Factory Records, the Hacienda club, Tony Wilson, Happy Mondays, etc, etc. '24 Hour Party People' is an affectionate and humorous trip through Manchester's monster music scene in the 80s and 90s. The soundtrack as you'd expect is blinding and Steve Coogan's portrayal of Wilson is spooky. A film that stands on it's own as an excellent near tragi-comedy, but within its historical context... it's bloody mad!

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The friendship between two girls is tested to its absolute limits in this utterly compelling drama set in the twilight years of Communist-era Romania. Gabita, young, naïve and pregnant, turns to her more pragmatic room mate Otilia for help and a meeting is arranged in a downtown hotel with a shady abortionist. Entering a dangerous and illegal underworld where the stakes are high and nothing is as it seems, the girls are set for a life-changing experience that neither will ever forget. "4 months, find out more...

Based on the prize-winning novel by Monica Ali, this is the story of a beautiful young Bangladeshi woman who arrives in 1980s London, leaving behind her beloved sister and home, for an arranged marriage and a new life. Nazneen's mother always told her she was a survivor, but feeling trapped in a loveless relationship with her husband, the middle aged Chanu, she struggles to accept her lot, a situation not helped by the arrival of hot-headed young Karim. Set against the changing backdrop of multi find out more...

Eight-year-old Zachary has, so far, enjoyed life as his father's favourite son, as the possessor of a gift for healing and as younger sibling to a tearaway, a jock and a bookworm, but this relatively idyllic childhood in Québec is cast under the shadow of his dad's suspicions when he is discovered wearing a dress. Seven years on it's 1975 and Zac is in thrall to Ziggy Stardust and his cousin's boyfriend, a confusing situation for him, made more complicated by a history of trying to satisfy his d find out more...

Bobby Sands was the IRA member who led the 1981 Long Kesh hunger strike as part of a campaign to achieve the status of political prisoners and not that of criminals. The first section of film deals with daily prison life, the 'dirty' protest and the violence, the second is a long discussion on the meaning of life with a sympathetic priest and the third depicts the last weeks and death of a man voluntarily dying of starvation. find out more...

Lonely, bullied 12-year-old Oskar fantasises about taking bloody revenge on his tormentors and Eli, his new neighbour, might look 12-years-old too, but she's been that way for rather a long time, and her fantasies involving blood are somewhat different! An unlikely alliance forms between the two in this subtle combination of pre-teen male/female bonding and vampire lore... all set in a snowbound Swedish working class suburb. find out more...

It's 1980s East Germany and our anti-hero, an accomplished surveillance officer, is ordered to spy on a successful and outwardly loyal playwright and his actress girlfriend, but the motive is not entirely political, involving the lust for the girl of a political commissar and the career prospects of his immediate superior. The Stasi officer is dragged into the Kafkaesque web created by this moral duplicity in this compelling and twisting tale. First class. find out more...

Germany, 1954; teenager Michael Berg becomes ill on his way home and is helped by Hanna, a taciturn, but attractive woman twice his age. When recovered Michael returns to her apartment to thank the stranger for her kindness he swiftly finds himself involved in a furtive, impassioned affair. As this relationship intensifies Michael discovers Hanna's love of being read to. When Hanna disappears without a trace the young lad is left confused and bereft. find out more...

What do you do when your parents are divorcing? More to the point what do you do when it's as ugly as hell and they make your sparse teenage wisdom look like the epitome of well rounded reason? These are the unpleasant dilemmas facing Noah Baumbach's protagonist and it would seem there are no simple answers....if indeed there are any answers at all. The Squid And The Whale is an excruciatingly toe curling comedy drama, painfully, squirmingly funny, with an outstanding performance from Jeff Danie find out more...

Back in England, in the early 80s, bullied at school and mourning his father, recently dead in Thatcher's heroic Falklands War, lonely 12-year-old Shaun finds solace with a gang of older youths in the ska influenced skinhead subculture, a culture that was about to be hijacked by a nasty and virulent form of white power nationalism. Largely based round Shane Meadows' own experiences growing up on an impoverished Nottingham housing estate. Strongly recommended. find out more...