Film Hub Fortnightly – April 2022 (Part 2)

This year’s Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, running from April 28 to May 8, will feature a packed programme, including many film events. To start off, on the 30th, the festival will partner with Ghouls on Film to screen psychedelic horror Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010) at the Freemasons Hall at Arthur Square. While on the 1st of May, in The Black Box’s Green Room, you can see The Nowhere Inn (2021) a surreal docufiction starring St. Vincent and Carrie Brownstein, and Freakscene: The Story of Dinosaur Jr (2021), a documentary on the great American indie rock band.

At the Nerve Centre in Derry, the Foyle Intercultural & Anti-Racism Film Festival continue their 2022 edition with a Music on Screen strand, which begins with a trio of documentaries. On the 25th, they’re showing Tina (2021) about the singer Tina Turner. The 26th will see Zappa (2021), which not only covers the life and work of the idiosyncratic musician Frank Zappa but also his activism, and on the 27th, Edgar Wright’s The Sparks Brothers (2021) will chart the history and present day of the legendary glam band. Sparks also co-wrote Leos Carax’s unique, musical tragedy Annette (2021), starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, which will show on the 28th. The festival will then conclude on the 29th with Respect (2021), a dramatization of the life of Aretha Franklin starring Jennifer Hudson and Forrest Whitaker.

Newcastle’s Community Cinema’s April programme will conclude with Peter Rabbit 2 (2021), while on the 27th, Fermanagh Film Club will show Celine Sciamma’s tender fantasy tale Petite Maman (2021) in Enniskillen’s Ardhowen Theatre.

At the Queen’s Film Theatre, you can see plenty of new releases. Playing until the 21st, Paul Verhoeven’s long-awaited Benedetta (2021) is a subversive, erotic drama about a 17th century nun’s lesbian affair. Also running until the 21st, Murina (2021) is a dark coming of age set on a Croatian isle, while The Northman (2022), running until the 28th, is a Viking epic from director Robert Eggers, starring Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Willem Dafoe, Ethan Hawke and Bjork. The documentary Young Plato (2021), which follows a group of schoolchildren and their headmaster in Belfast’s Ardoyne, will be showing until the 22nd with more screenings on the 25th, 26th and 28th. 

This April and May, The Naughton Gallery are teaming up with the QFT to present a season of Dolly Parton films. Dolly On Screen will begin on the 22nd and 24th with 9 to 5 (1980), starring Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as waitress friends fighting a sexist workplace. Followed by musical comedy The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas (1982), starring Parton and Burt Reynolds and showing on the 30th and the 2nd of May. More to come from this season in May.

QFT’s other April special events including a Lumi screening of Made in Bangladesh (2019), a drama about unionising garment workers showing on the 23rd, and a Walled Cities screening of Rabbit À La Berlin (2009), a short documentary about rabbits displaced by the fall of the Berlin Wall. Showing on the 27th, this screening will be followed by a panel discussion. 

Movie House Cinemas will also be showing The Northman, Operation Mincemeat, Downton Abbey: A New Era, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and The Lost City at their 4 locations, along with family-friendly animation Rabbit Academy (2022). From the 22nd, they will show The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022), a meta-action comedy starring Nicholas Cage as a version of himself.

At the Strand Arts Centre, you can also currently see The Northman, and Downton Abbey: A New Era from the 29th. They will play alongside other new releases, The Lost City (2022), a romantic-adventure parody starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum and Daniel Radcliffe, the Oscar Winning CODA (2021) and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022). And on the 23rd, Banterflix will present a special 35mm screening of the rock film classic Almost Famous (2000). 

April at QFT will conclude with a host of new releases. From the 22nd to the 28th, you can see Happening (2021), from director Audrey Diwan, a true-to-life thriller about a young Parisian student in the 60s seeking an abortion, and Operation Mincemeat (2022), a WWII spy adventure starring Colin Firth, Matthew Macfayden and Kelly McDonald. You Are Not My Mother (2021), running from the 23rd to the 28th, is an eerie, Irish psychological drama about a dysfunctional family.

Opening on the 29th and running into May, The Velvet Queen: Snow Leopard (2021) is an epic nature documentary scored by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022), the movie sequel to the popular historical drama.