FEEDBACK from our audience
Previously shown films in date order with audience feedback notes.​
Please note: If you missed filling in the Feedback paper slips at the end of the last film you saw, you can add your feedback on the Contact page.
Year 2024/5
Agent of Hapinness
Film info:
Date shown:
Bhutan 2024
June 2025
Audience Star rating: 70%
Synopsis
A quiet, gently absorbing documentary filmed in Bhutan where the idea of "gross national happiness" was introduced in the 1970s and has subsequently become a bedrock of the country's identity whereas other nations focus is on Gross Domestic Product.
It follows two ‘happiness agents’ as they travel door-to-door, like census workers to collect data for the government's happiness survey. With a combination of staggeringly beautiful scenery and gentle humour this is a film that quietly, intimately observes the lives of ordinary people.
Audience Feedback
Some viewers themselves felt much happier from having seen this film, finding it amusing, beautifully filmed, very insightful and touching. One commented ‘I liked the simple message – to find happiness in the life you lead’.
For others it ‘dragged a bit and was rather repetitive. Beautiful scenes of Bhutan but not enough happening!’
It seemed Bhutans are no happier than the rest of us. Poverty, oppression, ignorance are much the same everywhere and there was a bit of a problem with alcohol abuse and young people leaving for better prospects.
It was ironic that one of the agents couldn't himself achieve fulfilment and happiness.
The Truffle Hunters
Film info:
Date shown:
Itay - 2021
January 2022
Synopsis
Deep in the forests of Piedmont, Italy, a handful of men, seventy or eighty years young, hunt for the rare and expensive white Alba truffle, guarding their location with absolute secrecy.
Audience Star rating: 89%
Audience Feedback
So enjoyable. Delightful, lyrical! Beautiful scenery and internal scenes. An uplifting film. Lovely glimpse into a small and possibly threatened life. An intriguing portrayal of a pastoral lifestyle.
Beautiful shots of landscapes that look like paintings by Brueghel and interior shots that are almost like tableaux, mostly of two men or a man and his dog. Left a smile on your face.
All we Imagine as Light
Film info:
Date shown:
India 2024
May 2025
Synopsis
The first feature film by writer/director Payal Kapadia, this won the Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and is the first Indian film from a female director ever to be in the main Competition strand at Cannes.
It follows the lives of three nurses, all working in a hospital in Mumbai although with differing circumstances and challenges in their private lives; each are seeking escape from the dictates imposed upon her by society.
Audience Star rating: 70%
Audience Feedback
It received quite a mixed response from the audience. Although generally accredited for its good crafting and acting, some viewers were disappointed; deeming it boring, unconvincing, even incomprehensible. Laborious and too slow, tedious with too many pregnant pauses especially in the latter parts were other criticisms. However, it was felt to accurately portray the hustle of the overpopulated city and in contrast the calm space of the seaside village.
Further feedback included….Hard to relate to. Puzzling but beautiful. The surreal sequence was disturbing and confusing. Beautiful, a gently intense portrayal of the characters stories and dreams. An interesting look inside another way of life.
Would the women's dreams be realised? To some the dancing cafe boy at the ending seemed to offer a promise of hope and joy.
The Teacher's Lounge
Film info:
Date shown:
Germany 2023
March 2025
Synopsis
Carla Nowak, a dedicated sports and math teacher, starts her first job at a high school. She stands out among the staff because of her idealism. When a series of thefts occur at the school and one of her students is suspected, she decides to get to the bottom of the matter on her own. A seemingly straightforward confrontation escalates into the whole school mistrusting one another, with a knock on effect to the parents. The boy accused of theft raises questions of racism and prejudice and her own attempt at identifying a thief puts her professionalism into question. It makes for tense viewing; hoping for a resolution and ending with an even more tangled web. The finale was inconclusive, open to their personal interpretation by the viewer.
Audience Star rating: 75%
Audience Feedback
It was mostly adjudged as being well constructed, well-paced and not too long. Whilst a few viewers felt it had inconsistencies, it was mostly thought to be ‘a brilliant observation of the interaction of modern humans in a close environment, at both adult and child level. The setting of a school, where all involved must find a way to co-exist, makes a statement about the ways in which a community can quickly crumble with a few misplaced words’. The acting was felt to be of a high standard, particularly that of the main character and the children. A lot of the movie consists of steady handheld shots of people talking, walking, and moving through the frame, often without music, although composer Marvin Miller’s dissonant, unnerving strings sometimes rise up and seem to swirl around Carla and jab at her. For one, ‘this repetitive grunting sound was effective at first, but its continued use became irritating’, and they wondered ’why the final scene was accompanied by part of Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream, particularly the section emulating Bottom's braying’.
