We are super excited to welcome our monthly Deaf Conversations About Cinema screening and talk back into the building. For the first time since February 2020 we will come together in real life to meet, watch a film and talk about what we think over a drink in the bar.

Join us at the 19:00 screening of The French Dispatch on Wed 27 Oct which will feature Descriptive Subtitles and an introduction to the world of Wes Anderson from Dave Taylor (of 20th Century Flicks Video Shop). This will be followed at 21:00 by a post screening discussion in the Café & Bar with audience members and Dave Taylor. The evening will be hosted by Deaf artist, performer and filmmaker David Ellington and will feature BSL interpretation throughout.

Wes Anderson’s delightful, star-studded homage to journalism and literary magazines is a feast for the eyes and a whip-smart comic delight. The French Dispatch, a high-brow magazine based in an imagined French town, has reached its end. Its founder (Bill Murray) has died and his beloved creation looks set to shut down operations. Whilst going through the process of shutting down the magazine the staff reflect nostalgically on the publication’s halcyon days, when the writers were as celebrated as the subjects they covered. There’s the art critic (Tilda Swinton) who tells the story of a jailed painter’s (Benicio Del Toro) obsession with his muse (Léa Seydoux); a political correspondent (Frances McDormand) whose ‘current affairs’ once included a young insurgent (Timothée Chalamet) during a student protest; and the rarefied food critic (Jeffrey Wright) who finds himself caught up in a kidnapping plot.

Director Wes Anderson is at the top of his game with this dazzling, breathlessly inventive and irrepressibly witty tribute to the New Yorker magazine and its writers. Along with his trademark shooting style – exquisitely-conceived symmetrical compositions – there’s deft use of aspect ratio and seamless monochrome-to-colour shifts. All in all, it’s an absolute treat.

Please join us in the Café/Bar for an informal discussion after the screening, which will include BSL interpretation. You’ll receive 10% off drinks with your cinema ticket – so grab a glass and let us know your thoughts about The French Dispatch.

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