Richmond Film Society
Richmond Film Society was formed in 1963 and has since screened over 860 films. Our objective was, and remains, to bring our community the very best in World Cinema. Our seasons run from September to June and attract an aggregate audience approaching 4,500 attendees. Season 60 will comprise 19 films of international repute from 18 countries in Europe, Africa, North and South America, Asia and the Middle East.
Films are shown on alternate Tuesdays at 8:00 pm sharp, with no ads or trailers. On screening nights, the bar opens at 7:00 p.m. and drinks can be brought into the auditorium. Film notes are available online for each screening and audience scores and feedback are collated.
See http://www.richmondfilmsoc.org.uk for further information and full details of our Season 59 programme.
Our Venue
We screen all our films at The Exchange, the community facility opposite Twickenham Station at 75 London Road, Twickenham, TW1 1BE. Its facilities include a very comfortable, tiered 290-seat theatre (whose capacity can be increased to 310), lifts, disabled access, a bar and a café.
The Exchange is directly opposite Twickenham station, which is served by trains to and from Waterloo, Vauxhall, Clapham Junction, Kingston and Reading. Bus routes 267 and 281 stop outside The Exchange, the 290 stops in Arragon Road and the 33, 490, H22, R68 and R70 all stop in central Twickenham, which is a 5 minute walk away.
There is no onsite parking at The Exchange and no public parking on the Brewery Wharf Estate. There is, however, free car parking nearby at:
• Waitrose Arragon Road multi-storey car park from 6pm to midnight
• Holly Road car park from 6:30pm
• Local streets from 6:30pm
Season 60 Membership is Closed
Having reached capacity, membership for Season 60 (2023-2024) is now closed. If you are a non-member and would like to be added to the membership waiting list for next season (2024-2025), please email us at admin@richmondfilmsoc.org.uk with your name, address and telephone number; alternatively, email us via the Contact Us section of the website.
Seasonal membership has been held at £40 for the 19 films (the 1999 price), an equivalent of £2.11 per film. For full-time students, membership was offered at the concessionary rate of £25.
Non-Member Tickets:
60 non-member tickets will be available to purchase for all individual screenings in Season 60. Non-member tickets are £5 (full-time students £3) and can be purchased in advance from The Exchange’s Box Office: online at http://exchangetwickenham.co.uk/events, by telephone 020 8240 2399 or in person. To ensure that you secure a ticket and avoid disappointment, we strongly recommend early pre-booking via The Exchange once tickets become available for sale.
Should any non-member tickets remain available on the night of screenings, these can be now be purchased solely from The Exchange’s box office on the ground floor. Purchases are now by contactless payments only - cash payments are no longer accepted.
Further Information
For further information about RFS and our current season of films, please see our website at http://www.richmondfilmsoc.org.uk
You can also follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RichmondFilmSociety/, on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Richmond_Film and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/richmondfilmsociety/
Screenings
La Llorona (Guatemala)
15/10/2024 at 20:00
Certificate:
Synopsis
La Llorona (the weeping woman) is a Hispanic-American legend which has provided the subject matter for a number of horror films. Here, though, director Jayro Bustamente’s film takes the legend in a different direction by setting it within the context of historical oppression and the real-life genocide of the Mayan-Ixil indigenous population in 1980s Guatemala.
An ageing and paranoid former dictator and general, Enrique Monteverde - clearly based upon General Efrain Ríos Montt, who ruled Guatemala as a dictator in the 1980s - is on trial for war crimes and genocide. In the meantime, members of his well-to-do family are in varying stages of denial over his guilt.
Following an extraordinary court scene, with Mayan women testifying as to Enrique’s horrific crimes, including systemic rape and murder by his men, campaigners lay siege to the family home, bearing images of ‘the disappeared’ (a recurring theme in Latin American cinema). This prompts the domestic staff to bolt out of fear. whilst the arrival of an enigmatic new maid, Alma, coincides with a series of increasingly strange and disturbing occurrences, including haunting noises in the night that only Enrique can hear. Although the question is never directly posed, is he being haunted by the eponymous La Llorona, the weeping woman of legend who cries for her lost children? With slow, unsettling camera moves and the deft use of sound, Bustamante conjures an increasingly claustrophobic atmosphere as the general is slowly forced to confront the evil deeds of his past.
Bustamante’s slow-burn sociopolitical drama is a powerful, surreal film, which combines history, politics and myth, skilfully blending the supernatural and the political to make a powerful comment on Guatemala’s failure to atone for crimes against its Mayan population. The real horror and evil here lies not in the supernatural but in the savage acts of men.
