PHOENIX CINEMA DECEMBER & JANUARY WELCOME CONTENTS Greetings, fellow Phoenix fans! As the newly-appointed Executive Director of your WEEKLY E-MAIL favourite cinema, I’m delighted to be able to wish you all a happy and healthy New WELCOME & CONTENTS 1-2 Year in this last brochure of 2013. It’s truly an honour to serve this North London Stay up to date with all our cultural icon and its loyal community. programming by subscribing MAIN FEATURES 3-9 to our free newsletter: e-mail December and January offer a cornucopia of cinematic treats including the much- [email protected] or anticipated 12 Years a Slave (p.8), showcasing the home-grown talents of director visit our website. HOLIDAY SEASON 11-14 Steve McQueen and actor Chiwetel Ejiofor. We also have an Oscar-tipped solo voyage undertaken by Robert Redford (p.6), as well as Alexander Payne’s engaging FOLLOW US ONLINE FOR THE FAMILY 15-18 odyssey through a wintry heartland, shot in crisp black and white (p.4). For news, chatter and It’s the most wonderful time of the year... so we have a stocking full of wonderful competitions, find us on CALENDAR 19-24 films for the holiday season, not least perennial favourite It’s a Wonderful Life!. Join Facebook,Twitter and us for the Christmas Eve screening and enjoy a complimentary glass of sherry in Instagram. BRINGING UP BABY 25-26 the Phoenix café. Christmas week also brings re-issues of Cary Grant classic The Bishop’s Wife and the sublime Cinema Paradiso, as well as recent release Saving Mr @PhoenixCinema FILM STUDIES 27-28 Banks, which tells the story of P. L. Travers and Walt Disney - and to accompany PhoenixCinema that, the outcome of their collaboration: the one and only Mary Poppins. Phoenix_Cinema SPECIAL EVENTS 29-32 December is jam-packed with Christmas Specials for Kids Club and Toddler Time and as the big day approaches, we have something for all ages, from Arthur SCREEN ARTS 33-34 Christmas and The Polar Express to The Nightmare Before Christmas and the Bolshoi’s Sleeping Beauty. On Christmas Eve a double bill of The Snowman and Father Christmas will put everyone in a magical mood, ready to hang up their stockings in EDUCATION 35 anticipation. SPECIAL NOTICE 36 We welcome back Phoenix patron Mark Kermode for a sold out event. Book now for the Q&A with Dirty Wars director Richard Rowley, plus stage spectacles from the Met Opera, National Theatre and Bolshoi Ballet. CINEMA INFORMATION 37-38 Your support means the world to us. Thanks from all of us at the Phoenix and see you at the movies! BOX OFFICE 020 8444 6789 WWW.phoenixcinema.co.uk - Elizabeth Taylor-Mead, Executive Director 52 HIGH ROAD, EAST FINCHLEY N2 9pj 1 2 FROM FRIDAY 29 NOVEMBER FROM FRIDAY 6 DECEMBER Jeune & Jolie 18 Nebraska 15 1hr 34. 2013. Directed by François Ozon. With Marine Vacth, Géraldine 1hr 55. 2013. Directed by Alexander Payne. With Bruce Dern, Will Forte, Pailhas, Frédéric Pierrot. June Squibb. François Ozon’s Jeune & Jolie (Young & Beautiful) stars Marine Vacth as Director Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants) takes the helm for Isabelle, a seventeen-year-old on a summer holiday with her family when she this black-and-white road-trip fable. Woody Grant (Bruce Dern, Django loses her virginity. A darker side to her personality is awakened and, upon Unchained, Monster) is a tempestuous Montana man who is convinced he’s returning home, she develops a secret life while keeping up appearances as a won a million-dollars; his estranged son David (Will Forte, Saturday Night literature student. As the drama progresses, it becomes apparent that hers is Live, 30 Rock) begrudgingly agrees to drive him to Nebraska to claim his not the only secret in the family and the web slowly begins to unravel. winnings and finds himself in a tangle of truth and imagination, on a detour through the past, surrounded by absurd and grotesque characters with their Ozon (Potiche, Swimming Pool) is a master of tension and his latest film, which own agenda. brings to mind Belle de Jour, was received to great acclaim at the Toronto and Cannes Film Festivals, receiving a nomination for the Palme D’Or. Told with a unique style and deadpan humour, it’s an affectionate story of a son trying to make a connection with his father at a time when he feels unsure of his own identity. 3 4 FROM FRIDAY 13 DECEMBER FROM FRIDAY 26 DECEMBER Fill the Void U All is Lost 12A 1hr 31. 2012. Directed by Rama Burshtein. With Hadas Yaron, Yiftach 1hr 46. 