Cheltenham Film Society
Cheltenham Film Society (CFS) was founded in 1945 and currently has 450 members. We show mostly subtitled and independent films between September and April at the Bacon Theatre in Dean Close School, Cheltenham. Admission is by annual membership subscription, but members may bring guests.
The object of the society is “to advance the education of the public in the knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the arts, particularly the art of film and allied visual techniques”. To this end, the society has the power to “promote the study and appreciation of films by means of lectures, discussions and exhibitions”.
All information provided by Cheltenham Film Society
Screenings
Upcoming
When Autumn Falls
15th Sep 2026 at 19:45
Certificate:
Synopsis
François Ozon’s 24th feature, each one different from the last, but always with an involving story and strong, interesting female characters. The central character in When Autumn Falls is enigmatic octogenarian Michelle, played by doyenne of French film, Hélène Vincent, in a wonderful lead performance. Our first film of the season also features rising star Pierre Lottin as Vincent, the imprisoned bad-boy son of Marie Claude, a contrasting role to the humble trombonist, Jimmy, in The Marching Band, our final film of last season.
In the Burgundian countryside, Michelle is enjoying what appears to be an idyllic retirement. Apart from spending time with her best friend, Marie-Claude, Michelle’s greatest joy is seeing her young grandson, Lucas. When her daughter Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier) drops off Lucas to spend the school vacation with his grandma, a crucial incident occurs that leads Valérie to cut short their visit and remove Michelle’s access to Lucas, leaving her heartbroken and depressed. At this point Marie-Claude’s son, ex-con Vincent, enters the picture. Michelle offers to help him financially and his friendship seems to give her life renewed purpose, but this is when her problems really begin, and secrets from the past make their way to the surface.
Ozon leads us through his elegantly plotted and engrossing mystery, with unexpected twists and turns as revelations and ambiguous motives are revealed. Skilfully put together, beautifully acted by the entire cast and totally engrossing.
Language: French with subtitles
Additional Info
Why Watch?
“A character-driven psychological drama from the ever-surprising and unpredictable François Ozon, the twisty When Autumn Falls is worthy of comparison to Claude Chabrol at his finest.” (Irish Film Institute)
“When Autumn Falls succeeds at once as an empathetic psychological portrait, a feminist drama and an emphatic anti-ageism statement — all executed with the subtlety, craft and sheer sly cheek that are Ozon trademarks.” (Financial Times)
Director’s comments - François Ozon
Q&A: director François Ozon - The modern French master reflects on ageing, useful lies and country secrets in his new slow crime film, theartsdesk, 20 March 2025
“It’s a story of survival. It’s people who try to survive with their past, and with reality.”
“I’m a cinephile director so of course I’ve seen many great films. For this film what inspired me more was the writer, Georges Simenon”
Location
Cheltenham Film Society, Bacon Theatre, Hatherley Rd, Cheltenham, GL51 6EP
Memoir Of A Snail
22nd Sep 2026 at 19:45
Certificate:
Synopsis
This is an animation masterpiece, every frame handcrafted by Oscar-winning director, Adam Elliot; eight years in the making and very much one man’s vision. Eliot’s own inventive and quirky creation of a surreal world where he blends tragedy, humour and pathos into a unique experience. From the sombre colour palette alone, you recognise that this is not conventional stop-motion cartoon light entertainment. Its messages of learning how to heal the soul and the importance of love are very much for adults and are told entirely through the personal history of one character, Grace Pudel, who, despite the film’s title, is not a snail.
Grace loves snails and, sitting on her garden bench, she tells her life-story to her favourite, Sylvia. In 1970’s Australia, close knit twins Grace and Gilbert are separated to the opposite ends of the continent while still children. Grace faces every imaginable setback in her life, becoming overwhelmed with sadness and withdrawing from life into her ‘shell’. She finds safety living in a pretend world and comfort in collecting and hoarding books and snail-related tat. Her life begins to change when she receives wise advice from colourful pensioner, Pinky. Beautifully voiced by Sarah Snook as Grace and a fantastic Jacki Weaver as her eccentric friend Pinky, it deals frankly with a number of difficult subjects with maturity and honesty.
