The Girl On The Bridge/La Fille Sur Le Pont
Director Patrice Leconte is reputedly back on form after the roundly derided Half a Chance with this unconventional love story, a black-and-white fairytale featuring Daniel Auteuil as a circus knife thrower and Vanessa Paradis as a hapless young woman he rescues from a suicide attempt in Paris.
Friday, April 7th, UGC 6, 9 p.m.
Kadosh/Sacred
The final film of Amos Gitai's trilogy exploring life in Israeli cities is set in the Orthodox enclave of Jerusalem and deals with the dilemmas faced by women in a patriarchal society. The focus is on two sisters: one (Yael Abecassis) is made to believe her life is a failure because, after 10 years of marriage, she has yet to produce a child; the other (Meitel Barda) is in love with a man who has left the community; she finds herself facing an arranged marriage to a dogmatic rabbinical student.
Wednesday, April 12th, UGC 6, 7 p.m.
Liberty Heights
Writer-director Barry Levinson's fourth film set in his native Baltimore hometown is a nostalgic, semi-autobiographical reflection on anti-Semitism and inter-racial dating in the mid-1950s. It features Adrien Brody, Ben Foster and Joe Mantegna, and despite enthusiastic reviews in the US, this may well be its only cinema screening before it goes to video.
Sunday, April 16th, UGC 5, 11.30 a.m.
Nora
Spanning eight years on from 1904, Pat Murphy's film explores the early stages of the often volatile relationship between the young James Joyce (played by Ewan McGregor) and the young Galwaywoman, Nora Barnacle (Susan Lynch). The casting of McGregor (who doubles as co-producer) should be intriguing, to say the least, and after several unrewarding movies Lynch finally seems to have a cinema role that builds on her evident ability.
Thursday, April 6th, UGC 5, 7.30 p.m.
Not One Less
Winner of the Golden Lion for best film at Venice last autumn, Zhang Yimou's film, like his 1992 The Story of Qiu Ju, adopts a simple, naturalistic style to confront social issues, in this case child labour and extreme poverty in present-day China. The setting is a remote village where a 13-year-old girl who can hardly read and write is the only available replacement when the local teacher has to go away for a month.
Saturday, April 8th, UGC 6, 8.45 p.m.
One Day In September
Winner of the best documentary Oscar this year, Kevin MacDonald's film deals with the traumatic events of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich and combines archive footage and interviews with the families of the Israeli athletes murdered by Black September terrorists. The narrator is Michael Douglas.
Sunday, April 16th, UCG 5, 3 p.m.
The Opportunists
The promising first feature from Dublin-born, US-based writer-director Myles Connell features the redoubtable Christopher Walken as an ex-convict who has served 10 years for bank robbery and settled into a reformed life as a mechanic. The busy young Irish actor, Peter McDonald (who also features in Nora), plays his cousin, who arrives over from Dublin and sets up a series of complications.
Monday, April 10th, UGC 5, 9 p.m.
A Pornographic Affair/Une Laison Pornographique
Belgian director ederic Frederique Fonteyne employs a mockumentary style to explore the relationship between forty-something lovers - played by Nathalie Baye and Sergi Lopez - whose desire for a carnal affair turns into one of sympathy and care. The title of this two-hander drama is just one of the ways the movie toys with the audience's voyeuristic expectations.
Sunday, April 9th, UGC 6, 9.10 p.m.
Shower
The critical reaction on the international festival circuit has been firmly positive in the case of this Chinese movie directed by Zhang Yang, a young filmmaker whose background is in music videos and theatre. Set among the mostly ageing denizens of an old-fashioned Beijing bathhouse which is due for demolition, the film deals with the themes of tradition, community, friendship and forgiveness.
Sunday, April 9th, UGC 6, 2.30 p.m.
Titus
Julie Taymor, the inventive, Tony-winning director of The Lion King, makes her cinema debut with a stylised adaptation of Shakespeare's violent tragedy, Titus Andronicus, and she apparently does not spare on blood and gore. The sturdy cast features Anthony Hopkins as the stoic Roman general Titus; Jessica Lange as Tamora, the captured Queen of the Goths; and Alan Cumming as the effeminate emperor, Saturninus. With Colm Feore, Harry J Lennix, Matthew Rhys and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.
Saturday, April 8th, UGC 5, 8 p.m.
