont, California, in the wake of the Taliban’s return to power in her homeland. Life is safe but lonely and dull, despite Fremont’s sizeable Afghan community, so leading her to make gentle but mildly risky moves, including the posting of her own messages, such as “desperate for a dream” along with her name and number, inside the fortune cookies she has helped to make in the Chinese factory where she works. “Sweet and sneakily powerful,” says Variety magazine.

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5 April

Scrapper still

Scrapper

UK  2023  84 mins  12A

When 12-year-old Georgie’s single mum dies, Georgie at first fakes the roles of mum and dad herself, while dodging official attention in this comedy–drama. Resourceful and street smart, she has an income (nicking and selling bikes) and sidesteps unwelcome adult (ie, social services and school) interference by producing an uncle out of thin air (a friendly local shopkeeper who records reassuring adult vocal snippets on her phone). Then a young man claiming to be her long-lost father, Jason, hops over the back fence and into her life. The inevitable mutual suspicion becomes the subject of Charlotte Regan’s charming and acclaimed debut feature.

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Winter-Spring 2024

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