20 Days in Mariupol (18)
- RBC Film Theatre Mill Road Dumfries, Scotland, DG2 7BE United Kingdom (map)
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In an era of great change and great beauty emerged the character of James McNeill Whistler. Considered by some to be one of the great innovators of 19th century art, he was a contemporary of the Impressionists, much admired by Van Gogh and Manet. Boldly experimental and famously witty, Whistler disrupted the strict conventions of Victorian society in pursuit of a new cult of beauty, creating “art for art’s sake” and earning himself a place in the history of great art. He found a parallel between painting and music, and entitled many of his paintings “arrangements”, “harmonies” and “nocturnes”, emphasizing the importance of tonal harmony in his work.
His most famous painting, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (1871), commonly known as Whistler’s Mother, is a revered and often parodied portrait of motherhood. It is arguably one of the most famous paintings in history and this film will unveil the artist behind the art.
Tate Britain is now holding the first major retrospective of Whistler in three decades. This blockbuster exhibition promises to reawaken the world to just how important Whistler is to art history, uniting world-famous masterpieces with rarely seen works. Exhibition on Screen will bring these stunning works and the incredible story behind them to cinemas around the world while the exhibition is still running, bringing this truly global artist to a global audience. This will be an unmissable chance to get to know this visually spectacular artist and the influence he has had on those who followed.
Made in close collaboration with Tate Britain.
When the British colonised Kenya, they took control of prime tea-growing land that still supplies the global market today. As a local Kenyan journalist investigates a legal battle over stolen ancestral land, dark secrets are exposed and ongoing abuses on plantations run by major multinationals become clear. Set against the richness of the landscape, Kikuyu Land is a poetic, stunningly cinematic dive into a complex legacy that refuses to stay buried.
Presented in partnership with Dumfries Fairtrade to mark Fairtrade Fortnight. Followed by comments on the Fairtrade standards for tea and informal discussions over cups of tea.
Bitter Christmas is the latest film from iconic director Pedro Almodóvar. The Spanish language drama tells two alternating stories, one starring Elsa, an advertising director, in 2004, during a long weekend in December. The second takes place in 2026 and stars Raúl, a screenwriter and director who is writing a script that we soon discover is the story of Elsa, her boyfriend Bonifacio, and her friends Patricia and Natalia. Mixed with fiction, Elsa is, in a way, Raúl's alter ego, who, like him, resorts to autofiction as a solution to a long period of creative drought. He looks inside himself, and he can't help but also look at the people who make up his most intimate universe: his partner and his assistant. The film narrates the close relationship between reality and fiction, between inspiration and life, exploring the limits of autofiction and stories within stories. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Bertrand Usclat and Martin Darondeau’s hilarious laugh-a-minute comedy is a wonderfully chaotic love letter to the theatre. The Comédie-Française is one of France’s most revered arts institutions, and the oldest still-performing theatre company in the world. There is one golden rule: the play is NEVER cancelled. Unfortunately for theatre producer Nina (Pauline Clément), everything is unravelling just three hours before the premiere of her first production - an ambitious retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Her lead actor is stuck on a train, tensions are exploding, passions flaring, equipment breaking down and egos are clashing. With panic setting in and the clock ticking Nina must hold the show together at all costs. Will the show go on? France’s big comedy of the summer and the runaway winner of four awards at the Alpe d’Huez comedy Film Festival, Comédie Française is a delicious behind-the-scenes farce which is unafraid to poke fun at the highbrow reputation of French theatre. Featuring a cast of real-life members of the Comédie-Française company, this is a gleeful, knowing parody and a sheer delight.
The ever popular French Film Festival returns to the RBC with a classic thriller from 1995. France’s master of suspense, Claude Chabrol, relishes every malevolent, icily controlled shot of this perfectly constructed thriller, right up to its terrifying, violent climax.
Adapted from Ruth Rendell's classic thriller, A Judgement in Stone, Chabrol transposes it to a remote French village. This iconic film has left a lasting mark on the cinematic landscape. Its influence transcends borders, shaping contemporary masterpieces like Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite. In French with English subtitles.