Shortlisted for the 93rd Academy Award for the Best International Feature Film and nominated for a Golden Globe, La Llorona went on to win 28 awards worldwide.
Additional Info
Non-Member Tickets £5
Around 60 non-member tickets are available to purchase for individual screenings in Season 61. Non-member tickets are £5 (full-time students £3) and can be purchased in advance from The Exchange’s Box Office: online at http://exchangetwickenham.co.uk/events, by telephone 020 8240 2399 or in person. To ensure that you secure a ticket and avoid disappointment, we strongly recommend early pre-booking via The Exchange.
Should any non-member tickets remain available on the night of screenings, they can be purchased from The Exchange’s box office on the ground floor. Purchases are by contactless payments only.
See http://www.richmondfilmsoc.org.uk for further information and full details of our Season 61 programme.
Anatomy of A Fall (France)
29/10/2024 at 20:00
Certificate:
Synopsis
We are not giving anything away by telling you the film concerns the enigma: “Did he fall or was he pushed?” This multi-award winning international drama concerns a family with a sensory impaired partially-sighted son, Daniel, on a holiday in a skiing chalet. The husband is found dead having fallen from the top floor. Did the wife do it? What ensues is a gripping courtroom drama, showing a side of French legal system that we rarely see portrayed in such verisimilitude - not to mention an extremely unpleasant prosecutor. Gradually, through the courtroom interrogations, a fuller picture of the relationship between husband and wife is exposed and Daniel is caught in the middle between the trial and his home life; not unexpectedly, his relationship with his mother suffers.
Among the many impressive features of the film is how the dialogue slips out of French into English seamlessly. The mother, who is the subject of the investigation, is played by the superb Sandra Hüller. Some RFS members will recall her roles as the academic in our 2022 Christmas film, I’m your Man, and in Toni Erdmann, which we screened back in 2018 Plus, if you have not got enough of her in Anatomy of a Fall, do come back for our screening of the Oscar-winning Zone of Interest on 28 January, 2025.
Anatomy of A Fall received five nominations at the 2024 Academy Awards, including for Best Motion Picture, winning the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Not only was it a multi-award winning feature for its humans but Messi (aka Snoop), the family’s border collie, won the Palm Dog at Cannes and was given his own seat at the Oscars ceremony. In all, the film went on to win 113 awards worldwide.
Additional Info
Non-Member Tickets £5
Around 60 non-member tickets are available to purchase for individual screenings in Season 61. Non-member tickets are £5 (full-time students £3) and can be purchased in advance from The Exchange’s Box Office: online at http://exchangetwickenham.co.uk/events, by telephone 020 8240 2399 or in person. To ensure that you secure a ticket and avoid disappointment, we strongly recommend early pre-booking via The Exchange.
Should any non-member tickets remain available on the night of screenings, they can be purchased from The Exchange’s box office on the ground floor. Purchases are by contactless payments only.
See http://www.richmondfilmsoc.org.uk for further information and full details of our Season 61 programme.
Banel & Adama (Senegal)
12/11/2024 at 20:30
Certificate:
Synopsis
This poignant romantic drama follows the story of Banel and Adama, a young couple living in a remote rural village in West Africa. They share a deep, passionate love and dream of building a life together away from the restrictions of their traditional community. However, their desires for independence clash with the village’s deeply ingrained customs and expectations, especially when Adama is pressured to take on the role of village chief—a responsibility he does not want.
As Adama struggles with the demands of leadership, Banel’s fierce independence and longing to break free from the village’s constraints cause growing tensions between the couple and their community. Their relationship becomes strained as personal dreams give way to the heavy burden of societal duty.
The film explores themes of love, tradition, and the conflict between personal desires and communal obligations. It examines how individuals struggle to define themselves within the confines of societal expectations and the consequences that can arise when they push too far against those boundaries. A visually stunning and emotionally charged drama, Badel & Adama debuted at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Palme d’Or.
The film will be preceded by the Richmond Film Society AGM and will therefore commence half an hour later than usual at 8:30pm.
Additional Info
50 non-member tickets are available to purchase for this screening. Non-member tickets are £5 (full-time students £3) and can be purchased in advance from The Exchange’s Box Office: online at http://exchangetwickenham.co.uk/events, by telephone 020 8240 2399 or in person. To ensure that you secure a ticket and avoid disappointment, we strongly recommend early pre-booking via The Exchange.
