image from the film capernaum showing two kids walking along motorway

Ventnor Film Society’s new season of films from around the world

Lin shares details of the upcoming season of films at Ventnor Film Society. Ed


On Monday 9th and Wednesday 11th September, Ventnor Film Society returns with a new season of recent award-winning films from the UK and around the world. See Events OnTheWight for all listings.

Change to screening days
As usual, we will be screening each film at Ventnor Arts Club on two evenings, but this season our pattern of dates will be slightly different, with some Mondays as well as Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Also, not all the films will be screened at fortnightly intervals, so please check the dates carefully. Everyone is welcome to come along; there is no need to be a member of the Arts Club to come to our films.

Critically acclaimed films from around the world
This season we will be screening critically acclaimed films from the UK, France, Germany, Iceland, Colombia, Italy and Lebanon.

With tense thrillers, romance, true life sport, drama and black comedy, we have put together a programme that we hope will suit many tastes, in English and in the original languages with subtitles.

English language films with subtitles
We continue to screen English language films with subtitles on Wednesdays, helping to make our screenings accessible to more people and to overcome the problems sometimes encountered with accents and mumbling!

Starting the season
We head first to France of the late 1950s with An Impossible Love, the story of a young office clerk abandoned by her wealthy lover when their daughter is born.

Her lifelong mission to forge a family appears doomed as the arrogant, reluctant father reveals his true colours beneath the charming exterior.

Jury Prize winner
The Lebanese Capernaum,  winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes, tells the tale of a young boy abandoned by his parents to a life on the streets, and his inevitable path to crime. 

His response is to take his parents to court and to sue them for giving birth to him.

True story of Bert Trautmann
In contrast, The Keeper is the uplifting, true story of Bert Trautmann, the German POW who led Manchester City to FA Cup success by playing on despite breaking his back.

His heroism turns around the widespread hostility to his place in the team and his marriage to a local girl, but life has more heartbreak in store.

Debts paid in blood
We travel next to South America, to Colombia of the early 1970s to follow a young man who turns to the newly emerging drug trafficking trade to fund his dowry.

In Birds of Passage, he and his family are soon caught up in a dangerous, violent world, where honour is the code and debts are paid in blood.

Icelandic comedy
Our next choice is Woman at War, where a quiet, middle-aged Icelandic woman, Halla is secretly trying to save the planet by waging a one-woman war on the local aluminium industry.

When her application to adopt a Ukrainian orphan is accepted, she must balance her role as saboteur with the new responsibilities of motherhood.

Happy as Larry
From Italy comes Happy As Lazzaro, the tale of a good-natured young tobacco farmer who forms a deep and unlikely friendship with Tancredi, a young nobleman with a vivid imagination.

Disillusioned with village life, Tancredi asks Lazzaro to help him fake his own kidnapping to scoop the ransom, but when a surprising event separates the friends, Lazzaro embarks on an enigmatic journey leading him to the big city for the first time.

Ending the season
Our final film is Balloon, set in 1979 in East Germany. This is the true adventure of two families, desperate to leave the DDR for the West, who hatch a crazy plan to flee in a home-made hot air balloon, risking imprisonment or death.

On their first attempt, just metres from the West German border, their balloon crashes and the wreckage is found, triggering a desperate manhunt and race against time.

What’s on when
See Events OnTheWight for all listings.

Our Website has full details of all films and links to reviews and trailers. Please check the dates carefully.

Reserve your seats
Ventnor Film Society meets in Ventnor Arts Club, 13 High Street, Ventnor.  To be sure of a place, please book a seat by emailing [email protected], but local viewers can always take a chance and turn up on the night.

Screenings take place on either Mondays or Tuesdays and all Wednesdays at 7.30pm.

Entrance is £6, payable at the door, (cash only) with under 25s enjoying a discount of £3, and the bar is open from 6.30pm. We look forward to seeing all our regulars in September, but if you have never been before, please come along and enjoy!