Truly original, the whole is striking and strange but full of feeling. Although Grace’s life is beset by ill-fortune and sadness, there is room for lots of visual gags, albeit very Aussie ‘dark’ humour. With its eccentric characters and philosophical storytelling, this is a poignant, bittersweet fable of survival and overcoming.
Language:English
Additional Info
Why Watch?
“It’s a rich, deeply moving narrative, albeit one told to a snail named after Sylvia Plath, with the filmmaker’s writing on a par with the skill and care behind Memoir Of A Snail’s craftsmanship.” (Empire)
“Elliot is a master of the art of gallows humour, and this appealing ‘clayography’ is as hilarious as it is heart-wrenching – frequently within the same scene.” (Screen Daily)
Director’s Comments - Adam Elliot
Living Forward: Adam Elliot on “Memoir of a Snail”, RogerEbert.com, November 6, 2024
“My films are all very similar in that they’re all comedy tragedies. In each draft, I’m trying to balance those two emotions, the light and the dark, as much as possible. I’m trying to make sure the film isn’t too bleak but also that it’s not too vacuous and full of gags. I’m always trying to get that lovely balance.”
“For me, it’s always the story first, animation second. The audience will always forgive bad lighting, bad animating, bad acting, but they’ll never forgive a bad story.”
Location
Cheltenham Film Society, Bacon Theatre, Hatherley Rd, Cheltenham, GL51 6EP
Vermiglio
6th Oct 2026 at 19:45
Certificate:
Synopsis
This stunningly beautiful film, which has to be seen on the big screen, takes us into the world of a remote Italian mountain village high in the Trentino Alps. An enthralling family drama told in four chapters to mirror the changing seasons, giving us a glimpse of a disappearing era as the Second World War comes to a close. Inspired by events in her own family’s past, writer/director Maura Delpero crafts a multi-layered and deeply human story as we discover how global and local events shape the lives of the large Graziadei family, uncovering the hidden secrets and lies within.
During the course of this gently paced movie we get to know them. Cesare Graziadei is the village teacher, a man used to being obeyed. He and his wife, Adele, are soon to have another baby, adding to their already large family of eight children. The film primarily centres on the three older daughters; the eldest, quiet Lucia, Ada, the devout one with a book full of self-devised atonements for her sins, and Flavia, the youngest and academic one, the only child destined for a chance to have a proper education. Life in Vermiglio continues as it always has, untouched by the outside world, until Cesare’s nephew Attilio returns from the war, helped back by his Sicilian comrade Pietro. Everyone knows they are deserters. Despite being seen as ‘foreign’ and unable to speak their dialect, Pietro is made welcome and allowed to stay.
Vermiglio is a film of immense subtlety and quiet observation, beautifully crafted in a way that recalls Italian neorealist cinema. The passage of time in the icy beauty of their Alpine environment is superbly evoked by the stunning, muted cinematography of Mikhail Krichman – highly regarded for his work with Andrey Zvyagintsev. Exquisitely acted by a mix of professional actors and locals and spoken mostly in dialect, it is an immersive and absorbing film. It was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.
Language: Italian, Latin, Ladino with subtitles
Additional Info
Why Watch?
“It is a movie which inhabits its own universe with ease and calm but also widens it to include the audience who are inducted into its mysteries. A lovely film.” (The Guardian)
“Vermiglio is exquisite. There’s a rough, earthy tenderness to the picture and a kinship with other recent examples of Italian folk cinema.” (The Observer)
Director’s comment - Maura Delpero
Maura Delpero on Vermiglio: Interview LoudandClear, January 10, 2025
Was there any painter or specific artistic movement that inspired you the most? “Mostly Giovanni Segantini’s winter paintings. But also Flemish paintings and some artists of the Romantic era, like Friedrich and Courbet. That is why the camera is fixed and never out of focus: it almost looks like a painting. It really set the aesthetic of the film because I also wanted a sort of painted texture that did not feel too sharp, too defined, or too digital, so that drove our choice in terms of lenses in order to make the audience feel like they were in a huge painting.”
