This screening is the first of Flatpack's new monthly residency at The Mockingbird. Expect all manner of films – previews, rediscovered gems, and under-the-radar curiosities you won't find anywhere else

Forcibly separated from her twin brother when they are orphaned, a melancholic misfit learns how to find confidence within herself amid the clutter of misfortunes and everyday life.

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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 fire-breathing 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. From Academy Award-winning® animation writer and director Adam Elliot (Mary and Max), Memoir of a Snail is a poignant, heartfelt, hilarious chronicle of the life of an outsider finding her confidence and silver linings amongst the clutter of everyday life.

Our special preview of Memoir of a Snail on the 19th of January will be followed by a Q&A with the film’s director, Adam Elliot.  

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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 fire-breathing 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.

From Academy Award-winning animation writer and director Adam Elliot, Memoir of a Snail is a poignant, heartfelt, hilarious chronicle of the life of an outsider finding her confidence and silver linings amongst the clutter of everyday life.

Memoir of a Snail won the top prize at the prestigious Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2024 and Best Film at the BFI London Film Festival 2024.

This special preview screening will be followed by an in-person Q&A with acclaimed writer-director Adam Elliot (Mary and Max, Harvie Krumpet) hosted by Melvyn Ternan, Senior Lecturer in Animation at Sheffield Hallam University.

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From Academy Award®-winning animation writer and director Adam Elliot, Memoir of a Snail is a poignant, heartfelt, hilarious chronicle of the life of an outsider finding confidence and silver linings amongst the clutter of everyday life.

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 fire-breathing twin brother Gilbert, she falls into a spiral of anxiety and angst. Despite a continued series of hardships, a morsel of hope emerges when she strikes up an enduring friendship with an elderly eccentric woman named Pinky.

Memoir of a Snail is 100%-CG-free stop-motion with an incredible voice cast including Nick Cave and Eric Bana, and precicely the heart-warmer we need during these colder seasons.

Followed by a Q&A with director Adam Elliot.

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Oscar-winning director Adam Elliot’s tale of separated twins in 1970s Australia is a funny and moving stop-motion triumph.

This year’s LFF Best Film Award winner, Adam Elliot’s tale of separated twins in 1970s Australia is a funny and moving stop-motion triumph. Grace and Gilbert are separated as children due to tragic circumstances; Grace goes to live with a ‘swinger’ couple, while Gilbert is ensconced with a religious fundamentalist family. Then Grace’s life changes when she meets old Pinkie, who has ‘done it all’ – from making love to John Denver to playing ping pong with Fidel Castro. We’re delighted to welcome Adam Elliot to talk about his witty and moving masterpiece.

Tickets £17, concessions £14 (Members pay £2 less).

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Join us for a special preview screening of VERMIGLIO at Curzon Mayfair in partnership with Armani.

1944, Vermiglio, a remote mountain village. The arrival of Pietro, a deserter, into the family of the local teacher, and his love for the teacher's eldest daughter, will change the course of everyone's life.

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Special preview screening of VERMIGLIO in partnership with CinemaItalia UK

1944. In Vermiglio, a high mountain village of the Italian Alps where war looms as a distant but constant threat. The arrival of Pietro, a refugee soldier, disrupts the dynamics of the local teacher’s family, changing them forever.

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We're delighted to welcome director Johan Grimonprez for an in-person Q&A following the film.

Jazz and decolonization are entwined in this historical rollercoaster that rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest against the murder of Patrice Lumumba.

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This megalith of a film, as intricately layered as the American jazz its beats are cut to, teases out the complex, sordid details of Congo's liberation from Belgian colonial rule in June 1960, through to the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba three months later.

As newly independent African countries took their seats at the UN, causing a political earthquake with their potential for majority voting, the CIA mounted their operation in the new Republic of Congo and the US sent Louis Armstrong over on a PR distraction trip.

Director Johan Grimonprez’s syncopated masterpiece connects post-war jazz, decolonisation and the Imperial quest for African resources, culminating in musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach crashing the UN Security Council in protest at Lumumba’s death.

With its dextrous command of abundant sources – from rich archive materials and eyewitness accounts to testimony from mercenaries and CIA operatives – Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat never misses a beat in a disturbing story mired in colonial machinations.

Followed by an in-person Q&A with director Johan Grimonprez.

