Scroll Down For New Season Films

Established in 2000 and showing its first film in January 2001, the Egerton Film Society is open to anyone over the age of sixteen. The current annual membership fee is £6, with concessions (£4) for pensioners and full-time students. Screenings are usually held on the last Thursday in the month (except July and August), with occasional special screenings and lectures at other times. A licensed bar is available at each performance. Our films are shown in the Egerton Millennium Hall using high-quality widescreen DVD video projection and Dolby EX 5.1 Surround Sound.

Members, their guests, and members of the public can be admitted to the film screenings, subject to the discretion of the Committee. Admission to performances is usually priced at £4.00 for all members and £5.00 for guests/non-members. Season Tickets are available. Programmes are published and circulated to all members twice each year. All members who wish to do so receive e-mail reminders about the current month’s film.

The Society is run in association with the Egerton Telecottage by a Committee which is elected at the Annual General Meeting, usually held in September.

 Membership applications enquiries telephone Richard on 01233 756592 Application forms for new Memberships also available in the shop Contact the Film Society

As usual we are seeking volunteers to help with setting up the hall, manning the bar, putting up posters (particularly if you live somewhere other than Egerton) and assisting with clerical and technical duties. Thanks to everyone who helps with this already. Do, please, come along (and volunteer, if you can), for we really do need your help and support for the Egerton Film Society to continue to flourish. We look forward to seeing you.

THE COMMITTEE

DAVE AUSTIN,GLENN FISHER,VIVIENNE FOULDS,RUTH HAGGIE,JOHN KING

RICHARD KING,PAT PARR

Thursday 31st January 2019 –7.00 for 7.30pm

“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri” (2017)

Writer/director Martin McDonagh deftly balances black comedy against searing drama, drawing unforgettable performances from a veteran cast, including a superb Frances McDormand as a hard-nosed mother seeking justice for her murdered daughter. With no arrests after seven months, she puts up three roadside signs to goad Ebbing police chief (Woody Harrelson) into action. But the law – and especially Sam Rockwell’s hot-headed deputy – don’t take kindly to the provocation. In some ways an astute commentary on modern-day America, this unexpectedly moving film garnered accolades worldwide, with McDormand and Rockwell winning Oscars for their powerful performances. “Martin McDonagh’s pulsatingly enjoyable film is a thriller, a dissection of small-town America, and a forensic study of what makes ordinary people tick, all in one” – Brian Viner, Daily Mail. “Frances McDormand holds it all together: a Mother Courage resolved on action and toughly holding on to her sense of order and sense of humour” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian. 115 mins.

Thursday 28 February – 7.00 for 7.30pm

“The Post” (2018)

Steven Spielberg directs a superb ensemble cast in this compelling and highly satisfying political thriller. Set in 1971, it is the real-life story of the unlikely partnership between The Washington Post’s Katharine Graham (a gripping yet superbly understated performance by Meryl Streep), the first female publisher of a major American newspaper, and her hard-nosed editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), as they race to expose the massive cover-up, involving four Presidents, of  the US government’s 30-year involvement in the Vietnam War. “As the current White House incumbent raves about news media being ‘the enemy of the American people’, The Post offers a reminder that ‘the founding fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfil its essential role… to serve the governed, not the governors’. The film-making may hardly be groundbreaking, but this story is more relevant than ever, and it is told with wit, precision and understated passion” –  Mark Kermode, The Guardian.        115 mins.

Thursday 28th March 7.00 for 7.30pm
“Bad Day at Black Rock”  (1955)

At the end of World War 2, a one-armed stranger gets off the train at a sleepy desert hamlet to present a Japanese farmer with his son’s posthumous medal and is greeted with hostility, threats and violence.  Director John Sturges’ modern-day western is a powerfully tense, fast-paced suspense thriller with a grim social message about racial prejudice. The entire cast is flawless, with Spencer Tracy superb as the one-armed man. Robert Ryan, as the malevolent town boss, is on career-best form, and Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin are marvellously vicious as the mean-spirited town bullies. The relentlessly paced action never eclipses the film’s sobering themes. Cinematographer William C. Mellor uses early Cinemascope brilliantly to capture the wide open spaces and an initial atmosphere of deceptive calm.  This not to be missed 50’s classic has the top 4 star rating in Halliwell’s Film Guide and 5 stars from Radio Times. “.. a terse script and professional presentation. The moments of violence, long awaited, are electrifying” – Halliwell’s Film Guide.                     78 mins.