Location
Cheltenham Film Society, Bacon Theatre, Hatherley Rd, Cheltenham, GL51 6EP
The President's Cake
13th Oct 2026 at 19:45
Certificate:
Synopsis
Winner of the Caméra d'Or (Best first feature) at Cannes 2025 for director, Hasan Hadi, and the first Iraqi film CFS has shown. Hadi draws on his own childhood memories under Saddam Hussein’s regime in this moving and impactful film. He shows the harsh reality of life for the Iraqi people during the Gulf War through the perspective of two young school friends who support each other as they try to find their way in a corrupt and oppressive world they cannot yet understand.
9 year-old orphan Lamia’s mandatory task, under threat of punishment, is to collect the ingredients to provide her school class’s cake to celebrate Saddam Hussein’s 50th birthday. The shortages and harsh conditions of life in Iraq in 1991 under crippling UN sanctions and US bombing, mean that even basic foods are enormously expensive and almost impossible to find. Accompanied by her elderly grandmother, Bibi, and her pet rooster, Lamia travels from her home in the marshlands to the nearby city to search for the ingredients. Lamia soon realises Bibi has an ulterior reason for going. Running off, she encounters her friend, Saeed; teaming up with him as they set out in the bustling city on a series of mini-adventures fraught with difficulty and danger. The children encounter a succession of characters, some benign and helpful, but others willing to exploit the children for their own benefit.
The President’s Cake is a fascinating tale of love, friendship and the resilience of the Iraqi people. Location filming, music, beautiful cinematography and the natural and beguiling performance of the talented young actor Baneen Ahmed Nayyef as Lamia, bring this story to life. Avoiding sentimentality, Hadi seamlessly balances action, drama, humour and suspense in this poignant and captivating film, richly deserving of its Caméra d'Or and Cannes Audience Awards.
Language: Arabic with subtitles
Additional Info
Why Watch?
“In the tradition of Iran’s Asghar Farhadi and Jafar Panahi — filmmakers who make movies as if their lives depend on it — Iraqi writer/director Hasan Hadi sends from the Middle East a quiet contemplation of life under emotional and economic siege; and a reminder that in the end, human dignity will always assert itself, no matter what.” (Saturday Evening Post at the Toronto International Film Festival)
“A fascinating slice of life from rural Iraq, this warmly involving drama pulls us in with its vivid characters as they navigate a series of tricky situations.” (Shadows on the Wall)
Location
Cheltenham Film Society, Bacon Theatre, Hatherley Rd, Cheltenham, GL51 6EP
The Girl With The Needle
20th Oct 2026 at 19:45
Certificate:
Synopsis
Magnus von Horn has created an intense and controversial film that is even more impactful as it is based on the real characters and events from a notorious 1921 Danish murder trial. This synopsis is longer than usual as the film might be a difficult watch for some – also see the Content Note below.
This is a bold and brilliant piece of cinema set in post-WW1 Copenhagen with a strong screenplay, superb period detail and cinematography, and outstanding performances by Vic Carmen Sonne (Godland) and the wonderful Trine Dyrholm (A Royal Affair, In a Better World). Both chilling and compelling in equal measure, but not sensationalised or gratuitous, it consciously portrays the dark side of humanity and the vulnerability of the powerless in society within the conventions of a psychological horror. At the start of the film, startling black-and-white images of blurred and distorted faces emerge on the screen against ominous strings, giving us an unnerving sense of what is to come. Von Horn, has staged his period drama using stark shadows and claustrophobic framing to create a sense of dread. The monochromatic gothic style, reminiscent of German Expressionism, notably Fritz Lang’s ‘M’ (1931), highlights the grinding poverty and moral corruption of the pitiless post-war world inhabited by the film's characters, particularly the women left abandoned and vulnerable.
From the start, Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne) is challenged by her circumstances - her husband is presumed dead in the war. She is jobless, homeless, pregnant and exhausted; the only glimmer of hope that was held out to her has been stripped away. With no wish to condemn her miserable life on her child, Karoline attempts a termination at a local bathhouse. There she encounters Dagmar Overbye (Trine Dyrholm), a self-assured and seemingly friendly woman who runs an illegal adoption service under the facade of a local sweet shop. Dagmar offers Karoline work and the opportunity to find a wealthy, caring family for her child should she decide to go ahead with her pregnancy. This chance gives Karoline hope and a strong connection forms between the two women. Sadly, the better life brokered by Dagmar is not what poor Karoline hoped for, as her suspicions gradually become manifest and she recognises her own moral complicity.
