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Thirteen-year-old novice witch Kiki must spend a year away from home as part of her training. She decides to settle in a pretty seaside town and set up a broomstick-based delivery service to make a living. Adventures ensue as Kiki faces the dual challenges of making deliveries and maintaining faith in herself in this delightful coming-of-age story.

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The film will be followed by an exclusive recorded Q&A with Sir Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam and Ray Cooper, hosted by Sanjeev Bhaskar. AN ACCIDENTAL STUDIO charts the early years of HandMade Films as seen through the eyes of the filmmakers, key personnel and the man who started it all - former Beatle George Harrison. With unreleased archive interviews and footage with Harrison, exclusive interviews with Sir Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Richard E. Grant, Neil Jordan, and unseen interviews with Bob Hoskins, this documentary explores HandMade’s baptism by fire, the risks it took in producing uniquely crafted intelligent films and the stories that grew up around it.

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Told in flashback as successful film director Salvatore returns to his native Sicilian village, CINEMA PARADISO centres on the friendship between the young Salvatore and the irascible projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret), who preserves a collection of footage censored from the local cinema programme by the priest. Salvatore inherits from Alfredo not only a love of film, but also his job, as the Nuovo Cinema Paradiso enjoys a brief term of glory as the hub of the community before the days of TV and pop. Romantic, nostalgic, funny and exuberant, CINEMA PARADISO is all the more memorable for the winning performances by the great Philippe Noiret and ten-year-old Salvatore Cascio.

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Kore-eda’s quietly devastating feature debut is one of the finest films of Japanese cinema. A young woman is deeply troubled by the fear that she brings death to those nearest and dearest to her. But with time and the wonders of nature around her, she awakens to find love, understanding and a sense of peace. Working with almost entirely natural lighting, Kore-eda’s remarkable and elegant camerawork makes this one of the most striking visual works committed to film. “Profoundly moving” - TimeOut

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Stanley Kubrick Considers The Bomb, a new short film produced and directed by Matt Wells, will be screened exclusively in cinemas as part of this release. With contributions from those who knew Kubrick best, including Katharina Kubrick, Jan Harlan (Kubrick’s Executive Producer and brother-in-law) and journalist and author Eric Schlosser, the film considers how Kubrick responded to society’s widespread concern about nuclear war and transformed it into his irreverent comic masterpiece. A brilliant atom-bomb farce, endorsing with suspense and dark comic aplomb Kubrick’s characteristic vision of human fallibility and stupidity. It’s famous for Peter Sellers’ triple role, but George C. Scott, Peter Bull and Sterling Hayden give equally superb performances, the last as the unhinged air force general who launches a war of Mutually Assured Destruction.

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AFTER LIFE is a sublime fantasy film which requires no leap of faith or suspension of disbelief. It’s set in the world of the recently dead, where each person who passes through is asked to select a single memory from their life which they wish to take with them. A celestial film crew then takes that memory and makes it into a movie, allowing the person to hold on to the moment for all eternity. Kore-eda’s background as an award-winning documentarist imbues the film with a strong sense of realism, and AFTER LIFE emerges as a funny and deeply affecting celebration of life.

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The velvet-voiced Barbra Streisand sings like an angel in Frank Pierson’s take on the timeless tale of doomed romance. The film’s musical centrepiece, ‘Evergreen’, a tender ballad co-written and performed by Streisand, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. John Norman Howard (Kristofferson) is a talented but self-destructive rock star whose career has peaked. Years of concerts, managers and tours have made him cynical and the monotony has taken its toll. Then he meets the innocent, pure and very gifted singer Esther Hoffman (Streisand). As one of his songs in the movie says, “I’m gonna take you girl; I'm gonna show you how.” And he does. John shows Esther the way to stardom, forsaking his own career. But as they fall in love, her success only makes his decline even more apparent.

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Inspired by an infamous true story that made headlines in Japan in 1988, this tough yet tender film follows the lives of four children left to fend for themselves by their wayward mother. Having smuggled her family into a new apartment under the landlord’s nose, mum Keiko puts her 12-year-old son Akira (Yagira) in charge of the youngsters and - after a brief period of relative family harmony - disappears. Akira manages his younger siblings as best he can, but limited means and the cramped confines of the apartment force this unorthodox family unit to re-shape their narrow existence to suit their physical and emotional needs. Contains child abandonment theme and moderate sex references.

