Synopsis

Sir Steve McQueen’s Blitz follows the epic journey of George (Elliott Heffernan), a 9-year-old boy in World War II-era England whose mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan) sends him to safety in the English countryside. George, defiant and determined to return home to his mom and his grandfather Gerald (Paul Weller) in East London, embarks on an adventure, only to find himself in immense peril. Meanwhile, a distraught Rita searches for her missing son.

Featuring impressive attention to period detail and empathetic performances from its all-star cast, Blitz is an inspiring, heartfelt tale of bravery and perseverance in the face of insurmountable odds, as McQueen’s signature visual style conjures up an immersive vision of wartime London.

Synopsis

Day after day, 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) projects on her bedroom walls the moments of easy-to-miss beauty she’s forever filming on her phone. Bailey is a born artist, but to find that path, she’ll need to scale some obstacles: a young, unsteady father (Saltburn’s Barry Keoghan), marrying yet again and full of get-rich-quick schemes. A peer group flirting with petty crime. A housing project designed to curb imagination. Life is hardening Bailey by the hour, so it’s a surprise when a soft-spoken, gender-bending stranger named Bird (Franz Rogowski, Passages) alights in her ‘hood, offering friendship while investigating his own painful past. Could this childlike free spirit be Bailey’s guide into a happier life? Or is Bird more complicated than that?

Director Andrea Arnold, a past award winner at the Chicago International Film Festival and at Cannes, returns to the world of hardscrabble adolescence she so vividly explored in Fish Tank and American Honey, both modern classics. But Bird also sees Arnold fly in new directions, blending fiery first-timers with famous faces in her cast, probing further into fluid identities, and scouring the dead ends and concrete jungles of Bailey’s world for new possibilities of grace and redemption.

Synopsis

Sicily, 1900. Modesta is born into a life of poverty, but, rebellious by nature, she believes that she is destined for a better life. Moving from her childhood home deep in the mountains to an imposing convent for wealthy young women and eventually to a decadent aristocratic estate, she rises up in the world. Using her wit, assertiveness, and guile, she emerges as a fearless and emancipated bisexual character, willing to stand up to all systems of domination.

Through sumptuous photography, beautifully crafted costumes, and impressive direction, The Art of Joy assiduously builds Modesta’s world – interior and exterior – absorbing us wholly into her perspective and life experience. Director Valeria Golino creates a stunningly relevant adaptation of Goliarda Sapienza’s subversive novel, which was deemed too outrageous to be published when it was completed in the 1970s.

Two-part film with intermission and Q&A

Synopsis

Reuniting the director, writer, and stars of Forrest Gump, Here is an original film about multiple families and a special place they inhabit. The story travels through generations, capturing the most relatable of human experiences. Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Castaway, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Contact, Back to the Future) directs from a screenplay co-written by Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Killers of the Flower Moon, Dune, A Star Is Born). Told much in the style of Richard McGuire’s acclaimed graphic novel, upon which it is based, Tom Hanks and Robin Wright star in a tale of love, loss, laughter, and life, all of which happen right Here.

Synopsis

Troubled at home and bullied at school, 15-year-old Leigh is struggling to focus on her upcoming gymnastics competition. When Joe, her previously unknown half-brother, shows up at the front door in need of a place to stay, she finds a much-longed-for sense of connection and belonging. As the two form a friendship, Leigh finds herself drawn into Joe’s dangerous world.