On March 28th, 2023, legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away after his struggle against cancer. In the years leading up to his death, Sakamoto could no longer perform live. Single concerts, not to mention sprawling global tours, were too taxing. Despite this, in late 2022, Sakamoto mustered all his energy to leave the world with one final performance: a concert film featuring just him and his piano.

Curated by Sakamoto himself and presented in his chosen order, the twenty pieces performed in the film wordlessly narrate his life through his music. The selection spans his entire career, from his popstar Yellow Magic Orchestra period to his magnificent Bertolucci film scores to music from his meditative final album, 12.

Intimately filmed in a space he knew well, surrounded by his most trusted collaborators and directed by his son, Sakamoto bares his soul through his music, knowing this may be the last time he can present his art.

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Picturehouse Green Screen presents a special, one-off Green Screening of Evil Does Not Exist at Picturehouse Central on Sunday 07 April with a recorded introduction from dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, followed by a live panel conversation. 

Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. Like generations before them, they live a modest life according to the cycles and order of nature. One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a glamping site near Takumi’s house; offering city residents a comfortable ‘escape’ to nature. When two company representatives from Tokyo arrive in the village to hold a meeting, it becomes clear that the project will have a negative impact on the local water supply, causing unrest. The agency’s mismatched intentions endanger both the ecological balance of the nature plateau and their way of life, with an aftermath that affects Takumi’s life deeply. From the director of Oscar® and BAFTA winner Drive My Car.

Green Screen is a community-led space to discuss environmental issues raised in the films we show. Everyone is welcome to continue the conversation after the film in the First Floor Snug area of Picturehouse Central – enjoy a free tea or filter coffee when you bring a keep cup!

In times of turmoil, the urge for an uncomplicated way of life has never seemed so alluring. The panel will discuss themes of balance, harmony, nature, and the beauty of everyday things, as well as how generational stories can influence contemporary living to create more meaningful experiences.

CHAIR -Isabel Stevens, Sight & Sound
Roisin Inglesby from  ART WITHOUT HEROES   
Zaineb Abelque from Athene Club - Female hiking Club

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A young actor in rehab lands is casted as a gambler in a crime thriller based on a film from 1901. Realities are layered in a British visual artist's performative film about the risk - and freedom - of letting go of yourself and becoming someone else.

Stephen Giddings is in his late 20s. He lives in Liverpool, is a recovering drug addict and an actor. He is given an emotionally demanding challenge: to ‘become’ the fictional character of an obsessed gambler in a crime thriller inspired by the 1901 film ‘Arrest of Goudie’, recognized as the first reconstruction of a real-life crime story filmed on the actual locations in the city. ‘Stephen’ is a participatory work created in close collaboration with Stephen and the other participants, both professionals and amateurs. But even though it is a multi-layered hybrid film, something very real is at stake for everyone involved – not least Stephen himself, who grew up in a violent environment of abuse that he is now struggling to escape. Director Melanie Manchot is a visual artist who has previously worked with reconstructions and performance in other media. Her first feature film brings these experiences together in a cohesive, meaningful and thought-provoking form.

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Manchester Premiere

Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a camping site near Takumi's house offering city residents a comfortable "escape" to nature.

Winner of the Silver Lion at Venice Film Festival

Director: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
Cast: Hitoshi Omika, Ryô Nishikawa, Ryûji Kosaka
Japan / 106 Minutes / Japanese Language / Certificate 15

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Sensitive drama exploring the ups and downs of a polyamorous relationship that develops after a woman discovers her minister husband has been having an affair for more than a year.

When politician Juulia (Alma Pöysti, Tove, Fallen Leaves) finds out that her minister husband Matias (Eero Milonof, Border) has been having an 18-month affair, instead of angrily demanding a divorce, she suggests they give polyamory a go using a book as a manual. Soon Matias’ lover Enni (Oona Airola) is part of their lives and things become more emotionally complex when Juulia takes on a non-binary partner, Miska (Pietu Wikström). Finnish writer-director Selma Vilhunen sensitively explores issues including gender, prejudice and bucking the trend of perceived ‘normality’ without sensationalising the subject. Her elegant drama is a humanistic and compassionate treat.

Finnish with English subtitles.

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The screening is a London Premiere of the film and will be followed by a Q&A with Agnieszka Holland.