Von Horn describes his film as a “dark fairytale” (not the sanitised versions we know today). Sonne is excellent as the strong-willed, yet naive and pitiable victim; crucially showing the calculating and opportunistic side of Karoline’s character. Von Horn characterises Dagmar as a symptom of a heartless environment rather than as inherently evil, and Trine Dyrholm, in an extremely challenging role, superbly conveys the trauma that Dagmar too has experienced.
Language: Danish with subtitles
Additional Info
Why Watch?
“This period piece offers a very different kind of female odyssey through a lonely and forbidding world. The result is harrowing but seriously impressive.” (Time Out)
“Reminiscent of the works of Robert Bresson, Ingmar Bergman, and Carl Theodor Dreyer – with the social realism of Thomas Hardy and Elizabeth Gaskell; The Girl with the Needle is stunning, bleak, heart-breaking, and strange.” (Alliance of Women Film Journalists)
Director’s comments - Magnus von Horn
Magnus von Horn discusses his gritty film, nominated for the Best International Film Oscar. Brande Victorian, The Hollywood Reporter, 13 Feb 2025
“I think the strongest thing for the audience is what we don’t see. It’s like what Hitchcock said, our imagination will always be stronger than anything we can ever show.”
On the film’s final chapter: “It’s a way to take all this dark energy in this film and spin it into something hopeful. I want to believe that about the world.”
Content Note (Advisory)
This stark Danish-language drama portrays horrifying events following a young woman’s involvement in an illegal adoption agency. With its disturbing subject matter and undercurrent of violence, this film is not for everyone.
Go to the British Board of Film Classification website: https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/the-girl-with-the-needle-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0xmdi1mdc1
The Content Advice may contain spoilers.
Location
Cheltenham Film Society, Bacon Theatre, Hatherley Rd, Cheltenham, GL51 6EP
Late Shift
3rd Nov 2026 at 19:45
Certificate:
Synopsis
In this gripping drama set in a large Zurich hospital, a nurse finds herself caught in a race against time during a gruelling night shift. Directed by Petra Volpe (The Divine Order), the film stars Leonie Benesch (The Teacher’s Lounge) as Nurse Floria Lind. Together, Volpe and Benesch make it an intense and deeply felt experience.
Once Floria enters the hospital, the film follows her every move. Floria has barely donned her scrubs before she is informed that the hospital is severely understaffed for her shift. There is only one other nurse, Bea, and student nurse, Amelie, to help her with all the twenty plus patients on the ward. The ward’s occupants run the gamut from anxious to entitled; several treat Floria as their personal valet. Relatives want answers. Patients get impatient. The pace is frenetic as she juggles tasks, rushing from one room to another. Floria is an experienced professional but, battling exhaustion and impossible choices, the shift goes from challenging to unmanageable, serving to remind us that the health care crisis extends beyond the UK.
Benesch is totally convincing in her role, with a beautifully controlled performance imbuing every expression with depth and nuance. It is a portrait of the care-taker as a heroine in a failing system and a shot in the arm of pure empathy for the overstretched, undervalued nursing profession, but it is a compelling drama first and foremost.
Language: German, Turkish, French, Albanian with subtitles
Additional Info
Why Watch?
