To save paper, cut costs and give us flexibility in selecting films at short notice, we no longer produce printed programmes. All of our films are listed on the Buxton Opera House Cinema website as well as our own. If you’d like to receive a weekly alert for our Monday film please subscribe to our newsletter.
Here is our diary – we update it as soon as new films are confirmed. You won’t find a more varied and interesting programme anywhere!
| Monday 17/3/25 | Memoir of a Snail | Good animation films for adults are rare but this one from Oscar-winning animation writer and director Adam Elliot fits the bill. There is no CGI and the painstaking work that went into preparing the clay models for the 135,000 photographs needed to build this stop-motion feature is plain to see. Grace Pudel is a lonely misfit with an affinity for collecting ornamental snails and an intense love for books. At a young age, when Grace is separated from her twin brother Gilbert, she falls into a spiral of anxiety and angst. Despite a continued series of hardships, inspiration and hope emerge when she strikes up an enduring friendship with an elderly eccentric woman named Pinky, who is full of grit and lust for life. A poignant, heartfelt and hilarious chronicle of the life of an outsider finding her confidence and silver linings amongst the clutter of everyday life |
| Sunday 23/3/25 | Dawn of Impressionism - Paris 1974 | The Impressionists are the most popular group in art history - millions flock every year to marvel at their masterpieces. But, to begin with, they were scorned, penniless outsiders. 1874 was the year that changed everything; the first Impressionists, “hungry for independence”, broke the mould by holding their own exhibition outside official channels. Impressionism was born and the art world was changed forever. What led to that first groundbreaking show 150 years ago? Who were the maverick personalities that wielded their brushes in such a radical and provocative way? The spectacular Musée d’Orsay exhibition brings fresh eyes to this extraordinary tale of passion and rebellion. The story is told not by historians and curators but in the words of those who witnessed the dawn of Impressionism: the artists, press and people of Paris, 1874. Made in close collaboration with the Musée d’Orsay and National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Please note that due to licensing restrictions, tickets for this film are £10 (£7 children/students). |
| Monday 24/3/25 | Earnest Cole: Lost and Found | Following a recent UK exhibition of South African photographer Ernest Cole’s ground-breaking photobook House of Bondage – one of the most significant photographic works of the 20th century, which exposed the inhumanity and injustice of South African apartheid to the world – this new documentary takes his story to film. Narrated by actor LaKeith Stanfield, the film is filled with images of the acutely painful photographs Cole risked his own life to take; psychological portraits of existence within a brutal caste system, its violence and indignity. Published in 1967 when Cole was only in his 20s, House of Bondage exiled him to Europe and America for the rest of his life, enraged for decades by the silence of the West in the face of the apartheid regime. Of a piece with Peck’s wider body of work including the Oscar-nominated I Am Not Your Negro, Ernest Cole: Lost & Found is also a kind of detective thriller, which documents a latter-day discovery while reassessing Cole’s life and contribution to our understanding of race. |
| Monday 31/3/25 | Satu - Year of the Rabbit | For those of you who enjoyed Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom (2019) and If Only I Could Hibernate (2023), here is another visually stunning film from new director Joshua Trigg. The story is not unfamiliar but the non-trained actors and the absolutely beautiful locations (shot in 16mm film) in Laos ensure that you’re in for a treat. A mother leaves her baby on the steps of the Pha Tang Temple, believing that the monks will give the boy a better life than she ever could. Years later, a student of journalism seeking a good story, meets Satu, a young boy at the temple. Together they head north on a road journey to unravel the story of Satu’s origins. The film has won a number of awards and is being distributed independently by the filmmaker. |
| Monday 7/4/25 | I Am Martin Parr | Since the 1970s, English photographer Martin Parr has held up a sometimes tender, sometimes critical and always mischievous mirror to our times, forcing us to take a hard look at how consumer society has shaped our lives. Discover the maverick behind some of the most iconic images of the past century on an intimate and exclusive road trip across England with the uncompromising Parr, whose subjects, frames and colours have revolutionised contemporary photography. One of the most controversial photographers of his time, Martin Parr’s images often have the power to both amuse and leave us ever so slightly uncomfortable, caught between laughter and the uneasy recognition of ourselves in his uncompromising portrait of consumer society. Though he’s now celebrated, collected and exhibited worldwide, Parr’s early work did not find an easy public and was highly criticized for trivializing the working class. Yet, in retrospect, perhaps he was just observing what we often overlook - forcing it into the spotlight as an essential topic of discussion. I Am Martin Parr is the definitive portrait of an extraordinary photographer who revolutionized contemporary photography by inventing a political, humanist and accessible photographic language. |
| Monday 14/4/25 | I'm Still Here | BRAZIL, 1971. Brazil faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship. Eunice Paiva, a mother of five children, is forced to reinvent herself after her family suffers a violent and arbitrary act by the government.The Oscar-winning I’m Still Here is based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva's biographical book and tells the true story that helped reconstruct an important part of Brazil’s hidden history. |
| Monday 21/4/25 | On Falling | Set against a landscape dominated by an algorithm-driven gig economy, in a world designed to keep us apart, On Falling explores the silent, vital struggle to find meaning and connection. It tells the story of Aurora, a Portuguese migrant working as a warehouse picker in Edinburgh, Scotland. Trapped between the confines of a vast distribution centre and the solitude of her own bedroom, Aurora seeks out every opportunity to resist the alienation and isolation that threaten her sense of self. Winner: Best Director,San Sebastián International Film Festival 2024 Winner: Sutherland Award, BFI London Film Festival 2024 |
| Monday 28/4/25 | Four Mothers | The witty, disarming and tender story of one Irish son juggling four very different mothers, Darren Thornton’s (A Date for Mad Mary) film won the BFI London Film Festival 2024 Audience Award for Best Feature. An adaptation of Gianni Di Gregorio’s Mid-August Lunch (2008), it follows Edward (James McArdle), an up-and-coming novelist who’s forced to balance press commitments with caring for his elderly mother. Pressure to go on a US book tour is mounting, but when his three closest friends head off on an impromptu Pride holiday – and leave their own ageing mothers in Edward’s care too – he must juggle a burgeoning career with the care of four eccentric, combative, and wildly different ladies over the course of one chaotic and unforgettable weekend. |
| Monday 5/5/25 | Santosh | A widow-turned-police officer investigates a troubling murder in British Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri’s (I for India, Around India with a Movie Camera) fiction feature debut, screened in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2024. After her constable husband is killed on the job in remote northern India, Santosh reluctantly assumes his role. When a teenage Dalit (low caste) girl is found murdered and a Muslim boy is suspected, igniting protests in the local community, she is pulled into the case under the command of new female superior who skilfully navigates their police station’s misogynistic culture while remaining a fierce advocate against gendered violence. As the case develops, though, both women must confront their place within a corrupt (and corrupting) system, and Santosh’s personal ethics are painfully challenged by the realities of her world. A deft thriller interrogating hierarchies of gender, caste, religion and class in rural India, with superb performances from Goswami and Rajwar, Santosh combines a complex character study with searing social critique. |
| Monday 12/5/25 | Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story | The 93-year-old Irish writer recounts her controversial life, novels, love affairs, and stardom through personal journals read by actress Jessie Buckley, with perspectives from writers like Gabriel Byrne and Walter Mosley. |