The lives of Julia, a newly minted activist who has given up her comfortable life, Jan, a young border guard, and a Syrian family, intertwine in the treacherous and swampy forests that make up the so-called "green border" between Belarus and Poland where refugees from the Middle East and Africa trying to reach the European Union are trapped in a geopolitical crisis cynically engineered by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. 30 years after EUROPA EUROPA, three-time Oscar Nominee Agnieszka Holland's poignant new feature challenges us to reflect on the moral choices that fall to ordinary people every day.

An additional screening of Green Border will take place at Cine Lumiere on the 8th of March.

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Director Agnieszka Holland won a Special Jury Prize at Venice for this hard-hitting drama considering the plight of refugees who are shunted back and forth across the no man’s land between Poland and Belarus.

Polish director Agnieszka Holland won a Special Jury Prize at Venice Film Festival for this thought-provoking examination of the European refugee crisis. Her drama explores the plight of those who seek sanctuary in Europe and are shunted back and forth across the no-man’s land forests between Poland and Belarus. Unfolding from the point of view of a Syrian family and an Afghan (Behi Djanati Atai), a conflicted border guard (Tomasz Wlosok) and a psychologist (Maja Ostaszewska) who becomes an activist, Holland has crafted a tough but vital piece of cinema that condemns the West’s indifference and calls for empathy for the refugees’ predicament.

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Composer Ryuichi Sakamoto takes centre stage with his piano in this intimate and moving concert-style film featuring music from across his whole career.

Oscar-winning Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto found his way to the hearts of millions with his music, including his scores for films as diverse as Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, The Last Emperor and The Revenant. He died from cancer at the age of 71 in March 2023, and in this intimate concert-style film his son Neo Sora gracefully captures one of his father’s final performances with a piano. Featuring music specially selected by Sakamoto, stretching back to his time with the Yellow Magic Orchestra, this is an elegant and elegiac journey through the maestro’s long and varied career.

Japanese with English subtitles

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Fact and fiction mix in Kaouther Ben Hania's astonishing hybrid docudrama, screened in Competition at Cannes this year, which stars professional actresses alongside real family members in a retelling of a Tunisian mother's heartbreak over two of her daughters' departures to fight for the Islamic State.

Olfa (Hend Sabri) is the mother of four daughters. One day, her two eldest, Rahma and Ghofrane, leave to fight for IS in Syria. Some years later, Ben Hania invites two actresses into the frame, bringing the viewer closer to the stories of Olfa and her daughters, and in combining direct interviews with dramatic re-enactments, attempting to understand their relationships, their past, and the process of radicalisation.

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When Juulia (Pöysti) discovers that her husband Matias (Milonoff) is having an affair, she proposes a polyamorous marriage without secrets. Equal parts funny and pathetic, Vilhunen’s film challenges domestic stereotypes while avoiding moral judgements. This Finnish comedy of manners is about romantic love, but it is also a study of what it means to be human together with other humans.

Duration 2hr2m
The Light House Screen 2

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Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki, close to Tokyo. One day the villagers become aware of a plan to build a camp site nearby, offering city residents a comfortable 'escape' to nature. It becomes clear that the project will have a negative impact on the local water supply.

Book tickets here

The first amongst her friends to hit puberty, Zaffan, 12, discovers a terrifying secret about her body. Ostracised by her community, Zaffan fights back, learning that to be free she must embrace the body she feared, emerging as a proud, strong woman.

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The life of Olfa, a Tunisian woman and mother of four daughters, oscillates between light and shadow. After the disappearance of her two eldest daughters, Ben Hania calls upon professional actors to fill their absence, setting up an extraordinary film mechanism and unveiling an intimate story of womanhood. This hybrid documentary premiered at Cannes and was awarded the L'Œil d'or for best documentary.


Duration 1h48
The Light House Screen 2

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This sombre black-and-white drama follows a family of Syrian refugees, an English teacher from Afghanistan and a border guard, who cross each other’s path on the Polish-Belarusian border, the eponymous green border. Veteran Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland’s brutal and angry film shows that when people are dragged back and forth across geopolitical lines, their humanity begins to erode. This winner of Venice’s Special Jury Prize plays witness to a grim humanitarian crisis.