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Once a popular seaside resort, Asbury Park, New Jersey was also home to the Upstage, a now legendary club where musicians such Steven Van Zandt, Southside Johnny Lyon and Bruce Springsteen got their first breaks. It was there that Springsteen met players such as Vini ‘Mad Dog’ Lopez, David Sancious, Garry Tallent, Danny Federici and Ernest ‘Boom’ Carter. These musicians brought the sound of Asbury Park to the wider world. Then on Independence Day, 1970, Asbury Park experienced seven days of race riots which crippled the town for the next 45 years and destroyed the famous Westside jazz and blues scene. Closed down and boarded up, the Upstart club remains a perfect time capsule, a memorial to the legendary Jersey sound. This film features a concert given to a sold-out Paramount Theater by Van Zandt, Southside Johnny and Springsteen plus never-before-seen interviews and performances, and an Upstage reunion jam. A mindblowing theatrical event in Asbury Park where it all began.

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In many ways the definitive rock concert doc, Martin Scorsese’s THE LAST WALTZ feels as fresh and invigorating today as ever. Capturing what was billed as The Band’s last ever live performance in San Francisco on 25 November 1972, Scorsese’s film provides an intimate first-hand portrait of a group weary from 16 years on the road but still dedicated to their loyal following. The charismatic frontman Robbie Robertson is very much the focus, and at times his personality overshadows the film’s end-of-an-era undertones. As a piece of documentary cinema, however, THE LAST WALTZ is unmissable viewing, not least for the presence of rock royalty that peppers the footage, including Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Neil Diamond and Ringo Starr.

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A typically graceful turn from Kore-eda, STILL WALKING weaves together with great subtlety an intricate and nuanced family drama. Taking place over one summer’s day, the film follows a Yokohama family as they reunite to celebrate the life of the eldest son, whose tragic death 15 years ago left a painful mark not yet healed. It’s during this poignant remembrance, however, that the gaps and tensions between family members become achingly apparent.

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Bob Fosse’s stylishly directed and choreographed screen adaptation of John Kander’s fine musical based on Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin stories. With a chilling vision of Weimar Berlin, a city of gaiety and perversion, champagne and Nazi propaganda, CABARET features a show-stopping, Oscar-winning musical performance from Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey as the unforgettable emcee, and a truly extraordinary final fadeout.

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Ella Fitzgerald was a 15-year-old street kid when she won a talent contest in 1934 at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Within months she was a star. Over the next six decades, her sublime voice would transform the tragedies of her own life and the troubles of her times into joy. JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS retraces this extraordinary journey. Using never-before-seen images and unheard interviews, the film shows an Ella the world never knew: tough, thoughtful, funny; a dazzling musical innovator who defied horrifying racism; a committed civil rights activist; and an intensely private soul who sacrificed much of her personal life. At a time when she was the biggest singing star in the world, her pianist and friend Oscar Peterson said Ella was “the loneliest woman in the world”. But, as Jamie Cullum says, “Her music is one of the reasons it’s worth being on this planet.”

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A documentary record of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY is popularly hailed as one of the first and most influential live concert films. A who’s who of legendary jazz and rock ’n’ roll performers make up the impressive line-up, with director Stern’s deft, economical style capturing them in all their glory. In terms of stand-out turns it’s too close to call, but Chuck Berry’s rendition of ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’ nestles pretty near the top of the pile, with Mahalia Jackson’s spine-tingling performance of ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ closely jostling. The film set the template for the genre; WOODSTOCK and MONTEREY POP swiftly followed. JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY is unquestionably essential viewing for music, archival and documentary fans alike.

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Acclaimed at the time of its release forty years ago as the most exciting, stirring and perceptive youth film since REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, QUADROPHENIA was the sensational feature debut from Franc Roddam, a successful TV director who has gone on to create AUF WIEDERSEHN PET and MASTERCHEF. Like TOMMY before it, the film was based on a concept album by ‘The Who’ and became an instant cult classic both in the UK and in America, influencing an entire generation of filmmakers. Deliberately naturalistic, the film centres on a remarkable recreation of the world of the Mods and Rockers in the mid ’60s, brilliantly capturing the essence of the era and starkly portraying the notorious pitched battles on the Brighton seafront.

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