Dorchester Film Society will launch its new season of screenings next month. 

The film society has been showing the best of world cinema since 1958. Every season, its aims to show a variety of interesting and highly-acclaimed contemporary films that would not normally be screened in local commercial cinemas. 

The new season starts on Wednesday, September 13 with a screening of Queen of Glory, and will run until March 2024 (see below for full listings).

Screenings, held on a big screen at Dorchester's Corn Exchange at 7.30pm on Wednesday evenings, are open exclusively to members of Dorchester Film Society. Subscriptions for the season cost £60 or £30 for those aged between 18 and 25 or those living solely on state benefits.

For further information or to become a member, visit https://dorchesterfilmsociety.org.uk/

Dorchester Film Society 2023/2024 screenings

Wednesday, September 13 - Queen of Glory

Actress Nana Mensah makes an impressive debut as a writer-director with this dry comedy of culture clashes in up-town New York City. 

Mensah plays Sarah, the brilliant child of Ghanaian immigrants, who is all set to quit her Ivy League PhD degree course to follow her married lover to Ohio. When her mother dies suddenly, she bequeaths her daughter her house and a Christian bookstore, named King of Glory, in the Bronx where Sarah was raised. 

Sarah has to deal with the classic immigrant's dilemmas when her father returns from Ghana.

Wednesday, September 20 - Return to Seoul

On a whim, 25-year-old Freddie, played by French sculptor and painter Park Ji-Min in her first acting role, returns to South Korea, where she was born before being adopted and raised in France. 

She decides to look for her biological parents, but her journey takes a surprising turn, following her progress of self-discovery through her 20s and 30s. 

Director Davy Chou, himself the French-born grandson of a Cambodian producer, creates a strange and unpredictable study which features a stunning debut acting performance from Park Ji-Min.

Wednesday, September 27 - Lunana - A Yak in the Classroom

A young teacher in modern Bhutan shirks his duties while planning to go to Australia to become a singer. As a reprimand, he is sent to the most remote school in the world, a glacial Himalayan village called Lunana. 

There he finds no phone reception, little electricity and no proper accommodation. However, there is a classroom of bright-eyed children eager to learn, not to mention a number of yaks. 

Shot in beautiful locations and assisted by superb camerawork, 'Lunana' is a delightful debut feature with gentle humour and life-affirming drama, deserving of its nomination as Best International Feature Film at the 2022 Oscars – a first for Bhutan.

Wednesday, October 11 - Love According to Dalva

Emmanuelle Nicot made a major impact on last year's festival circuit with her challenging debut feature, winning 14 awards, including the FIPRECI Prize at Cannes. 

Dalva is 12 years old and still baby-faced but she dresses and lives like a woman, alone with her father. One day, the police storm her house and take her away. Dumbfounded at first, she later meets a kindly social worker and gradually comes to terms with the true nature of her abusive childhood. 

Zelda Samson won the Rising Star Award at Cannes for her luminous performance as Dalva, fully expressing her bewilderment and turbulent emotional journey with honesty and insight.

Wednesday, October 18 - Aftersun

At a fading vacation resort in the late 90s, 11-year-old Sophie treasures time together with her loving and idealistic father, Callum. Twenty years later, Sophie's tender recollections of their last holiday become a powerful and heartrending portrait of their relationship. 

Following its premiere at Cannes last year, this debut feature from Scottish-born, New York-based writer-director Charlotte Wells has had numerous wins or nominations at international Film Festivals as well as the Oscars and the 2023 BAFTA awards where Wells won for an Outstanding Debut by a British Writer-Director and Paul Mescal won Best Actor for his performance as Callum. 

To quote critic Mark Kermode: "A brilliantly assured and stylistically adventurous work."

Wednesday, November 1 - The Eight Mountains

Co-Winner of the Cannes Jury Prize in 2022, the film was adapted from the 2016 novel by Paolo Cognetti, a compelling story of the friendship and self-discovery between two young men set in the breath-taking Italian Alps, including Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. 

On holiday with his family in the mid-1980s, 12-year-old Pietro befriends local boy Bruno, and they spend an unforgettable summer together in the Alpine valley. Their friendship continues when they are adults but becomes more complex as they go their separate ways, but remaining connected through their mutual love for the mountains.

Wednesday, November 8 - Our River, Our Sky

Set in Baghdad in the winter of 2006, three years after the Iraq War, this raw and powerful film follows the stories of a small community trying to find some degree of normality and hope, despite unpredictable violence, turmoil and loss. 

Sara is a single mother and a gifted writer who now translates letters for a living whilst attempting to keep track of the attacks. Her story is interwoven with those of her neighbours, other ordinary Iraqis trying to live their lives. 

In contrast with Hollywood movies about the aftermath of the Iraq War such as The Hurt Locker, Pachachi's film focuses on the lives of these survivors of the conflict with empathy and even some humour.

Wednesday, November 15 - Pretty Red Dress

British filmmaker and screenwriter Dionne Edwards' likeable, big-hearted feature debut spins an exhilarating story out of the unexpected effect of a pretty red dress. 

X-Factor winner and recording star Alexandra Burke plays a South London singer, Candice, who is hoping to land the role of a lifetime in a big musical. But in her personal life, she has problems: her grumpy teenage daughter is in trouble at school, and her partner Travis, played by theatre actor Natey Jones, is just out of prison on licence. 

Travis' purchase for Candice of a gorgeous red dress for her audition leads to even more problems for them all.