2013. Directed by J. C. Chandor. With Robert Redford. Klein, Irit Sheleg. Covering similar thematic ground to recent hit Gravity, All Is Lost follows Eighteen-year-old Shira (Hadas Yaron) is the devout youngest daughter one man’s increasingly fraught struggle to survive when his boat is struck of a Hasidic family and is about to be married off to a very promising, and severely damaged by a much larger vessel during a solo voyage in the soft-spoken young man of the same age. A tragedy leads to her being torn Indian Ocean. 1,700 miles from land, forced to rely on traditional navigation between her heart’s wish and her family’s desires. The claustrophobia of the methods and, in the knowledge that rescue is at best a faint hope, the cramped apartments within which the drama takes place add to the tension nameless sailor is confronted with the growing possibility that he will not and high emotional stakes. survive. This poignant, sympathetic portrait of Israel’s Hasidic community won Best Screen legend Robert Redford (All The President’s Men, Butch Cassidy and the Actress for Yaron at the 2012 Venice Film Festival and has been selected Sundance Kid) takes on possibly the most demanding role of his career as as Israel’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy the only cast member in an almost entirely wordless performance that is Awards. already being heavily tipped for an Oscar nomination. 5 6 FROM FRIDAY 3 JANUARY FROM FRIDAY 10 JANUARY Railway Man TBC 12 Years a Slave 15 Running time tbc. Australia/UK 2013. Directed by Jonathan Teplitzky. With 2hrs 14. 2013. Directed by Steve McQueen. With Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman. Pitt, Michael Fassbender. Eric Lomax (Colin Firth, The King’s Speech, A Single Man) was one of In pre-Civil War America, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor, American thousands of Allied prisoners of war forced to work on the construction of Gangster, Children of Men), a free man from upstate New York, is abducted the Thai/Burma railway during WW2. His experiences left him traumatised and sold as a slave on a Louisiana plantation. Over the following dozen years, and shut off from the world. Years later, he meets the magnetic Patti he experiences all the cruelty, degradation and humiliation of the slavery (Nicole Kidman, The Hours, Australia) on a train and falls in love. Patti is system as he is traded between different owners (Michael Fassbender and determined to rid Eric of his demons and makes a discovery that leaves her Benedict Cumberbatch) and different conditions. To survive, he must keep facing a terrible decision. Should Eric be given a chance to come face-to-face his identity and character a secret, and hope that the distant memory of with his past or will it tear him further apart? freedom becomes a reality once again. Turner Prize-winning artist Steve McQueen directs his third film after Hunger and Shame – both of which also Adapted from Lomax’s autobiography, this compelling story will appeal to featured Fassbender – and presents a stark and unflinching portrait of one history buffs and cinephiles alike. of the darkest periods of human history. 7 8 FROM FRIDAY 24 JANUARY FRIENDS OF THE PHOENIX Friends of The Phoenix membership offers: 2 free tickets £2 offall regular screenings £2 off for a guest, twice a year & no booking fees £25 single or £40 joint Inside Llewyn Davis TBC 1hr 45. USA 2013. Directed by Joel & Ethan Coen. With Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman. Firm Phoenix favourites Joel and Ethan Coen return with their first film since 2010’s multi-award winning True Grit. Mapping out a week in the life of an obscure folk singer (Oscar Isaac, Che) as he attempts to make a name for himself in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1961, the darkly comic Inside Llewyn Davis is loosely inspired by the pre-fame struggles of Bob Dylan. A typically virtuoso cast includes perennial Coen performer John Goodman ... the perfect holiday gift (Raising Arizona, Barton Fink), Carey Mulligan (Never Let Me Go), and Justin Timberlake (The Social Network), and the soundtrack is already inviting comparisons with the phenomenally successful soundtrack to the Coen’s Visit our website or ask at the box office for more own O Brother, Where Art Thou? information. Gift vouchers also available. 9 10 HOLIDAY SEASON FEATURES FROM FRIDAY 20 DECEMBER It’s a Wonderful Life U Cinema Paradiso 15 Saturday 21 December 3pm Friday 20 December 8.30pm Tuesday 24 December 2pm Saturday 21 December 9pm 2hrs 12. USA 1946. It wouldn’t be Monday 23 December 8.30pm Christmas without it! 2 hrs. Italy/France 1989. Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. With Join us for our Christmas Eve Philippe Noiret, Jacques Perrin, screening and enjoy a Marco Leonardi. complimentary glass of festive sherry. A love letter to cinema, this 25th anniversary re-issue will make you fall in love with the movies all over again.