Film Hub Fortnightly – July 2022

At the Newcastle Community Cinema, they will be showing Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast (2021) on the 22nd. While over at the Strand Arts Centre and Movie House Cinemas, you can see all the newest blockbusters including Pixar superhero spinoff Lightyear (2022), the newest marvel movie Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), supernatural horror The Black Phone (2022), starring Ethan Hawke, and Elvis (2022), Baz Luhrmann’s flamboyant portrait of an icon, starring Austin Butler and Tom Hanks.

The Strand will also play host to a special Belfast Pride screening of the cult musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), presented by the drag collective Harland & Poof.

Down in Omagh, the mighty Subterranean Community Cinema return with a 30th anniversary screening of White Men Can't Jump (1992) on 22nd July.

At the Queen’s Film Theatre, there’s several new releases running until the 14^th, including Elvis and An Cailín Ciúin (2022) is an Irish-language coming of age tale. Brian And Charles (2022) is an oddball but sweet comedy, Ithaka (2021), is a documentary following Julian Assange’s father John Shipton and his campaign to free his son, and First Blood (1982), the beginning of Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo series. The 15^th to the 21^st will a run of two more new releases, The Good Boss (2021), a comedy starring Javier Bardem, and A Chiara (2021), a gritty neorealist drama set in Southern Italy.

From 22^nd you can see Where the Crawdads Sing (2022), a melodrama set in the American south and based on the bestseller, and Robust (2021), a comedy starring Gérard Depardieu as an aging film star.

One of the QFT’s biggest seasons this summer is Film Feels Curious, a variety of BFI supported film events, including David Lynch’s strange neo-noir Mulholland Drive (2001), showing on the 16^th. On the 17^th there’s the double whammy of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and the classic, hard-edged thriller The Hitch-hiker (1953). On the 20^th, there will be a programme of shorts from the acclaimed filmmaker and video artist John Smith, and then another double offering on the 23^rd with QFT Late presenting the classic dystopia of Soylent Green (1973), and selection of David Lynch’s early shorts.

And there will be more intrigue on the 24^th with neo-noir Brick (2004). Film Feels Curious will also be running alongside its own LGBTQ+ side season, Queerious, co-presented with the film charity Bird’s Eye View. As part of this strand, you can see acclaimed British director Sally Potter’s debut The Gold Diggers (1983), starring Julie Christie and playing on the 15^th. And on the 22^nd, there will be a screening of the Hindi lesbian love story Fire (1996). More from both Film Feels Curious and Queerious will follow later in the month and in this column.

The QFT will also play host to travelling retrospective of the German director Wim Wenders. On the 13^th, you can see his documentary on the legendary Cuban band, Buena Vista Social Club (1999), and on the 14^th, his classic fantastical tale of love, death and the city, Wings of Desire (1987). The first in his ‘Road Movie Trilogy’, Alice In The Cities (1974), will show from the 18^th to the 20^th, and Pina (2011), his acclaimed documentary on the modern dance pioneer Pina Bausch, will show on the 23^rd. There will be more from this retrospective later in July and August.

By Ruairí McCann @langsmonkey