Should any non-member tickets remain available on the night of screenings, these can be purchased from The Exchange’s box office on the ground floor. Purchases are by contactless payments only.
The Holdovers (USA)
26/11/2024 at 20:00
Certificate:
Synopsis
This absorbing “serious comedy” is set in 1970 in a prestigious New England boarding school for boys, Barton Academy. Over the Christmas holidays the school is eerily empty, apart from a few pupils who cannot go home for various reasons – the ‘holdovers’. One teacher has been selected by the principal to look after the boys – Paul Hunham, played by Paul Giamatti. Hunham is a bachelor who has spent his entire life associated with the college, and is an old-fashioned stickler for discipline and academic standards. He has been told to look after the rowdy holdovers as a punishment by the principal because he flunked one entitled boy who would otherwise have gone to a prestigious Ivy League college and thus avoided the draft for Vietnam – a common mechanism at the time for the rich. And, naturally, the boy’s father would stop donating money to the school.
One of the holdovers is Angus Tully (played by Dominic Sessa) – a smart but sullen boy with a troubled background. The other member of staff here over Christmas is Mary, the Afro-American head chef (played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph). She got a job at Barton to try to secure her son a scholarship, but when she couldn’t afford the fees he was shipped out to Vietnam, where he was killed. Mary still works at the college in order to be close to her son’s memory.
These three troubled individuals gradually learn to accept and support each other, while director Alexander Payne illustrates his thoughts on how privilege or class determine how we deal with grief and the obstacles of life. To this end, the film has a warm glow and a similar feel to the films of the era it was set in – the late sixties/early seventies.
The Holdovers has been garnered with a hatful of awards - 134 worldwide - including: Paul Giamatti (Golden Globe for best actor); Da’Vine Joy Randolph (Oscar for best supporting actress; Golden Globe for best supporting actress; New York Film Critics Circle Award for best supporting actress); Dominic Sessa (Critics Choice Movie Award for best young performer); plus David Hemingson (Writers’ Guild of America Award for best original screenplay).
The film marks another successful collaboration between director Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti, after their hit film Sideways (2004).
Additional Info
50 non-member tickets are available to purchase for this screening. Non-member tickets are £5 (full-time students £3) and can be purchased in advance from The Exchange’s Box Office: online at http://exchangetwickenham.co.uk/events, by telephone 020 8240 2399 or in person. To ensure that you secure a ticket and avoid disappointment, we strongly recommend early pre-booking via The Exchange.
Should any non-member tickets remain available on the night of screenings, these can be purchased from The Exchange’s box office on the ground floor. Purchases are by contactless payments only.
See http://www.richmondfilmsoc.org.uk for further information and full details of our Season 61 programme.
Fallen Leaves (Finland)
10/12/2024 at 20:00
Certificate:
Synopsis
RFS’s final film of 2024 is a romantic comedy-drama written and directed by one of the society’s favourites, Aki Kaurismäki, whose previous two films, Le Havre and The Other Side of Hope have also screened at The Exchange.
This quirky, bittersweet romantic drama tells the story of two lonely souls, Ansa and Holappa, who unexpectedly meet in a karaoke bar and form a delicate connection in the midst of their quiet, working-class lives in Helsinki. Ansa, a part-time grocery store worker, and Holappa, a construction labourer battling alcoholism, navigate the struggles of their mundane routines while longing for companionship and meaning.
Their relationship blossoms slowly as they try to overcome the obstacles life throws their way, from miscommunications and Holappa’s drinking problem to the harsh realities of economic instability and isolation. Despite these challenges, the film cleverly balances a sense of melancholy with Kaurismäki’s classic deadpan and understated humour - all within its 81 minute running time.
Fallen Leaves won the Jury Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and received critical acclaim for its life-affirming qualities and its bone-dry, laconic humour.
Additional Info
50 non-member tickets are available to purchase for this screening. Non-member tickets are £5 (full-time students £3) and can be purchased in advance from The Exchange’s Box Office: online at http://exchangetwickenham.co.uk/events, by telephone 020 8240 2399 or in person. To ensure that you secure a ticket and avoid disappointment, we strongly recommend early pre-booking via The Exchange.
Should any non-member tickets remain available on the night of screenings, these can be purchased from The Exchange’s box office on the ground floor. Purchases are by contactless payments only.
See http://www.richmondfilmsoc.org.uk for further information and full details of our Season 61 programme.