Joyland
Film info:
Date shown:
Pakistan 2022
March 2025
Synopsis
Having told his family he is the theatre manager, the youngest son in a traditional Pakistani family takes a job as a backup dancer in a Bollywood-style burlesque and quickly becomes infatuated with the strong-willed trans woman who runs the show.
This is a movie about people who find their inner lives and sense of themselves don’t match up to what is expected of them.
Joyland is such a delicate, intelligent and emotionally rich film. What a debut from Sadiq.
Audience Star rating: 78%
Audience Feedback
A film that gives an insight into family life in a male dominated society and demonstrates the contrast between the old Pakistan world of the ageing father and young modern attitudes. The youngest son in a traditional Pakistani family, under pressure to become a breadwinner, takes a job as a backup dancer in a Bollywood-style burlesque, having told his family he is the theatre manager, and quickly becomes infatuated with the strong-willed trans woman who runs the show. Some of the audience really enjoyed it, finding it ‘super absorbing and keeping one’s at attention all the time, a beautiful film with fabulous cinematography and choreography’. The filming was praised for ‘capturing intimate details, colourful gatherings and also grey deprived backstreet alleys, plus the use of silences added to the sensitivity of some of the scenes’. However, others found it ‘rather one dimensional and a bit predictable, at times a bit slow and uncomfortable to watch’, even ‘suffocating, tedious and incomprehensival sometimes’. One commented ‘not much joy’, although for another viewer there were ‘some lovely images of Joy when the sisters in law were on the Roller Coaster and Haider when he mastered the dance!’ Another comment was ‘Although there were many different storylines that running through the film, it felt like a very cohesive whole’.
My Favourite Cake
Film info:
Date shown:
Iran 2024
February 2025
Synopsis
A charming film of a 70 year old Iranian’s appetite for romance. It is wonderfully sweet and funny and will contribute to the debate about whether repressive regimes are the nursery of artistic greatness. The Iranian government has prevented the film’s two directors from travelling to Berlin to attend their own premiere - six months ago, their production offices were raided and computers and hard drives confiscated. But, fortunately, the film-makers had a copy stored in another country, and the film’s gentle humanity is a compelling rebuke to this fatuous, clumsy repression.
Audience Star rating: 86%
Audience Feedback
An intimate, tragicomic tale of late-blooming love in the shadow of Iran’s repressive regime. Mahin, a 70 year old woman living on the outskirts of Teheran, feels the ache of isolation on a daily basis. Widowed for 30 years, with family emigrated and reduced contact with friends, whose conversation is, of late, dominated by discussions of medical ailments. With the sense that there is no more time to waste, she throws caution to the wind, seeking romance and company she instigates a relationship with a taxi driver. An elderly woman is not a character we often see represented in films and it was lovely to see her blossom as she nurtured their friendship, although Iran’s morality police, a force that suppresses women’s rights and compromises their safety, is never far from the characters’ thoughts. The bravery of the makers, now in captivity in Iran with passports detained and facing a court trial, was much applauded. This ‘thought provoking’ film was much appreciated by our audience and generated epithets of ‘solid, beautifully made, heart warming, touching, charming, delightful, endearing, heartfelt, humorous’, and the following comments - A lovely, gentle film that superbly illustrated life from an elderly perspective, but also hinted at the repressive regime in Iran. Certainly shows that, in any culture, you can become invisible as you get older. Is it better to have one night of extreme joy and recklessness and feel you've lived rather than merely surviving driven by fear and others' expectations? A brilliant insight into how life has changed for the people of Iran. Such beautiful tender funny moments, and then the reality of the issue to be faced. Brilliantly portrayed, the actors so fitted their parts. A sad, very moving finale. Unexpected, or perhaps not, given the energetic dancing and quantities of wine consumed! Many people felt this conclusion difficult – they wanted a ‘happy ending’ for the couple.
Lo Capitano
Film info:
Date shown:
Italy 2023
January 2025
Synopsis
Two teenage boys star in Matteo Garrone’s passionate expose of how greed, trauma and corruption drive the modern-day slave trade in would be migrants.
