Queenstown Film Society
Tuesdays 8 pm at Dorothy Browns Cinema, Arrowtown
from 29 April 2025
Coming up
29 April 2025
Rashomon
Akira Kurosawa | Japan | 1950 | 85 mins | M violence
Innovative photography and skilled direction create a brilliant illustration of the elusiveness of objective truth in this samurai murder mystery. Kurosawa's international breakthrough.
6 May 2025
Cléo from 5 to 7
Agnès Varda | France/Italy | 1962 | 86 mins | PG sexual references
Shooting entirely on location in the streets of Paris, Varda chronicles two anxious hours in a pop singer's life. Score by Michel Legrand, who cameos alongside Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.
Presented in co-operation with the Institut Français and the Embassy of France.
13 May 2025
The Blue Caftan
Maryam Touzani | France/Morocco/Belgium/Denmark | 2022 | 117 mins | M nudity & sex scenes
A master tailor's wife watches as her closeted husband falls in love with his apprentice. Maryam Touzani's sensuous feature is as elegant and finely crafted as the beautiful garments in her film.
20 May 2025
Polyester
John Waters | USA | 1981 | 86 mins | R16
Baltimore housewife Divine is driven to alcoholism by her cheating husband, promiscuous daughter and foot-fetishist son in this pungent parody of melodramatic delirium.
27 May 2025
The Phantom Carriage
Victor Sjöström | Sweden | 1921 | 106 mins | censors rating TBC
An alcoholic's life is changed through love and an encounter with the Grim Reaper in this film of uncanny beauty and inventiveness, which Bergman called "the keystone of my cinematographic world". - PFA
3 June 2025
Tótem
Lila Avilés | Mexico/France/Denmark/Netherlands | 2023 | 95 mins | M offensive language
This moving and sensitive semi-autobiographical feature from Mexican director Lila Avilés follows a family's journey of grief and loss through the eyes of a young girl.
10 June 2025
A Ghost Story
David Lowery | USA | 2017 | 88 mins | M offensive language
This profoundly cinematic ghost story tracks the progress of a spirit who can't let go of the woman he loved and the house they shared, evoking a moving sense of existential disquiet.
17 June 2025
Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai
Jim Jarmusch | USA | 1999 | 116 mins | R16 violence & offensive language
Forest Whitaker is a Zen hitman following a strict samurai code who turns against his mafioso bosses in this surreal, stylish blend of gangster thriller and martial arts action.
24 June 2025
High and Low
Akira Kurosawa | Japan | 1963 | 137 mins | M
A kidnapping sparks a moral dilemma for a wealthy executive in this superb, suspenseful noir adapted from a novel by Ed McBain. "One of the best detective thrillers ever filmed" - NY Times
15 July 2025
The Ground We Won
Christopher Pryor | New Zealand | 2015 | 91 mins | M offensive language, sexual references, nudity & content that may offend
Following a group of rugby-playing farmers from Reporoa, Chris Pryor and Miriam Smith deliver a documentary study of manhood that is unsentimental, funny and profound. "A startling, ferociously intelligent, disturbing, heart-warming and hauntingly beautiful piece of film making" - Dominion Post
22 July 2025
La Chinoise
Jean-Luc Godard | France | 1967 | 92 mins | M adult themes
Godard's pop-art masterpiece embraces and parodies the revolutionary spirit of a group of middle-class students determined to overthrow the establishment by any means necessary.
Presented in co-operation with the Institut Français and the Embassy of France.
29 July 2025
Oh Boy
Jan Ole Gerster | Germany | 2012 | 88 mins | M offensive language
A funny, jazz-inflected account of a bad day in the life of uber-cool young Berliner. With a knowing cinephile vibe, this was an unexpected box office and festival hit on first release.
Presented in co-operation with the Goethe-Institut. Screening open to the general public by koha.
5 August 2025
Victims of Sin
Emilio Fernández | Mexico | 1951 | 84 mins | censors rating tbc
Cabaret performer Ninón Sevilla stars in this blend of noir, melodrama and mambo musical from one of Mexican cinema's most celebrated auteurs.
12 August 2025
Petite Maman
Céline Sciamma | France | 2021 | 72 mins | PG
A young girl makes a mysterious new friend while staying over at her late grandmother's country home in Céline Sciamma's exquisitely crafted and spellbinding modern fairytale.
19 August 2025
The Wild Bunch
Sam Peckinpah | USA | 1969 | 145 mins | R16 violence
Aging outlaws go out in a blaze of glory in Peckinpah's elegiac film about the last days of the Wild West. Still the brutal benchmark for action cinema, influencing countless imitators.
26 August 2025
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Laura Poitras | USA | 2022 | 122 mins | M nudity, strong sexual imagery & content may disturb
The life of famed photographer Nan Goldin and her activism against the disgraced pharmaceutical billionaire Sackler family, especially their patronage of the art world.
2 September 2025
All That Jazz
Bob Fosse | USA | 1979 | 123 mins | M
Brazenly turning the camera onto a fictionalised version of his own life, gifted director and choreographer Bob Fosse delivers a wildly imaginative backstage musical masterpiece.
9 September 2025
EO
Jerzy Skolimowski | Poland/Italy | 2022 | 84 mins | R13 violence, animal cruelty, offensive language & content that may disturb
Polish veteran Jerzy Skolimowski returns with this allegorical tale of a donkey who takes a surreal journey across Europe, experiencing cruelty and kindness in equal measure.
16 September 2025
My Life as a Dog
Lasse Hallström | Sweden | 1985 | 101 mins | PG sexual references
This charming, bittersweet portrait of childhood from Oscar-nominated director Lasse Hallström tells the story of a twelve-year-old boy sent to live in the country when his mother falls ill.
Coming up
Countdown to opening night