Duration 2hr27m
The Light House Screen 1

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14-year-old Zeina and her family are the last to have stayed in their besieged hometown of Damascus in Syria. A missile rips a giant hole in their home, exposing them to the outside world. When a rope is mysteriously lowered into the hole, Zeina gets her first taste of freedom, and an unimaginable world of possibility opens up for her.

As the violence outside escalates, the family is pressured to evacuate, but Mutaz, her father is adamant that they stay, refusing to flee to the uncertain life of a refugee. Faced with a life or death dilemma, Zeina and Hala, her mother, must make the choice whether to stay or leave.

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Hamaguchi’s follow-up to the internationally acclaimed Drive My Car, is an eco-fable set in the remote village of Mizubiki. The serenity and ecological balance of the area and its modest inhabitants is threatened by the imminent arrival of a glamping site. A polished and patient piece of storytelling, this film contemplates nature, work and community. Hamaguchi’s unpretentious masterpiece received the Grand Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Award in Venice, and the Best Film award in London.

Duration 1h46m
The Light House Screen 1

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Special Preview on 17 February followed by a discussion with Kaouther Ben Hania, moderated by Elhum Shakerifar

In this astonishing and poignant film, director Kaouther Ben Hania (The Man who Sold His Skin) blends documentary and fiction to tell the story of Olfa and her four daughters. One day, her two eldest daughters disappeared without a trace. The director brings in actors to play the missing daughters and combines direct interviews with re-enactments. The result is an intimate, yet devastating, journey of hope, rebellion, violence, transmission and sisterhood that will question the very foundations of our societies.

Four Daughters is one of the five nominees for Best Documentary at the 2024 Academy Awards.

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In a small, rustic and idyllic Japanese village lives a tight community, deeply connected to their land. However, their peace is threatened when a Tokyo talent company buys up some property nearby, intending to turn it into a tourist spot. A fascinating and unpredictable eco-drama-cum-mystery, Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) blends dark comedy with the most beautiful, eerie and hypnotic camera work to create a sublime and haunting film.

Tickets £16, concessions £13 (Members pay £2 less).

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Where do the memories of a city go? Steve McQueen's mesmerising excavation of how the past haunts our precarious present: Amsterdam today uncovers what occurred there between 1940-1945.

A searching camera sweeps through a vibrant contemporary Amsterdam while, at the same time, the film summons people and memories of the past under Nazi occupation within the city’s map and woven into the fabric of its streets and buildings. McQueen opens up a poetic, dreamlike space where unthinkable history and hope for a new future co-exist. 

The film is informed by the rigorously researched and lauded Atlas of an Occupied City: Amsterdam 1940-1945, written by historian and filmmaker Bianca Stigter, McQueen’s partner.

The emotional power of these stories accumulates over the course of the film, laying bare the mechanics of both systematic oppression and sudden bravery; both calculated terror and life-saving luck; both ordinary and extraordinary ways of surviving.

Book tickets here for The Barbican and Here for Participating Cinemas Nationwide

From Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, the Oscar® winning director of Drive My Car.

Evil Does Not Exist follows Takumi and his daughter Hana who live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. Like generations before them, they live a modest life according to the cycles and order of nature. One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a glamping site near Takumi’s house offering city residents a comfortable “escape” to nature.

When two company representatives from Tokyo arrive in the village to hold a meeting, it becomes clear that the project will have a negative impact on the local water supply, causing unrest. The agency’s mismatched intentions endanger both the ecological balance of the plateau and their way of life, with an aftermath that affects Takumi’s life deeply.

Closing Night Film
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Between light and darkness stands Olfa, a Tunisian woman and the mother of four daughters. One day, her two older daughters disappear. To fill their absence, director Kaouther Ben Hania calls upon professional actors and sets up an extraordinary film mechanism to unveil the story of Olfa and her daughters.

An intimate journey of hope, rebellion, violence, transmission and sisterhood that will question the very foundations of our societies.

“By gambling with the flimsy dice of morality, the director crafts a film that successfully bypasses the traps of the gratuitous to find its way towards an uncomfortable but ultimately rewarding catharsis.” – Rafaela Sales Ross, Little White Lies.

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Twelve-year-old schoolgirl Zaffan is always the centre of attention, but with the onset of puberty she starts to notice unexpected and terrifying changes in her physical body. As she struggles to conceal the evidence from her family and friends, becoming the victim of gossip and rumour, Zaffan must decide if she is willing to embrace her true nature.