His new film is part adventure story, part slavery drama. Seydou and Moussa, played by nonprofessional acting newcomers, dream of escape to the fabled land of the EU as refugees, where they expect to go viral and make a fortune as music stars like the people they’re watching on TikTok. For years they have been writing songs and secretly working on building sites while pretending to go to football practice, amassing cash savings which in the succeeding months they will hand over to various gangmasters, fixers and corrupt gun-wielding soldiers. Seydou and the others are not exactly masters of their fate, or captains of their souls. They are swept along by power and inequality, but Garrone shows that their humanity and compassion remain buoyant.
This is a film made with passion mostly showing the reality of being a migrant but also with a couple of fantasy sequences and it is beautifully filmed.
Audience Star rating: 92%
Audience Feedback
Two teenage boys from Senegal, dreaming of fame and fortune in the EU, decide to undertake the journey there in the hands of people smugglers. Innocents, in over their heads from the moment they leave, they fall victim to both human corruption and the indifferent cruelty of nature. The final leg of the boys’ journey is based on the real-life account of a 15-year-old boy who was coerced by the smugglers into steering a crowded boat through dangerous seas. The acting of the non professional acting newcomers in the leading roles was much praised, also the ‘stunning cinematography’ and the soundtrack music as being ‘perfect, beautiful, African and not over powering’. An ‘emotional, poignant’ and ‘moving’ showing led to a post film discussion of the issues and about modern slavery. There were long close-ups of the migrants’ faces in extreme distress and ‘some horrendous scenes of torture and abuse’; however, although a difficult watch and generating comments of ‘disturbing, brutal, harrowing, sadly so true’, it was felt that this was a brilliant film, covering a topical issue and important to be seen. ‘Illustrated the power of the internet over young people believing in streets paved with gold in Europe, but also the callous pursuit of money with complete disregard of humanity by some preying on vulnerable people. It should be shown in African countries before people leave.’
La Chimera
Film info:
Date shown:
Italy - 2023
January 2025
Synopsis
The setting is 1980s rural Italy. Englishman Arthur is mourning the loss of his love and searching for a reconnection. He is persuaded by a gang of local grave robbers to use his archaeological skills and his gift for finding tombs to help them in their activities.
Their success highlighted the illegal market for antiquities.
Audience Star rating: 63%
Audience Feedback
While it earned positive ratings from some of the audience, many were less impressed: ’A load of pretentious nonsense. A confusing film and not entirely satisfying’.
The film was felt over long by several and a struggle for some, generating comments of ‘muddled and befuddled’ and ‘I was lost at the beginning, although it became more interesting, was still lost at the end’. ‘At times I found it hard to differentiate between what was being portrayed as real and what was a dream. I felt at times I was hallucinating!’
Other observations were ‘the women were generally portrayed as very strong and in control in contrast to the raffishness of many of the men’.
Blackbird, Blackbird, Blackberry
Film info:
Date shown:
Georgia/Swiss 2023
December 2024
Synopsis
Adapted from a 2020 Georgian novel of the same name, this was a tale of late ripening midlife love in rural Georgia. Etero is an unmarried woman in a patriarchal society, single by choice. Finally free from the overbearing chauvinism of her father and brother, she dedicates herself to the running of her austere little shop in a Georgian mountain village. The other women of the village, her so-called friends, provide only spiteful comment and criticism.
One day, distracted by a blackbird whilst out picking the blackberries she loves, she is deeply shaken by a near death experience, following which she launches into a new life, embarking on a relationship with the delivery man - “So ends 48 years of virginity”
Audience Star rating: 79%
Audience Feedback
Reaction to this film was very mixed, spanning from negative comments including ….’Awful film. Dialogue stilted. Unpleasantly crude at times. It dragged’, to a contrasting ‘An engaging story. I felt Etero's pain in trying to maintain her independence alongside a need for intimacy and self acceptance. Very well acted. Very sensual’.
The strong face of the lead actress with those dark eyes and prominent eyebrows made a marked impact. It gave a picture of the status of a spinster in a rural community, with the slow pace perhaps reflecting that of rural life.
Ending with a surprising discovery, the viewer is left to wonder what decisions Etero may or may not make in the light of this.