"Creates a palpable sense of unease that fully justifies the shockingly violent finale." - Time Out
You can see two other films by Claude Chabrol as part of the Power, Corruption and Lies on Screen season, La Femme infidèle and Le Boucher, thrillers which explore moral, rather than political, corruption and where polite society and dark secrets entwine to murderous effect.
An unforgettable road trip across Europe, from the Atlantic to Istanbul… Director Mathias Mlekuz stars in a fictionalised version of the real-life bike pilgrimage he took with his co-star and actor friend Philippe Rebbot. They travel from the west coast of France to Istanbul to pay homage to Mathias’ son Youri after his untimely and shocking death.
Filled with moments of intense emotions and occasionally bursting with laughter, this journey becomes an opportunity for these two friends to explore their friendship and pay tribute to Youri’s memory. Audience Award, best director and best music at Angoulême Francophone Film Festival 2024. In French with English subtitles.
"Bittersweet middle-aged bromance." The Guardian
There will be no adverts or trailers with this screening.
Filmed at the National Galleries of Scotland during the 2025 retrospective, ‘Andy Goldsworthy: 50 Years’, this film captures a dialogue between artist Andy Goldsworthy and art historian, author, and broadcaster Andrew Graham Dixon.
The documentary offers a look behind the scenes of Goldsworthy’s largest and most ambitious indoor exhibition. Surrounded by new installations created specifically for the show, the pair explore the core environmental philosophies, fleeting natural materials, and creative ideas that have defined the artist's extraordinary half-century career.
There will be a Q & A Session with Andrew Graham-Dixon after the film.
This dark and mesmerising collection of horror and thriller shorts showcases the extraordinary power of animation to illuminate the shadowy corners of the human imagination. This screening is part of Manipulate Arts’ Autumn Animation Season.
Each film delves into the depths of fear, obsession, and the unknown, transforming intangible nightmares into hauntingly beautiful visual experiences. Through a blend of striking artistry and storytelling, creators from around the world unravel cautionary tales that warn of human folly, bring to life the monsters lurking within, and paint chilling visions of futures twisted by our own desires and mistakes. Together, these animated works remind us that sometimes, the most terrifying worlds are the ones we create ourselves. The programme will feature films from four continents, including some of the most exciting titles on the current festival circuit.
This programme has been selected by Manipulate Arts and presented in partnership with ArtsD&G. Manipulate Arts’ Autumn Animation Season is supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, awarding funding on behalf of Screen Scotland and the BFI National Lottery.
A leading member of the French New Wave, who came to be regarded as the 'French Hitchcock', for many years Claude Chabrol's classic thrillers have been missing from UK screens. A mid-career masterpiece within Chabrol's remarkable run of bourgeois psychological thrillers, La Femme infidèle traces the fallout following a husband’s discovery of his wife’s affair and his quiet, unnerving and devastating act of revenge. In French with English subtitles.
La Femme infidèle is part of the Power, Corruption and Lies on Screen Season, a themed run of films exploring how power can be misused, how corruption develops, and how truth can be manipulated. Alongside classics like The Big Sleep and All the President's Men the season brings together three of Chabrol’s most disturbing works, from La Femme infidèle, 1970's impeccable Le Boucher and 1995's La Cérémonie (based on Ruth Rendell's novel A Judgement in Stone), these are thrillers which explore moral, rather than political, corruption and where polite society and dark secrets entwine to murderous effect.
Set against the backdrop of mass protests in Paris, Case 137 follows Stéphanie, a meticulous internal affairs investigator assigned to investigate a teenager critically injured by police fire. Stéphanie is tasked with uncovering the truth, but her inquiry collides with institutional resistance and pressure mounts as the case turns personal, forcing her to confront the fragile lines between truth, loyalty, and justice. In French with English subtitles.
Case 137 is part of our Power, Corruption and Lies on Screen Season, a themed run of films exploring how power can be misused, how corruption develops, and how truth can be manipulated. You can see films like All The President's Men, Klute, and The Parallax View as well as rereleases of several of legendary French director Claude Chabrol's films which explore moral, rather than political, corruption and where polite society and dark secrets entwine to murderous effect.
