The 28th Chichester International Film Festival, in partnership with Greenwood Wealth Solutions, BFI and FilmHub SE, is thrilled to announce that this year’s Opening Gala Film on Thursday 8 August at Chichester Cinema at New Park will be the UK Premiere of The Conductor, a magnificent and epic new Dutch film in the presence of the director, actor and producer. The film is based on the 1920s true story of the Dutch born Antonia Brico, the world’s first woman who successfully conducted a large symphony orchestra.

The Closing Gala film, a Preview, on Sunday 25 August, is Mrs Lowry & Son, a beautiful, delicate, intimate and amusing story of the brittle but vital relationship between L. S. Lowry (Timothy Spall), and his bedridden, unhappy and controlling mother (Vanessa Redgrave).

The 21-day film festival runs from 8 to 25 August at six venues in and around Chichester, West Sussex. Following on from the last three years of Sold Out Priory Park Screenings, this year’s are the hit film of the year Bohemian Rhapsody (2 Aug); Disney’s new live-action version of The Lion King (3 Aug); and 2018’s Summer hit, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (4 Aug). Pain and Glory, Pedro Almodóvar’s eagerly awaited film was a highlight of Cannes, and comes to Chichester as a Special Festival preview.

“In the year of the cinema’s Ruby Anniversary this is possibly our most ambitious Festival,” says Roger Gibson, artistic director and founder of the cinema in 1979, and who has curated over 130 films as well as talks & visiting filmmakers’ events.

The opening film, The Conductor, sets up one of the major Festival themes, celebrates women as both directors and subjects. Fourteen wonderful and notable international films are highlighted as part of the Re-Discovering Women Directors, a selective historical survey from Ida Lupino in the 50`s to the late Agnes Varda’s last film. The struggle against male prejudice is explored in the Israeli film, a UK Premiere, Working Woman with the insidiousness of male workplace abuse, whilst in Permission (Iran), a female football player is refused permission by her husband to leave the country, according to Iranian law, for an international event.

The World Premiere of The Man Who Got Carter, is Tony Klinger’s feature length documentary film about the phenomenal life and career of his father, the legendary British film producer Michael Klinger, and will accompany Get Carter, the classic British gangster movie starring Michael Caine made in 1971, but still packs quite a punch! UK Premieres include Happy Ending, a romantic comedy from Denmark about the beauty of ageing; Romantic Road, a London lawyer and wife re-define later life by motoring across rural India in their battered 1936 vintage car; and The Grand Ballet Hotel, a delightful and very original combination of musical and documentary set in the French alps training hotel for chefs, waiters and housekeepers.

Previews include Phoenix, a deeply moving Norwegian film about Jill, a girl on the cusp of celebrating her 14th birthday, who has taken on the role of her family’s sole parental figure; Hotel Mumbai, a gripping true story of humanity and heroism starring Armie Hammer, vividly recounts the 2008 siege of the famed Taj Hotel by a group of terrorists in Mumbai, India; and Non-Fiction, Juliette Binoche and Guillaume Canet arguing over publishing’s digital takeover in a typically French series of enjoyable conversations.

These are joined by That Special Relationship: UK & US Cinema; East & West: European Cinema, Canada Now: New Canadian Cinema; Domestic Portraits: The films of Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters and many other films); From Graphic Novel to Film. Retrospectives include Albert Finney: Don’t Let the Bastards Grind You Down, a tribute to the loved actor; Michael Radford (Il Postino, George Orwell’s 1984) and further retrospectives on filmmakers Nicolas Roeg: Obsession & Desire and Bernardo Bertolucci: Non-Conformist. Many other films include other premieres, previews, new releases, documentaries, jazz events, treasures from the archives plus visiting talent Q&A events.

The golden age of the Documentary continues with over 20 new films including a strong political focus with Werner Herzog’s engrossing Meeting Gorbachev; the whistle-blower in XL Chelsea; the NHS examined in Under the Knife; capitalism scrutinised in Capital in the 20th Century, and Steve Bannon under the spotlight for The Brink.

The 28th edition of the largest film festival on the South Coast could not be staged without the enthusiastic support of Partners (BFI and Greenwood Wealth Solutions) and generous film festival patrons.

For further information, please visit the new festival website, https://chichesterfilmfestival.co.uk/ or contact Carol Godsmark for interviews. carol@carogodsmark.co.uk. Tickets are on sale from 19 July via https://chichesterfilmfestival.co.uk/contact or via the box office (01243 786650).

Chichester Cinema at New Park, New Park Road, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 7XY

Events