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5th November - Clapham Grand

GIFT: A Live Score by Eiko Ishibashi X Film by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
+ Klara Lewis

Musician Eiko Ishibashi and filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi have teamed up again following their successful collaboration on the critically acclaimed film Drive My Car. Their latest project, titled GIFT, features a silent film directed by Hamaguchi, accompanied by a live soundtrack performed by Ishibashi.

This collaboration originated when Ishibashi asked Hamaguchi to create visuals to accompany her live performance. Hamaguchi decided to create a film with dialogue as a starting point, then turn it into a silent film for Ishibashi’s live performance.

Consequently, the project yielded two distinct works: a live score film performance, GIFT, and a feature film Evil Does Not Exist. GIFT offers a constantly-evolving cinematic experience, with Ishibashi’s improvised live performance intervening in Hamaguchi’s visuals, seeking to reimagine the relationships between sound, image, and narrative.

Supported by The Japan Foundation

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Screening and Q&A with composer Eiko Ishibashi

Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. Like generations before them, they live a modest life according to the cycles and order of nature. One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a glamping site near Takumi’s house; offering city residents a comfortable ‘escape’ to nature. When two company representatives from Tokyo arrive in the village to hold a meeting, it becomes clear that the project will have a negative impact on the local water supply, causing unrest. The agency’s mismatched intentions endanger both the ecological balance of the nature plateau and their way of life, with an aftermath that affects Takumi’s life deeply. From the director of Oscar® and BAFTA winner Drive My Car.

Book tickets to the screening and Q&A here.

Eiko Ishibashi's live score performance GIFT will take place on 5th November at The Clapham Grand, the day after the Q&A screening of Evil Does Not Exist. GIFT is the latest collaboration between Eiko Ishibashi and Ryusuke Hamaguchi and can be seen as a concentrated, dynamic flipside of Evil Does Not Exist. For more details please visit the website.

Jazz and decolonisation are entwined in this historical rollercoaster that rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the U.N security council in protest against the murder of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba.

Crackling with energy and verve, this masterful film takes history and creates an audacious musical documentary. Winner of the Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematic Innovation. Modern Films works with rising and established filmmakers to bring innovative global stories to local audiences.

The Modern Film Club screens films and creates an in-conversation with cultural commentators who are seeing the film for the first time. Come and be part of the conversation.

Monday, October 28 · 6:30 - 10pm GMT. Doors at 6pm
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Nezouh + Q&A with director Soudade Kaadan | Senior Community Screening

14-year-old Zeina and her family are the last to have stayed in their besieged hometown of Damascus in Syria. A missile rips a giant hole in their home, exposing them to the outside world. When a rope is mysteriously lowered into the hole, Zeina gets her first taste of freedom, and an unimaginable world of possibility opens up for her.

As the violence outside escalates, the family is pressured to evacuate, but Mutaz, her father is adamant that they stay, refusing to flee to the uncertain life of a refugee. Faced with a life or death dilemma, Zeina and Hala, her mother, must make the choice whether to stay or leave.

This stunning drama from Soudade Kaadan’s Venice Film Festival award-winner offers a powerful and moving perspective on the Syrian conflict.

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“Girls Will Be Girls stands as a riveting contemplation on female sexuality, the bloom of youth, and the yearning for adulthood.” - Kristy Strouse, Film Inquiry

 A model student, 16-year-old Mira (Preeti Panigrahi in a radiant debut performance) is the first-ever female prefect in charge of enforcing rules at a straitlaced Indian boarding school in the Himalayas. Despite her ambition and primness, she can’t help but fall for new student Sri (Kesav Binoy Kiron), and steals away with him to flirt and stargaze. With frankness and sensitivity, writer-director Shuchi Talati uncovers the contradictory layers of Mira’s sexual awakening, the complicated feelings triggered in her protective, unfulfilled mother, and the school’s lax penalties for boys’ transgressive behavior. 

Shuchi Talati’s thrilling and intimate debut won two prizes at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival: the World Cinema Drama Audience Award and a Special Jury Award for Acting for Panigrahi. 

Join us after the film for a Q&A with lead actor Preeti Panigrahi. 

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This screening includes an intro and Q&A with actor Preeti Panigrahi.

Mira is a perfect teenage student in her final year at a strict school in the Himalayas. However, her life is thrown off course by her sexual awakening, as she becomes passionately involved with a new student, recently arrived from abroad. It’s a situation soon complicated by a controlling and desirous mother, in this explicit and intimate coming-of-age tale.