Thursday 25th April 7.00 for 7.30pm

“Shoplifters”  (2018)

Winner of the Palme-d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and subsequently showered with awards internationally, this film – directed, written and edited by the acclaimed humanist Japanese film-maker  Hirokazu Kore-eda –  is a masterful ensemble piece about a Tokyo  ‘family’ that relies on shoplifting and living on its wits to cope with a life of poverty.  Understated yet ultimately deeply affecting, this exquisitely performed film is both charming and heart-wrenching and is considered by many to be one of the most heartwarming and gratifying pieces of cinema from 2018. “Delicately observed and perfectly played, it is consummate, flawless film-making” – Kevin Maher, The Times. “This is a film with no set pieces or major plot twists but it is wholly absorbing and it will steal your heart” – Deborah Ross,  The Spectator.        121 mins.

Thursday 16th May – 7.00 for 7.00pm

Special Event

Derek Budd’s Egerton 

Award-winning wildlife cameraman and film-maker Derek Budd returns to Egerton to talk about his career and introduce the films he made about life in the village while he was a resident here from 1982 to 2006.  Derek’s long and successful career included filming many episodes of the ITV series ‘Country Ways’,  with one of them being about the village. The films to be screened tonight also show Egerton celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the end of WW2 in Europe, the Apple Fair in 2000 and the film which helped us win the 2001 ‘Village of the Year’ competition.  Derek and his wife Caryl played an active part in the life of our community – it was Derek who founded our Film Society in 2000 – and we are delighted to welcome him back to Egerton.

Thursday 30th May 2019 –7.00 for 7.30pm

“Hidden Figures” (2017)

The incredible untold story of Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) – brilliant African-American women working at NASA in the early 1960’s, whose role in the USA’s ambition to beat the Russians in the space race took place quietly and unnoticed at the same time as people like Martin Luther King were protesting non-violently against racial inequality. They received almost no public recognition until the Obama presidency.   Director Ted Melfi’s powerful film, with its magnificent lead performances, is an assertion of humanity and human rights over an unbelievably unfair and repressive regime. “Even if some details have been massaged to fit the template of a Hollywood crowd-pleaser, the main thrust of the story is true and all the more remarkable for that” – Stella Papamichael, Radio Times. “This is an immensely likeable film and one that draws overdue attention to a story that has been neglected for far too long” – Geoffrey Macnab, The Independent. “..you’ll  want to stand up and cheer”- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone.                                                       127 mins.

 Thursday 13th June –7.00 for 7.30pm

Special Screening

To celebrate the centenary of the
EGERTON WOMEN’S INSTITUTE

Calendar Girls (2003)

Screened at the special request of the Egerton WI,

director Nigel Cole’s splendid cast of ‘ladies of a certain age’ tell the true story of  a Women’s Institute in Yorkshire that decides to raise money for a cancer charity by posing (discreetly) naked to spice up their annual calendar.  The cast includes Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, Penelope Wilton, Annette Crosbie, Celia Imrie and John Alderton, all of whom have great fun.  “A delight, full of great one-liners, quirky character-based comedy, and two excellent lead performances from Mirren and Walters” – Neil Smith, BBC.  “A genial lesson in how to both honor and subvert womanly expectations” –  Jessica Winter, Village Voice.                                                       108 mins

Thursday 27th June 2019 –7.00 for 7.30pm

“Stan & Ollie” (2019)

This critically acclaimed, gentle, sweet story of two of the cinema’s most enduring and  beloved  comics is a delight, with superb, spot-on performances, some big laughs, and genuinely touching moments. Focusing on the duo’s late-career theatrical tour, director Jon S Baird’s affectionate drama balances humour, pathos, laughter and tears and draws perfect performances from Steve Coogan (Laurel) and John C. Reilly (Hardy). The chemistry between the two is remarkable and is matched by equally sparkling supporting turns from Nina Arianda and Shirley Henderson as Stan and Ollie’s combative wives. “Coogan and Reilly’s performances are among the best either has ever given. This film, which pays wonderfully funny tribute to two comic legends, richly deserves them” – Ollie Richards, Empire. “…what a lovely, generous tonic this delightful movie proves to be” – Mark Kermode, The Guardian.   “I love this movie, and still can’t get over what an incredible job the lead actors did” – Leonard Maltin.                                         97 mins.