A vanished wife. A borrowed name. A house in the Portuguese countryside. Grieving and aimless, quiet geography teacher Fernando slips into another man's identity as a gardener — and finds, in the friendship that follows, a life that isn't his own. A tender and hopeful story about connection and purpose. In Spanish and Portuguese with English subtitles.
“Gently but determinedly pulls the rug from beneath you at every turn… one of the most delicately observed relationships in recent cinema… a small, enigmatic marvel of a film, and a worthy swansong for Solo, an actor possessed of the most soulful gaze in Spanish cinema” - 8/10 UNCUT
A leading member of the French New Wave, who came to be regarded as the 'French Hitchcock', for many years Claude Chabrol's classic thrillers have been missing from UK screens. Chabrol’s most celebrated and sinister film sees a tender friendship between a schoolteacher and local butcher darken as a series of murders unsettles life in their village. In French with English subtitles.
Le Boucher is part of the Power, Corruption and Lies on Screen Season, a themed run of films exploring how power can be misused, how corruption develops, and how truth can be manipulated. Alongside classics like The Big Sleep and All the President's Men the season brings together three of Chabrol’s most disturbing works, from 1969's La Femme infidèle and 1995's La Cérémonie (based on Ruth Rendell's novel A Judgement in Stone), these are thrillers which explore moral, rather than political, corruption and where polite society and dark secrets entwine to murderous effect.
PLEASE NOTE Change to Tuesday Night Film Club. FATHERLAND centres on the relationship between the Nobel Prize-winning writer Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller) - actress, writer and rally driver. In the summer of 1949, at the height of the Cold War, father and daughter embark on a challenging and emotional road trip in a black Buick taking them across a Germany in ruins - from US dominated Frankfurt to Soviet controlled Weimar. Returning home after sixteen years of exile in the US, Thomas Mann has to face not only a divided fatherland, but also a deep fracture within his own family.
With FATHERLAND, Pawlikowski picks up where he left off with his award-winning Ida and Cold War, exploring – in his elliptic, distilled style - the themes of identity, family, love and guilt amid the turmoil and confusion of post-war Europe. In German, French, English and Russian with English subtitles | In Black and White.
In 1960, sixteen newly independent African countries enter the United Nations, a political earthquake that shifts the majority vote from the colonial powers to the global south. Congo becomes the arena in which the battle over the UN is fought. As Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe at the UN-top in reaction to the neo-colonial grab of the resources of newly independent Congo, UN delegates from African Countries are blackmailed. In an incredulous twist Patrice Lumumba’s assassination unites the Afro-Asian block, demanding the UN General Assembly to vote for immediate worldwide decolonization.
Jazz and decolonisation fuse in this upbeat historical rollercoaster, set through a quartet of voices from an activist, a diplomat, a writer and a world leader. Starring Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Abbey Lincoln, Max Roach, Nina Simone, Miriam Makeba, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Malcolm X and Nikita Khrushchev, and many more. In Dutch, English, Russia, French and Arabic with English subtitles.
Part of the Power, Corruption and Lies on Screen Season, a themed run of films exploring how power can be misused, how corruption develops, and how truth can be manipulated. Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat exposes how political power is exercised behind the scenes, and how governments, corporations and international institutions manipulate events for their own interests.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir is one of the world’s favourite artists; a founding member of the Impressionist movement and a constantly evolving artist, he is unmatched at depicting human connection. The National Gallery’s blockbuster exhibition brings together vibrant masterpieces which explore love in all its forms, bringing colour and warmth into the cold winter months.
With exclusive access to this exciting new show, Exhibition on Screen will bring these world class works to cinema audiences, with close examination of the art and leading experts exploring the immense skill and influence of this master of colour and connection.
Be transported back to a Parisian summer of love through the eyes of a true visionary. An unmissable opportunity to fall in love with Renoir this winter.
Made in close collaboration with The National Gallery, London and Musee d’Orsay, Paris.
- Tagged: January, Documentary, 18