Members only: Please select NOT MORE THAN 16 films from the list below. Your choices will be used by the Committee to help draw up a programme for next season. Send your selection (numbers) to Peter Bunyan at pfbunyan@btinternet.com or post to Peter at 3 Broome Close, Billericay, CM11 1SX or hand to a Committee member when attending a Film Club screening, no later than Sunday 16 March.

Download the print version of the Selection List here (or pick up at a coming film screening)

1. MONOS (Columbia 2019) Dir. Alejandro Landes 102 mins.
   Competition winner at London FF and described as Lord of the Flies meets Apocalypse Now. On a remote mountaintop eight child soldiers watch over an American hostage and a conscripted cow.
2. PAIN AND GLORY (Spain 2019) Dir. Pedro Almodovar 113 mins.
   A film director reflects on the choices he’s made in life as past and present come crashing down around him.
3. IT MUST BE HEAVEN (France/Qatar/Palestine 2019) Dir. Elia Suleiman 97 mins.
   In his first film for 10 years, and no longer confined to Palestine, Suleiman travels the world adding his own absurdist observations to events and finding unexpected parallels to his homeland.
4. WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS (Italy/USA 2019) Dir. Ciro Guerra 112 mins.
   For his first English language film, Guerra Birds of Passage, Embrace of the Serpent) adapts a J M Coetzee novel. Mark Rylance stars as a magistrate at a distant outpost beginning to question his loyalty to the British Empire. With Johnny Depp and Robert Patterson.
5. MARRIAGE STORY (USA 2019) Dir. Noah Baumbach 137 mins.
   A huge hit with critics: inspired by Baumbach’s own experience of divorce. With Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern, Alan Alda and Ray Liotta.
6. ASH IS PUREST WHITE (China 2018) Dir. Zhagke Jia 136 mins.
   A story of violent love within a timeframe spanning 2001 to 1017.
7. SAINT MAUD (UK 2019) Dir. Rose Glass 83 mins.
   After witnessing a patient dying on the operating table, young nurse Maud finds solace in religion but becomes dangerously obsessed with saving the soul of a terminal cancer patient.
8. PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (France 2019) Dir. Celine Sciamma 121 mins.
   On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the 18th century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.
9. HOPE GAP (UK 2018) Dir. William Nicholson 100 mins.
   Adapted from the director’s stage play and based on his parents’ life. A middle aged son’s return home takes a dramatic turn when his father (Bill Nighy) suddenly announces he is leaving his wife (Annette Bening).
10. EMA (Chile 2019) Dir. Pablo Larrain 102 mins.
    A couple deal with the aftermath of an adoption that goes awry as their household falls apart.
11. FOR SAMA (UK/Syria 2019) Dirs. Waad Al Kateab/Edward Watts 100 mins.
    A documentary. Student, turned film maker, Al Kateab falls in love, gets married and raises a young daughter (Sama) during the 5 year siege of Aleppo.
12. HONEYLAND (Macedonia 2019) Dirs. Tamara Kotevska/Ljubomir Stefanov 86 mins.
    Documentary. The last female bee hunter in Europe must save the bees and return to the natural balance in Honeyland when a family of nomadic beekeepers invades her land and threatens her livelihood.
13. ROJO (Argentina 2019) Dir. Benjamin Naishtat 110 mins.
    A searing satire on the mid 70s in Argentina when anyone ‘ begins to disappear.
14. TRANSIT (Germany/France 2019) Dir. Christian Petzold 102 mins.
    In an at tempt to flee Nazi occupied France, Georg assumes the identity of a dead author. Soon stuck in Marseilles, he falls in love with Maria, a young woman searching for her missing husband.
15. AMANDA (France 2020) Dir. Mikhael Hers 107 mins.
    When 20 year old David’s elder sister is brutally killed in an attack, he takes charge of his 7 year old niece, Amanda.
16. BY THE GRACE OF GOD (France 2019) Dir. Francois Ozon 137 mins.
    Alexandre lives with his wife and children in Lyon. One day he discovers that the priest who abused him when he was a Boy Scout is still working with young people: long repressed memories awaken.
17. ONLY YOU (UK/Sweden 2019) Dir. Harry Wootliff 119 mins.
    This directorial debut feature tells the touching story of the whirlwind romance between Elena and Jake as they meet by chance after New Year’s Eve celebrations.
18. IN FABRIC (UK 2018) Dir. Peter Strickland 118 mins.
    If members remember The Duke of Burgundy, shown a couple of season’s ago, here is another work that’s hard to categorise: a horror inflected twisted comedy. Phantom Thread with added phantoms.
19. THE SOUVENIR (UK 2019) Dir. Joanna Hogg 120 mins.
    Hogg paints a precise picture of a woman trying to develop her own artistic vision while caught in the slipstream of a toxic relationship. A singular and unforgettable gem of a film…’.
20. UNCUT GEMS (USA 2019) Dirs. Josh Sadie/Benny Sadie 135 mins.
    A charismatic jeweller makes a high-stakes bet that could lead to the windfall of a lifetime…. He must balance business, family and adversaries on all sides in pursuit of the ultimate win.
21. THE LIGHTHOUSE (USA 2019) Dir. Robert Eggers 110 mins.
    Two lighthouse keepers try to maintain their sanity while living on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s.
22. SORRY WE MISSED YOU (UK 2019) Dir. Ken Loach 101 mins.
    Ricky struggles for years against accumulating debt but a shiny new van and the prospect of independence raises his hopes…
23. MARTIN EDEN (Italy/France 2019) Dir. Pietro Marcello 129 mins.
    From a story by Jack London of 1909, a historical romance: when Martin falls for the wealthy and well-educated Elena conflicts of conscience and principal arise.
24. BAIT (UK 2018) Dir. Mark Jenkin 89 mins.
    Tension rises to breaking point in a Cornish fishing village the the local citizenry are crowded out by tourists.
25. HAPPY AS LAZARRO (Italy 2018) Dir. Alice Rohrwacher 130 mins.
    Since getting on the selection list for the 2019-20 season (it got 14 votes!) this beautiful, mysterious film has gained increasing praise. Described as an inexpressibly moving fable, nothing is quite what it seems. A pastoral set story transforms magically midway through to modern city life where the hero is a cross between Lazarus and Christ.
26. THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (France 1964) Dir. Jacques Demy 95 mins.
    A re-release last year from BFI in its ‘musicals’ festival. Music by Michel Legrand. “A film in song”, the story of Genevieve (Catherine Deneuve) who falls for auto mechanic Guy rather than her mother’s choice of a rich diamond merchant.

Click on any of the images in the Carousel below to view the Film Trailers (double click to view full screen):