FEBRUARY 9th
THE FIRST GRADER
Director: Justin Chadwick
Actors: Naomie Harris, Oliver Litondo, Tony Kgoroge
103 minutes Cert. 12A. Biography/Drama

This inspiring story of the power of education and the right to equality, The First
Grader is set in Kenya in 2003, where Maruge, an 84 year old village elder uses a
government initiative to claim the education he has always craved but could never afford.
A former Mau Mau fighter, Maruge’s desire to learn to read and write has been sparked
– but when he presents himself at the school gates, he finds head teacher Jane alone in
being sympathetic to his cause. Shooting in the stunning Kenyan rift valley and using a
real school and its pupils gives the film an authentic sense of place and community, and
the children’s uninhibited natural performances are a joy to watch. There is humour
woven throughout and a heartwarming affection and mutual respect between the
dignified old man and his passionately progressive young teacher.

 

FEBRUARY 23rd
LE QUATTRO VOLTE
Director: Michelangelo Frammartino
Actors: Giuseppe Fuda, Bruno Timpano, Nazarenzo Timpano
88 minutes Cert. U. Drama

Michelangelo Frammartino's Le Quattro Volte, or The Four Times, is a gem of art
cinema. This beautiful movie is almost entirely wordless; superbly filmed, with an
almost respiratory sense of the rise and fall of the seasons and the rhythm of the
countryside. The scene is Calabria in southern Italy; it could be taking place at any time
over the past couple of centuries and only the final section definitely locates it in the
present day. An old shepherd tends to his goats; heartbreakingly, he is racked by a
terrible cough and is dying, and when he slumps down or collapses in a field or
woodland, one of the goats returns, as if to check on him. The goats are tending to him.
Every night, he drinks some sort of powdered infusion; later, we will find that this
powder is not medicine, but dust from the church floor, which he apparently credits with
magical qualities: superstition has mixed with traditional piety in this secluded place…

 

MARCH 8th
ORANGES AND SUNSHINE
Director: Jim Loach
Actors: Emily Watson, Hugo Weaving, David Wenham
105 minutes Cert. 15. Drama

Grounded in a heart wrenching fact-based story, steered by Loach's sensitive
direction, and led by a powerful performance from Watson, Oranges and Sunshine tells
the story of Margaret Humphreys, a social worker from Nottingham, who uncovered
one of the most significant social scandals in recent times: the organised deportation of
children in care from the United Kingdom to Australia. Children as young as four had
been told that their parents were dead and sent to children's homes on the other side of
the world, where many were subjected to appalling abuse. These forgotten children were
promised Oranges and Sunshine but they got hard labour and life in institutions. Almost
single-handedly, against overwhelming odds and with little regard for her own wellbeing,
Margaret reunited thousands of families, brought authorities

 

MARCH 22nd
THE LIGHT THIEF
Director: Aktan Arym Kubat
Actors: Aktan Arym Kubat, Asan Amanov, Stanbek Toichubaev
80 minutes Cert. tbc. Drama

A visually ravishing political allegory that manages to be warm, witty and utterly charming.
In a remote region in the south of Kyrgyzstan, left struggling after the break up
of the Soviet Union, a popular, open-hearted electrician known as Mr Light is
kind to the old folks, rescues young boys from trees and tampers with meters so
that the impoverished rural community who cannot afford electricity have
access to it. This sort of Robin Hood altruism does not make him popular with
the authorities; but he is then taken up by exploitative entrepreneurs and he finds himself a pawn in a bigger