“The wiry and intense physicality that Benesch brought to her role as a newbie schoolteacher in The Teachers’ Lounge finds new depths in her Late Shift performance... Floria is a full-blooded and beautifully etched character and, yes, a heroine.” (The Hollywood Reporter)
“As a nurse, I can only say: Wow! It's incredible how authentically the movie portrays my work. .. It shows very well what makes working on an understaffed ward so stressful: the constant calls, the constant interruptions. You always have to prioritise - but that's impossible - all tasks are equally important and urgent. Leonie Benesch as Floria was outstanding! It just looks like she's been working in nursing for ten years. And how she reacts to stress, this withdrawing into herself, the ignoring of stupid comments, the politeness that you have to wring out of yourself despite all the stress. The subtle traumatization that creeps in through such shifts of horror. At the same time, the director manages to show what could actually be so beautiful about the profession. Really really excellent!” (From a comment on Late Shift made to Unison Magazine)
Location
Cheltenham Film Society, Bacon Theatre, Hatherley Rd, Cheltenham, GL51 6EP
The Secret Agent
17th Nov 2026 at 19:45
Certificate:
Synopsis
A slow-burning, tense political drama from Brazil filmed to recreate the atmosphere of a 1970s Hollywood thriller. The majority of the film is set in 1977, in the same time period as I’m Still Here, but with a very different flavour; giving a broader sense of the turmoil inflicted on the country. Director, Kleber Mendonça Filho has crafted a richly layered drama; a provocative and vivid exposé of corruption and persecution with startling images, random violence, quirky characters, digressions into odd folk tales and an odd cameo from Udo Kier.
Wagner Moura (Narcos’ Pablo Escobar), in a soulful, understated performance, plays Armando - using the name Marcelo as an alias - a widower and former research scientist on the run from events in his past. Travelling to his hometown of Recife to reunite with his young son and obtain documents that will allow them to leave the country, he arrives at a refuge for political dissidents run by former anarchist/communist Dona Sebastiana (a scene-stealing septuagenarian seamstress-turned-actress, Tânia Maria). To get assistance and a fake passport, she puts him in touch with Elza, the leader of a resistance group. When Armando meets her at a cinema, which also acts as a contact point for dissidents, he discovers he is the target of a contract killing. Some way into the film, we see modern-day researcher, Flavia, digitising archived cassette tapes. Her discoveries uncover Armando’s place within Recife’s intricate web of secrets, revealing the sinister state corruption and violence which surrounded it.
Winner of Best Director and Best Actor at Cannes 2025 with four Academy Award nominations, two BAFTA nominations, and two Golden Globe wins, The Secret Agent stands as a defining achievement in the rebirth of Brazilian cinema and a testament to the fate of all the ordinary Brazilian people whose lives are just forgotten cases buried in an archive.
NB. The legend of the ‘hairy leg’ became a cultural symbol and metaphor for the invisible terror people lived under at the time.
Language: Portuguese, German, with subtitles
Additional Info
Why Watch?
“Without missing a beat, it can depart from painstaking period piece into B-movie territory, satirising media-fabricated panic in a vignette about a sentient severed leg that goes on a killing rampage in a gay cruising area. Such confident skill, combined with the richness of the narrative and the impressively fluid storytelling, renders the film riveting for all 158 minutes of its running time. One is tempted to call it a masterpiece.” (Sight and Sound)
“ .. an amazingly sophisticated, wayward and garrulous film from Brazil, a film about love and fatherhood, tyranny and resistance, and coming to terms with the past. It is digressive and droll and yet in its final act escalates stunningly from lugubrious mystery to cold-sweat tension and violence.” (The Guardian)
Director’s Comments - Kleber Mendonça Filho
Inside “The Secret Agent”: Kleber Mendonça Filho & Wagner Moura on Power, Paranoia, and an Oscar‑Nominated Thriller by Loren King, Motion Picture Association, March 12, 2026,
Mendonça Filho: “I didn’t really want to make a film about the dictatorship, I wanted to rebuild the sense of the time. In very difficult situations when people get together and they protect each other.”
“I believe cinema puts a time stamp on our lives, like music does. In a period piece, I use these cultural time stamps. Hollywood had a strong reverberation around the world. Brazilian time stamps were telenovelas, musicals of that era. In the ‘70s, Jaws was a phenomenon in Brazil. Recife is a coastal city with a real shark problem, so combining the two is fascinating.”
Location
Cheltenham Film Society, Bacon Theatre, Hatherley Rd, Cheltenham, GL51 6EP
DJ Ahmet
8th Dec 2026 at 19:45
Certificate:
Synopsis
A little gem enjoyed by all of the CFS Viewing Panel, DJ Ahmet tells the story of 15-year old Ahmet growing up in a remote village in North Macedonia. Its warm sense of character and the cultural context combine in a disarming coming-of-age feature in which the power of music helps to overcome traditional barriers. DJ Ahmet took the World Cinema Audience Award at Sundance 2025.
