The exiled Tyneside Cinema, doing very nicely at Gateshead Old Town Hall while its Newcastle home is improved, is showing (from today) the directorial debut of 28-year-old Canadian actress Sarah Polley.
The film is Away From Her (12A) and it stars Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent as a retired couple, Fiona and Grant. It shows what happens to the couple when Fiona is diagnosed with Alzheimer's and moves into a care home. The Tyneside call it "dignified and respectful" and "an astonishing debut".
The Tyneside's Kids' Club offers a 1.30pm screening of Cats And Dogs tomorrow. This is Lawrence Guteman's fast-paced action comedy about an espionage war between armies of cats and dogs. Robots, Toy Story and the Wizard of Oz feature in future club programmes.
The venue also hosts three films from the Spanish & Latin American Film Festival (the 13th such festival from Manchester's Cornerhouse) next month.
Honor de Cavallera (12A) (Honour of The Knights) is Albert Serra's reworking of the Don Quixote story which premiered at Cannes last year. See it on June 5. Then, on June 22, comes The Aura (15), a stylish film noir by Argentinian director Fabián Bielinsky, who died last year at 47.
The season concludes with El Violin (15) on June 27. This film by Mexican Francisco Vargas focuses on elderly Don Plutarco's efforts to retrieve ammunition left in his village when its inhabitants flee the army.