Anselm
Film info:
Date shown:
Germany - 2023
November 2024
Synopsis
This film is Wim Wenders' serious examination of the life and work of the 78-year-old German artist Anselm Kiefer. Both were born in 1945 and history weighs heavily upon Kiefer’s monumental art - paintings, photographs, colossal installations and illustrated book artifacts – which often reflects his childhood growing up in Germany among the rubble of the postwar years. His work is celebrated but, in some quarters, criticised for his engagement with German fascism and the Holocaust.
Audience Star rating: 72%
Audience Feedback
This film divided the audience. For some it was ‘wonderful, really enjoyable, something quite astonishing, very thought provoking, a fascinating insight into an eccentric but clever artist. Further praise included ‘demanding visually and emotionally but what a tour de force – overall the size and scale of his art and the emotional power was overwhelming’. I felt confused at first but gradually got into the mood and pace of the film. Stunning works of art and touching silence though.
In contrast, for other viewers it was a less positive experience generating such comments as ‘boring, slow, pretentious and disappointing’.
The background sound, in an often silent film, of an aircraft overhead allowed some viewers to think about what they were seeing, whilst others felt it would possibly have benefited from some narrative to break the quiet. Also, for some the subtitles were a hindrance to engagement; the challenge of their speedy delivery and difficulty with discernment when against certain backgrounds, plus the lack of them for the spoken English.
Perfect Days
Film info:
Date shown:
Japan - 2023
October 2024
Synopsis
Taking place over 2 weeks, every day is the same. Hirayama, a taciturn man in his 60s, wakes pre-dawn in his spartan apartment. He sets out to start work, diligently cleaning the public toilets of Tokyo. A solitary life, he can go days saying no more than a few cursory words. If members of the public notice him, they largely view him as an inconvenience, but mostly they don't even see him.
A life of boring repetition but Hirayama has found harmony. There are suggestions of a previous, more privileged life; however, whatever his past, he now has a peaceful, happy and undisturbed existence with his routine, his collection of cassettes, mostly 60’s & 70’s rock, his photographs and his bonsai.
Central to the film's gently profound message is your way of looking at things. Hirayama looks at the world with his eyes, but sees with his heart. He sees all things, all people, as equally important, even the vagrant who camps in a park.
The original title was “komorebi” meaning ‘sunlight leaking through trees’, a recurring theme; the connection with nature, and the necessity to pause, absorb and appreciate.
Audience Star rating: 90%
Audience Feedback
This film, that could have been bleak but instead is lovely and life-affirming, was appreciated by the audience with post film comments of - wonderful, just wonderful, Perfect Day was simply perfect, absolutely brilliant! Great, left me with a big smile, absolutely loved it!! An unforgettable experience. Profoundly moving.
Further praise was - it was terrific on detail and depth and visuals. A lovely film beautifully made with great acting and music soundtrack. Such an expressive actor - he didn’t need words, his face shows everything. Some lovely intimate and poignant moments. A different perspective on life that is all about awareness and savouring the whole of life, especially the daily routine, Zen philosophy brought to life,
Definitely a celebration of toilets! The Toyko toilets were architectural gems.
Fallen Leaves
Film info:
Date shown:
Finland - 2023
September 2024
Synopsis
Set in modern-day Helsinki, a chance encounter in a karaoke bar offers the potential of love for two lonely people. However, the pair's path to happiness is beset by numerous obstacles - from lost phone numbers to mistaken addresses, alcoholism, and a stray dog.
Audience Star rating: 72%
Audience Feedback
This tragicomedy proved to be a truly ‘marmite’ film with the audience.
The soundtrack was a mixture - topical news coverage from her radio updating on the conflict in Ukraine, with Putin a possible threat to neighbouring Finland, periods of silence or foot-tapping rock n’roll.
Epithets of sad, moving, depressing, painful to watch, quirky, hilarious, deadpan, not a block buster, wonderful, feel good- really?, perfect, humourous, and humourless, demonstrated the spread of opinion.
For one viewer ‘This was the dullest film I've ever seen, bleak, monotonous, minimal emotion and narrative drive; the characters cartoon stereotypes: really one-dimensional’.
On the other hand, positive comments… refreshingly different, enjoyable to watch, gentle and gradually warm. It has taken me several hours to realise its beauty, takes a while to see the gentle comedy. Hopeful for a better life, good to be taken to the reality of many lives with the humour lifting it up. A love story without soppiness!