Ahmet lives with his gruff widowed father and younger brother, Naim, who has been mute since their mother’s death. As much as Ahmet would like to follow his passion to make music, his father, whose whole focus is on making a livelihood from his flock of sheep, has more traditional expectations for him. Ahmet finds refuge in Electronic Dance Music and his DJ decks. Music is also an escape for Aya, a local girl who has returned to the village from Germany for an arranged marriage to an older man against her will. Both Ahmet and Aya yearn for excitement, and their shared love of music brings them closer together as they fight to assert their own identities and forge new paths.
Director, Georgi M. Unkovski, approaches the clash between Ahmet’s youthful rebellion against the rustic world of his father and the realities of life in their isolated community with a non-judgmental warmth, sensitively exploring the realities of life in their isolated community. Arif Jakup is immediately likeable as Ahmet and gives a soulful performance in the lead role, especially in scenes with his innocent and adorable brother, Naim. Boosted by a rich soundtrack of regional as well as western music and a few running gags that work well, the talented young cast and Unkovski’s inventive storytelling coalesce beautifully in this charming and engaging film.
Language: Turkish, Macedonian with subtitles
Additional Info
Why Watch?
“An unforgettable ensemble, laugh-out-loud comedy and heartsore drama make writer director Georgi M. Unkovski’s story of a teenage boy defying his traditional community feel like a revelation.” (Variety)
“DJ Ahmet is a hugely lively, energetically-scored romp that will connect with anyone who has ever been young and misunderstood.” (Irish Times)
Location
Cheltenham Film Society, Bacon Theatre, Hatherley Rd, Cheltenham, GL51 6EP
Hen
15th Dec 2026 at 19:45
Certificate:
Synopsis
An enthralling hen’s eye view of the world from the quirky Hungarian director György Pálfi. With a cast of three properly trained real hens on rotation, plus five understudies; filmed in real locations without AI or CGI! As Hen blunders through a human world, becoming an unwitting witness to real-life events (reminiscent of The Tramp), Pálfi very effectively tells a wider story, putting humanity into sharp relief.
Starting with the arresting sight of a graphic anatomical close-up as a chicken lays an egg in a huge poultry factory in Greece, the dark-feathered ‘Hen’ is born. (As you are probably aware, this method of farming cares little about animal welfare, and you might find this sequence uncomfortable to watch.) Hen is immediately rejected by the other fluffy yellow chicks, then by the commercial market, and when she is about to be transported for slaughter, she gets the opportunity to escape. After a taste of freedom, she finds herself in a rundown coastal farm and taverna where the elderly owner confines her to a coop with other henpecked hens. From this standpoint, Hen serves as a silent spectator, becoming an unknowing observer as the restaurant is caught up in shady dealings and morally corrupt events.
There are comparisons to EO (Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022), but Hen has a lighter more naturalistic approach, with an injection of humour, visual gags and brilliantly apt music. A clever and engaging film which tackles some dark topics in a creative way - Hen’s story arc softens the shock of the human one - and we are rewarded with an upbeat ending (of sorts).
Language: Greek, English, Italian with subtitles
Additional Info
Why Watch?
“The film is an amazing feat of animal training and deft editing, and it’s all so weirdly cheering.” (The Guardian)
“The triumph of Hungarian filmmaker György Pálfi’s drama Hen is not just that it manages to tell a compelling narrative entirely from the point of view of its titular fowl, but that it gives the bird such a depth of emotion and expression that audiences will truly believe they know what the animal is thinking.” (Screen Daily)
Directors Comments - György Pálfi
György Pálfi Talks Logistical Challenges of Working with Eight Chicken Protagonists in Toronto Platform Title ‘Hen’ Variety, Sep 8, 2025
On working with chickens: “We wanted to work with the chickens in the same way that actors were filmed in classic American films, somewhere below eye level. We couldn’t dig the camera into the ground, so we used special periscope optics. It didn’t make the work any easier…!”
“Beyond the unquenchable inner necessity of creation, this film is also about individual responsibility and whether our own lives can be separated from the events around us.”
Location
Cheltenham Film Society, Bacon Theatre, Hatherley Rd, Cheltenham, GL51 6EP