Featuring our pick of the films for May……
The Burning Plain (M) 102 mins
Director: Guillermo Arriaga
Cast: Charlize Theron, Kim Bassinger, John Corbett
Synopsis :From Guillermo Arriaga, the internationally acclaimed Oscar-nominated writer of Babel, 21 Grams and Amores Perros, comes The Burning Plain, an emotional journey about the redemption of past sins that weaves together four parallel stories. Oscar-winner Charlize Theron plays Sylvia, a restaurant manager whose professional demeanour masks the sexually charged storm within. A young girl, Maria (Tessa Ia), lives happily with her father in Mexico until a tragic accident changes everything. Two teenagers, Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence) and Santiago (JD Pardo), find love in the aftermath of their parents' sudden deaths. And lonely housewife Gina (Oscar-winner Kim Basinger), embarks on a passionate affair that will put Sylvia and the others on a collision course with the explosive power of forbidden love.
Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky (MA15+) 119 mins
Director: Jan Kounen
Cast: Anna Mouglalis, Mads Mikkelsen
Synopsis: Paris 1913, Coco Chanel is devoted to her work and madly in love with the handsome and very wealthy Arthur 'Boy' Capel. At the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Igor Stravinsky premieres his Rite of Spring. Coco attends the premiere and is mesmerised. But the revolutionary work is too modern, too radical: the enraged audience boos and jeers. A near-riot ensues. Stravinsky is inconsolable.
7 years later. Now rich, respected and successful, Coco is devastated by Boy Capel's death. She meets Stravinsky again – now a penniless refugee living in exile in Paris after the Russian Revolution, The attraction between them is immediate and electric. Coco offers Stravinsky the use of her new villa in Garches, so that he will be able to work, and he moves in straight away, with his children and consumptive wife. And so a passionate, intense love affair between two creative giants begins.
Beneath Hill 60 (M) 122 mins
Director: Jeremy Sims
Cast: Brendan Cowell, Harrison Gilbertson, Steve Le Marquand
Synopsis: Beneath Hill 60 is the action packed story of Australia's cat-and-mouse underground mine warfare - one of the most misunderstood, misrepresented, and mystifying conflicts of WW I. It was secret struggle beneath the Western Front that combined daring engineering, technology and science. Few on the surface knew of the brave, claustrophobic and sometimes barbaric work of these tunnellers.
Beneath Hill 60 is a new Australian feature film directed by renowned actor/director Jeremy Sims and written by screenwriter David Roach. It will shed light on this untold story of the Australian miners with a finely tuned dramatic script and the finest actors, working in underground sets built in association with the mining community in North Queensland.
The Concert (M) 118 mins
Director: Radu Mihaileanu
Cast: Aleksei Guskov, Mélanie Laurent, Dmitri Nazarov
Synopsis: Thirty years ago, Andrei Simoniovich Filipov, the renowned conductor of the Bolshoi orchestra, was fired for hiring Jewish musicians. Now a mere cleaning man at the Bolshoi, he learns by accident that the Châtelet Theater in Paris invites the Bolshoi orchestra to play there. He decides to gather together his former musicians and to perform in Paris in the place of the current Bolshoi orchestra. As a solo violin player to accompany his old Jewish or Gypsy musicians he wants Anne-Marie Jacquet, a young virtuoso. If they all overcome the hardships ahead this very special concert will be a triumph.
Subtitles: English/French and Russian
Triangle (MA15+) 99 mins
Director:Christopher Smith
Cast:Melissa George, Michael Dorman, Emma Lung, Joshua McIvor
Synopsis: When Jess sets sail on a yacht with a group of friends, she cannot shake the feeling that there is something wrong. Her suspicions are realized when the yacht hits a storm and the group is forced to board a passing ocean liner to get to safety, a ship Jess is convinced she's been on before. The ship appears deserted, the clock on board has stopped, but they are not alone... Someone is intent on hunting them down, one by one. And Jess unknowingly holds the key to end the terror.
44 Inch Chest (MA15+) 95 mins
Director: Malcolm Venville
Cast: Ray Winstone, Tom Wilkinson, John Hurt
Synopsis: Provocative, outrageously profane and surprisingly tender amidst an explosion of unbridled testosterone, 44 Inch Chest explores the masculine ego at breaking point, testing whether fear is stronger than love.
Colin (Ray Winstone) is in agony, shattered by his wife's (Joanne Whalley) infidelity. However, he has friends who do more than stand by - they kidnap the wife's French lover and hold him prisoner so that Colin can restore his manhood with revenge. A kangaroo court takes place and as the situation escalates Loverboy's life hangs in the balance as Colin wrestles with revenge, remorse, grief and self pity, all the while egged on by his motley crew of friends who just want him to get on with it so they can get down the pub.