Wednesday, November 22 - The Blue Caftan

Winner of many international awards last year, writer-director Maryam Touzani's follow-up to her acclaimed 2019 debut Adam is a rich, complex slow-burn drama set in the Moroccan city of Salé. 

Halim and Mina run a traditional caftan store in one of the country's oldest medinas, producing beautifully finished hand-sewn garments. In order to keep up with demanding customers, they hire a talented young apprentice. His presence unlocks a long-kept secret which threatens the couple's relationship. 

"An exquisitely tender tribute to love in its purest expression."

Wednesday, December 6 - Christmas Social and Brian & Charles

A feel-good comedy about two friends who share a cottage in rural Wales. Brian is a poorly-groomed, gravelly-voiced farmer who struggles with depression and loneliness… Charles is a robot! 

The trio of director Jim Archer and co-writers, David Earl and Chris Hayward, who wrote the original script, have taken the characters that they created in their 2017 short film to produce a charming comic tale described by Sight and Sound as "a lo-fi sci-fi mockumentary… more ET than AI".

Wednesday, January 10 2024 - Bergman Island

Award-winning French director-writer Mia Hansen-Løve presents an elegant drama starring Tim Roth and Vicky Krieps as a film-making couple, Tony and Chris. They have retreated for the summer to the Swedish island of Fårö, home to Ingmar Bergman and the location of many of his films. 

As both work on their scripts, souvenirs of Chris's first love resurface. However, soon the lines between fiction and reality, subtly interwoven as a film-within-the-film, begin to blur. The result is not just an homage to Bergman but a film he might well have been happy to direct.

Wednesday, January 17 - Plan 75



Writer-director Chie Hayakawa's feature debut, Japan's submission for this year's Oscars, is set in a chilling near-future in which the country has gone to extreme lengths to manage its ageing population and consequent economic distress. 

Award-winning actress Chieko Baisho plays Michi, an elderly woman whose means of survival are vanishing, leading her to face the options offered by the state's Plan 75. The film's challenging concept is mitigated by its tender portrait of elderly relationships.

Wednesday, January 24 - Alacarràs

Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlinale, writer-director Carla Simón's follow-up to her arresting debut 'Summer 1993' (2017), is this lovely, bittersweet and beautifully observed ensemble drama about a farming family facing an uncertain future. 

For as long as they can remember, the Solé family have spent every summer picking peaches from their orchard in Alacarràs, a small Catalonian village in Spain. But this year's crop will be their last. The landowner has died, and his grandson and heir, wants them to abandon their business so he can uproot the trees and install solar panels. 

Coming together for the harvest, the Solés find themselves at odds as to how to go on, and discover they risk losing more than their home.

Wednesday, February 7 - Eric Ravilious - Drawn to War

This engaging documentary is the first major feature film about Eric Ravilious, the much-loved but hugely underestimated British Official War Artist killed in a plane crash over Iceland in 1942. 

BAFTA Award winner, Margy Kinmouth, makes good use of his art and his letters whilst not neglecting the role and significance of his wife Tirvah Garwood. The film features contributions from artists Ai Weiwei and Grayson Perry, writers Alan Bennett and Robert Macfarlane, as well as voice-over narration from Freddie Fox, Tamsin Grieg, Jeremy Irons and Harriet Walter.

Wednesday, February 21 - Close

Lucas and Remi are two 13-year-old boys, whose seemingly unbreakable friendship is suddenly and tragically torn apart. 

Nominated for an Oscar in 2023 and winner of the Grand Prize at Cannes the previous year, Lukas Dhont's second feature captures the painful moment when childhood friendships lose their innocence as the outside world begins to intrude. 

Newcomers Eden Dambrine and Gustave De Waele give beautiful and believable performances as the two vulnerable boys, brilliantly supported by Léa Drucker and Émilie Dequenne as the boys' mothers.

Wednesday, March 6 - Broker

This is the first South Korean production from the prolific and acclaimed Japanese director, Kore-eda Hirokazu, known for his affecting dramas including Shoplifters, Like Father, Like Son and Still Walking, all shown by the society in recent years. 

Song Kang-ho, star of the Oscar-winning thriller, Parasite, plays a laundrette manager, forced by local gangsters to engage in the stealing of abandoned babies for adoption. He and his accomplice are caught red-handed by a young mother who joins then in an exciting road trip to find customers ready to buy her child. 

Meanwhile, two women detectives are hot on their trail and things become complicated.

Wednesday, March 13 - Cairo Conspiracy

From the director of the political drama, The Nile Hilton Incident, shown in the society's 2018/19 season, comes an exciting new conspiracy thriller set on a Cairo campus. 

The young son of a poor fisherman gains a place at the prestigious Al-Azhar University, the centre of power of Sunni Islam. However, he soon becomes a pawn in the conflict between Egypt's religious and political elites. 

Also known as Boy from Heaven, the film won the Best Screenplay award for Tarik Saleh at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

Wednesday, March 20 - Annual General Meeting and Winners

To end the season, a delightful feel-good movie with an edge paying homage to the fabled - and persecuted - Iranian film directors. 

The British Iranian director, Hassan Nazer, now living in Scotland, bases his gentle comedy in a Padeh town in a remote part of Iran where two children, scraping a living on a rubbish tip, stumble over a golden statuette. Their boss, a former actor with a passion for cinema, decides to help them find the owner. 

The film is a cinéaste's delight with references to 'Cinema Paradiso' and especially to the legacy of the acclaimed directors from Asghar Farhadi, winner of an Oscar for 'The Salesman' to Jafar Panahi whose 'Taxi Tehran' has a role in the film.