France  2011  101 mins  12

Jean (played by Vincent Lindon) is a hard-working builder who meets his son’s teacher Veronique Chambon (Sandrine Kiberlain) when, after a workplace accident, his wife is unable pick the boy up from school. This chance encounter leads to a slowly developing attraction between them that is portrayed in a beautifully nuanced and tender way. The echoes of Brief Encounter extend to the evocative use of music, in this case Elgar’s Salut d’Amour, which punctuates and underscores the emotion on screen. Excellent performances and subtle direction create an unforgettable tale of unexpected love and its consequences. Don’t miss it! (S)

UK   2010   106 mins

This acclaimed documentary features in many critics’ top 10 films of 2011. Although it contains gripping footage from an era before the sport became the formulaic procession it often is now, this is much more than a motor-racing documentary. Ayrton Senna was a true phenomenon – he won three world F1 championships before crashing fatally in the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix aged just 34 – and in his native Brazil he was simply a god. His inner struggles, the on and off track battles with his nemesis, Alain Prost, and the international motor racing oligarchs provide as much excitement and tension as his breathtaking endeavours behind the wheel.

Ireland  2011  96 mins   15

After the triumph of In Bruges, Brendan Gleeson gives another fine turn as an eccentric heavy, although this time on the other side of the law as he plays rural Irish cop, Sgt. Gerry Boyle. Ill-behaved bachelor Boyle has little time for a naive sidekick, Aidan (Rory Keenan), imposed on him from on high until Aidan is murdered by drug smugglers who’ve muscled onto his patch. His subsequent unconventional tactics are impeded by a snooty FBI agent, Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle), but grudgingly they combine to wreak some agreeably rough justice. Beguilingly tense, with great performances and a script awash with dark subversive humour.

Fra/Can  2010   131 mins  15

Adapted from an acclaimed play by Wajdi Mouawad, this taut Oscar-nominated mystery takes us from Canada to the war-torn Middle East. Canadian twins, Jeanne and Simon, are puzzled by the terms of their late Lebanese mother’s will that asks them to search for family members that they didn’t know existed. The consequences of the ensuing quest force them to confront dangers and ideas from which they have previously been sheltered. Director Denis Villeneuve tackles the thorny issues of conflict and tension in the Middle East, asking searching questions about the continuing violence, with great verve but without ever becoming partisan. (S)

Festival runs from 24th February to March 11

Each year the Borderlines Film Festival, the largest rural film festival in the UK, centred on Hereford’s Courtyard Arts Centre but also spread across numerous venues in Herefordshire, Shropshire and Powys, brings us a vast selection of new and old films. Presteigne Film Society has participated as a venue for many years and will once again screen a movie under the Borderlines umbrella. See also the comprehensive website at www.borderlinesfilmfestival.co.uk. (Click the logo at left)

Korea   2010  139 mins   12

Our Borderlines Film Festival screening - A powerful, moving story of an older woman who finds inner strengths she never knew she had. Mija spends her life looking after others. One day she impulsively joins a poetry class and takes to heart the tutor’s advice to see more intensely what’s around her. Her life is thrown further out of kilter when she discovers that her teenage grandson, Wook is implicated in the suicide of a classmate. Funny and unsentimental, Mija’s curiosity, courage and generosity is shown in stark contrast to the injustice, cruelty and complexity of the world she lives in. Widely selected by critics worldwide as one of the best films of last year. (S)

UK  2011  111 mins  15

Despite a few brickbats, Joe ‘Pride & Prejudice’ Wright’s most recent outing is both compelling and beautifully realised. Played with glacially repressed emotion by Saoirse Ronan, Hanna is a young, steely-hearted assassin trained and then dispatched by her callous ex-CIA dad, (Eric Bana) on a deadly mission across Europe and North Africa. But an equally ruthless, and arguably even more vicious secret agent (Cate Blanchett) aided and abetted by a sociopathic hitman (Tom Hollander, brilliantly against type), is hot on her fast moving heels with an agenda of her own (i.e. Let’s kill Hanna). Tense, gripping and with a memorable sting in its tail.

USA  2011  126 mins  PG

See our Special Events page for details.

France   2010   102 mins  15

‘Potiche’ - a cooking-pot, colloquially translatable as ‘doormat’. Catherine Deneuve plays Suzanne, a put-upon bourgeois wife whose irascible husband is struggling to run the family factory with an iron hand. He wants a ‘potiche’ wife, exclusively for home and family but after trouble at the factory he suffers a collapse. She takes over and surprises everybody with her caring and sharing efficiency. For support she draws on the socialist mayor (Gerard Depardieu) who is hopelessly besotted with Suzanne, creating a brilliant comic opportunity for both Deneuve and Depardieu, chalk and cheese on screen as in life, to generate much enjoyable comedy around them. (S)