Lin shares details of the upcoming spring season of films at Ventnor Film Society. Ed
On Tuesday 12th and Wednesday 13th February, Ventnor Film Society returns with a new programme of recent award-winning films from the UK and around the world.
As usual, the Society will be screening each film on two evenings, fortnightly on Tuesday and Wednesdays at Ventnor Arts Club. Everyone is welcome to come along; there is 
no membership and there is no need to be a member of the Arts Club to attend.
You can find details of all the events on our Isle of Wight listings site.
What to look forward to
This season we will be screening critically acclaimed films from the UK, Japan, Denmark, Iceland, Poland, Bulgaria and Iran. With tense thrillers, romance, family/crime drama, animation, historical drama and black comedy, we have put together a programme that we hope will suit many tastes, in English and in the original languages with subtitles.
Last season, we experimented with screening English language films with subtitles on a
Wednesday and as this was well-received, we have decided to continue the practice, helping to make our screenings accessible to more people and to overcome the problems sometimes encountered with accents and mumbling actors!
We begin in Poland
We head first to Poland of the 1950s with the BAFTA nominated Cold War. Director Pawel Pawlikowski follows his Oscar-winning Ida with a stunning epic romance set against the backdrop of Europe divided by the Iron Curtain.
Beautifully shot in luminous black and white, it tells the haunting story of a turbulent but ill-fated love affair.
Then onto Denmark
The Guilty from Denmark comes highly recommended.
A taut, fast-paced thriller, it features just one man and his phone, as alarm dispatcher 
Asger Holm answers an emergency call and enters a desperate race against time to save a kidnap victim.
Iranian animation
Iranian director Ali Soozandeh chose rotoscope animation to critique the hypocrisy of modern Iranian society where sex, drugs, and corruption coexist with strict religious law.
Tehran Taboo tells the story of several strong-willed women and a young musician in a film that would never have been permitted on location in the city.
Nordic noir
Lovers of Nordic noir will enjoy Under The Tree, a dark and sometimes macabre black comedy from Iceland.
What starts as a typical spat between suburban neighbours about a beautiful old 
tree unexpectedly and violently spirals out of control to reach boiling point.
Shoplifting in Japan
Our next choice is Shoplifters, a Japanese film by one of our favourite directors, Hirokazu Kore-eda. When Osamu and his son come across a little girl in the freezing cold, his wife agrees to take her in.
Although the family barely survives through petty crime, they live happily together until an unforeseen incident reveals hidden secrets.
Back to the UK
With the historical drama Peterloo, Mike Leigh marks the 200th 
anniversary of the notorious Peterloo Massacre with an impassioned and unflinching depiction of the 1819 event, when a crowd of some 60,000 people gathered in St Peter’s Field to demand Parliamentary reform, only to be fired upon by government forces in a defining moment of British history.
Bulgarian black comedy
Our final film is Glory, a satirical black comedy from Bulgaria. Honest railwayman Tzanko finds a bundle of banknotes on the tracks and hands them in to the police. The transport ministry seizes the chance to distract from a corruption scandal and stages a publicity stunt, 
where Tzanko is rewarded with a new wristwatch.
Sadly, Tzanko’s own watch, a family heirloom, is lost in the process, kick-starting his desperate struggle to recover both his watch and his dignity.
You can find details of all the events on our Isle of Wight listings site.
Book your seats
Ventnor Film Society meets in the comfortable Ventnor Arts Club, 13 High Street, Ventnor.
To be sure of a place, please reserve a seat by emailing [email protected], but local viewers can always take a chance and turn up on the night. Screenings take place fortnightly on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7.30pm.
Entrance is £6, payable at the door, with under 25s enjoying a discount of £3, and the bar is open from 6.30pm.
We look forward to seeing all our regulars in February but if you have never been before, please come along and enjoy!