A vibrant look at female friendships with a supernatural body horror slant, first-time director Amanda Nell Eu offers an exciting coming-of-age story like no other.

In competition for the CIFF Youth Jury Award. The winner will be announced on Sunday 26 November.

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Joy (Max Eigenmann), an undocumented Filipina cleaner moving from house to house in London with her impetuous daughter Grace in tow, is saving up her meagre cash payments to get a visa and a more stable home for them both. Stuck in a roundabout of precarious employment, deportation fears and casual, constant put-downs by her employers, Joy cannot afford to stand still. A dreamy gig looking after a mansion and its bed-bound owner (David Hayman) turns out to be too-good-to-be-true when Joy starts suspecting the owner is being slowly poisoned...

Writer-director Paris Zarcilla’s debut film elegantly balances gothic horror and social drama, producing an unholy child of a film that provokes as much as it spooks.

Screening time TBC
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The docufiction hybrid examines the disappearance and radicalisation of two Tunisian girls, Rahma and Ghofrane, through both dramatic re-enactments and interviews with the real-life subjects.

Olfa Hamrouni, the mother of the four daughters, appears as herself. Her two eldest daughters were both arrested after the US military bombarded an Islamist State hideout in Sabratha in 2016. Ben Hania also appears as herself, announcing to Olfa and her two youngest daughters, Aya and Tayssir, that the three of them would be playing themselves in a series of reproduced moments alongside actors hired to portray their missing siblings.

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This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Paris Zarcilla

Synopsis: Joy (Max Eigenmann), an undocumented Filipina cleaner moving from house to house in London with her impetuous daughter Grace in tow, is saving up her meagre cash payments to get a visa and a more stable home for them both. Stuck in a roundabout of precarious employment, deportation fears and casual, constant put-downs by her employers, Joy cannot afford to stand still. A dreamy gig looking after a mansion and its bed-bound owner (David Hayman) turns out to be too-good-to-be-true when Joy starts suspecting the owner is being slowly poisoned…

Writer-director Paris Zarcilla’s debut film elegantly balances gothic horror and social drama, producing an unholy child of a film that provokes as much as it spooks.

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A Japanese village’s tranquil existence is threatened by plans for a campsite development in a complex and ambiguous eco-fable.

Takumi spends his time peacefully with his young daughter in Mizubiki village, chopping wood and gathering pure water from the nearby stream. But there are already ominous signs that this way of life is under threat, and news of the proposed tourist resort confirms those fears. The developers plan to install a septic tank despite the villagers fears that this will poison their water supply.

The jeopardy faced by Takumi’s community reflects much larger global concerns, but award-winning director Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) avoids superficial judgments while carefully building a deep sense of unease, heightened by Eiko Ishibashi’s atmospheric score.

Hitoshi Omika makes a striking acting debut as Takumi, having previously worked with Hamiguchi as a Production Manager. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival, Evil Does Not Exist is a timely and unsettling study of humanity, nature and the threats to our survival.

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The horror of untamed adolescence is unleashed in an exhilarating female coming of age story.

At a school for girls in Malaysia, 12-year-old Zaffan (a captivating Zafreen Zairizal) is the cheeky rebel among her friends. But when she is the first to reach puberty, her friends turn against her. As Zaffan attempts to cope with being ostracised, her physical transformation develops in a shocking and unforeseen manner.

This feature debut by director and screenwriter Amanda Nell Eu became the first Malaysian film to win the Grand Prize at this year’s Cannes Critics week, a strand of the main festival set up to discover emerging talent.

Tiger Stripes is a fierce and engaging depiction of a young woman’s attempts to embrace her inner monster and achieve self-acceptance.

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Screening followed by a Q&A with writer and director Carol Morley, cast members Monica Dolan, Gina McKee and Kieran Bew, producer Cairo Cannon, composer Carly Paradis and editor Alex Mackie.

Carol Morley’s latest film puts forgotten artist Audrey Amiss on the map. Inspired by her extensive archive of diaries, letters and art, the film weaves real events into an imagined journey as Audrey goes on a road trip with her psychiatric nurse. This dark and funny exploration of the growing friendship between two women as they hit the road in an electric car looking for reconciliation, is filled with adventure, humour and compassion.

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