film society

December 10 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm [event-location] Further Adventures of Smiley Our screening of Smiley (1956) two years ago was popular with film society members.  In this sequel, Smiley is a young Aussie upstart and cheeky home-grown hero, who sets out to turn over a new leaf and become a ‘responsible citizen’ after his past misadventures. Sergeant Flaxman (Chips Rafferty) keeps a keen…

October 8 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm Minerva Room Dustbowl Folk Singer Elegy Folk legend Woody Guthrie, an extraordinary hard-driving, ‘truth-telling man’ from the Oklahoma Plains, who left the American mid-west Dust Bowl in the 1930s for the promise of California and on his journey became one of America’s most noted poet-folk singers.  Guthrie, through years of travelling, penned more than 1000…

September 10 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm Minerva Room ​Māori Roadtrip Film The Māori celebration of New Year in July, marked by the rising of the stars in the Matariki constellation, is an occasion to mourn the deceased, celebrate the present, and prepare the ground for the coming year.    While driving the length of New Zealand from hospital on the South…

August 13 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm Minerva Room Brazilian Dystopian Sci-fi The Blue Trail depicts a dystopian world, one that functions as a wry social critique rather than containing any lasting sense of terror or gloom.  In a futuristic Brazil, retirement has questionable consequences. 77-year-old Tereza is hailed as a ‘national living heritage’, yet she will soon be forced to live in a

July 16 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm Minerva Room Documentary Tribute to David Gulpilil David Gulpilil, from the Mandjalpingu (Djilba) clan of the Yolngu people, was discovered by a visiting British film-maker and recruited into the world of film. Adventurous, talented, intelligent and ambitious, he became one of Australia’s best-known and charismatic actors.  Following Walkabout (1971), Gulpilil’s acting career spanned over 40 films, including

June 11 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm Minerva Room Japanese Coming of Age Psychological Thriller This psychological mystery/exploration of growing up from one of Japan’s major filmmakers offers superb acting and an intriguing storyline that seems darker than it ends up being. A young boy’s mother feels that there is something wrong with him; that he is acting weirdly. Suspecting that a

May 14 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm Minerva Room Noir Drama A melancholic dead-pan drama about Lang, a former celebrity musician and stunt rider who, chastened by ten years in jail for manslaughter, returns to his dusty post-industrial hometown to find it run-down and over-run by abandoned dogs. Lang joins a group of dog-catchers with the task of cleaning up the town

April 23 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm Minerva Room French Drama/Thriller Following the disappearance of glamorous housewife Evelyne Ducat (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), the lives of five people who are linked to her are brought together to devastating effect as the local police investigate the case.   Only the Animals starts off as an intimate rural mystery and blossoms into a global affair where

March 12 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm Minerva Room Contemporary Mumbai Drama/Romance The first Indian film to receive the Grand Prix at Cannes, and primarily set in contemporary Mumbai, All We Imagine as Light centres on three Hindu women, their everyday lives and the bonds that they share with one another as well as with the larger world. Payal Kapadia’s award-winning film has a depth that

February 12 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm Minerva Room Animated Animal Ecofable We begin 2026 with a beautiful animated film about a wide-eyed curious cat and other animals seeking refuge on a boat as their human-free world of eerie buildings and enormous statues is inexplicably and rapidly flooded.  As the waters carry them along, they traverse magical, submerged landscapes, and are exposed to dangerous elemental