DAILIES will be partnering with Modern Films to present Shuchi Talati's Sundance winning feature. Founded by filmmaker Tomisin Adepeju, DAILIES curates spaces for film lovers to foster connections, inspire conversations, and spark creativity. They work through curated film nights, development programmes, and critical features.

In a strict boarding school nestled in the Himalayas, 16-year-old Mira discovers desire and romance. But her sexual, rebellious awakening is disrupted by her mother who never got to come of age herself.

Followed by a Q&A with the lead actress Preeti Panigrahi and Tomisin from Dailies

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The film will be followed by a panel discussion.

In the murky and perilous forests of the "green border" dividing Belarus and Poland, a calculated and dangerous game unfolds. Refugees from the Middle East and Africa, desperate to reach the safety of the European Union, find themselves ensnared in a sinister geopolitical scheme orchestrated by Belarusian autocrat Alexander Lukashenko. The refugees are unwitting pawns in Lukashenko's brazen attempt to incite Europe. Deceived by false promises of easy passage, they are drawn to the border through relentless propaganda. Among them are Julia, a passionate new activist who has abandoned her comfortable life for the cause, and Jan, a young border guard navigating a moral labyrinth. Their fates become entwined with that of a Syrian family, each caught in the web of this manufactured crisis. Against the backdrop of an era defined by shifting political landscapes, GREEN BORDER, the stirring new film by three-time Oscar Nominee Agnieszka Holand, thrusts us into a world where idealism collides with harsh realities. This poignant narrative doesn't merely unfold - it challenges us to confront the ethical dilemmas faced by ordinary individuals in extraordinary times, reminding us of the human stories obscured by the grand designs of power and politics.

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Screening and panel event

In the treacherous and swampy forests that make up the so called "green border" between Belarus and Poland, refugees from the Middle East and Africa trying to reach the European Union are trapped in a geopolitical crisis cynically engineered by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. In an attempt to provoke Europe, refugees are lured to the border by propaganda promising easy passage to the EU. Pawns in this hidden war, the lives of Julia, a newly minted activist who has given up her comfortable life, Jan, a young border guard, and a Syrian family intertwine.

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This one-off, all inclusive Green Screen will be followed by a panel with a special guest host, TBC. 

This screening has both SDH (subtitles for Deaf & Hard of Hearing) & AD (Audio Description).

Based on the much-loved, best-selling children’s novel by Michael Morpurgo and adapted for screen by Frank Cottrell-Boyce. KENSUKE’S KINGDOM has an international voice cast including Cillian Murphy, Sally Hawkins and Ken Watanabe and  tells of the epic adventure of Michael, a young boy, shipwrecked on a remote island, who must adapt to life alone.

Over time, he feels another presence, learning that this world is home to both unimaginable danger and beauty, in this gripping animated adaptation of a beloved novel.

Green Screen is a Picturehouse initiative showing environmental themed films followed by a panel discussion, where possible, made up of locally relevant experts and the filmmakers. Site permitting, all are invited to stay after the screening to continue the conversation in the bar / cafe and if you have brought your keep cup you get a free tea or filter coffee.  

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Q&A with directors Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry, screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce and actors Aaron MacGregor and Raffey Cassidy.

Based on the much-loved, best-selling children’s novel by Michael Morpurgo and adapted for screen by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, KENSUKE’S KINGDOM tells of the epic adventure of Michael, a young boy, shipwrecked on a remote island, who must adapt to life alone. Over time, he feels another presence, learning that this world is home to both unimaginable danger and beauty, in this gripping animated adaptation of a beloved novel.

KENSUKE’S KINGDOM’s illustrious voice cast includes Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water, Paddington), Cillian Murphy (Peaky Blinders, Oppenheimer), Raffey Cassidy (Snow White and the Huntsman, Tomorrowland), newcomer Aaron MacGregor (Puffin Rock and the New Friends) and Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai, Letters from Iwo Jima, Tokyo Vice).

Book tickets here.

Screening and panel event

In the treacherous and swampy forests that make up the so called “green border” between Belarus and Poland, refugees from the Middle East and Africa trying to reach the European Union are trapped in a geopolitical crisis cynically engineered by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. In an attempt to provoke Europe, refugees are lured to the border by propaganda promising easy passage to the EU. Pawns in this hidden war, the lives of Julia, a newly minted activist who has given up her comfortable life, Jan, a young border guard, and a Syrian family intertwine.

Book tickets here.