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.png "A photograph from The Salt Path and Pride and Prejudice")
May is an exciting month at Plymouth Arts Cinema as they bring the great outdoors into the comfort of the cinema! The much anticipated The Salt Path makes it debut on the big screen, featuring many local spots from the South West Coast Path. There's also a fantatsic line-up of filmings including A New Kind of Wilderness, Heart of an Oak, Wind, Tide and Oar, and Keep Our Seas Chemical Free.
Where to find us
Our venue is located inside Arts University Plymouth’s main campus at Tavistock Place. Go through Arts University Plymouth’s main entrance and turn right, you will face our Box Office and Café-Bar.
Opening Times and How to Book
The Box Office and Café-bar open Tuesday, Thursday and Friday: 5-8.30pm; Wednesday: 1-8.30pm; Saturday: 1-8pm). You can call Box Office during these times: 01752 206114.
Ticket Price Changes
Standard £9.50 | Matinees £7.50 | Over 60 £8.25 | 25 & Under, Students, AUP Staff, Budget (unwaged/ low income) £4.50 | Bringing in Baby, Family screenings £4.50 | Friends 10% discount and £6.50 on Tuesdays.
Julie Keeps Quiet (12A)
Programmer’s Pick
- Wednesday 7th May
Wed 7, 6pm
Dir. Leonardo Van Dijl, Sweden/Belgium, 2025, 100 mins. In Dutch and French with English subtitles. Cast. Tessa Van den Broeck, Ruth Becquart, Koen De Bouw.
This cooly riveting feature debut is an affecting study of abuse and repression within a prestigious tennis academy. When her coach falls under investigation and is suddenly suspended, all of the club’s players are encouraged to speak up and all eyes turn to his latest star pupil and private trainee, the ferociously talented and hardworking Julie. Julie may or may not have something to report, but rather than cooperate with the authorities – who may or may not welcome her honesty – this tenacious young athlete stays silent, processing the dramas unfolding around her on her own terms.
Entirely gripping, the film features an incredible performance from real-life tennis player and first-time actor Van den Broeck, who telegraphs Julie’s strength, fragility, stoicism and disquiet in her every move.
Joy of Cinema: Two to One (12A)
F-Rated
- Tuesday 6th – Wednesday 7th May
Tue 6, 6pm
Wed 7, 8.30pm
Dir. Natja Brunkhorst, Germany, 2024, 116 mins. In German with English subtitles. Cast. Sandra Hüller, Max Riemelt, Ronald Zehrfeld.
In the long, hot East German summer of 1990, Maren, Robert and Volker have known and loved each other since childhood. In the final weeks before reunification and with Germany about to change forever, the trio stumble across a fortune in soon-to-be-worthless East German currency, left to rot in Government storage. With just days to work out what to do with this unexpected windfall before it becomes useless, the three assemble the friends and neighbours living in their crumbling apartment block and together hatch an elaborate plan to exchange the cash for goods – outwitting the incoming Westerners and their capitalism before time runs out.
Runner Up in the Glasgow Film Festival 2025’s Audience Award competition.
One to One: John and Yoko (15)
MUBI GO
- Tuesday 6th – Thursday 8th May
Tue 6, 8.30pm
Wed 7, 2.30pm (Descriptive Subtitles)
Thu 8, 8.30pm
Dir. Kevin Macdonald, Sam Rice-Edwards, UK, 2024, 100 mins. With. John Lennon, Yoko Ono, The Plastic Ono Elephants Memory Band.
From Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald, this is a revelatory inside-look at John & Yoko’s life in Greenwich Village in the early 1970s, featuring music from their only full-length concerts, newly remixed and produced by Sean Ono Lennon.
On August 30, 1972, in New York City, Lennon played his only full-length show after leaving The Beatles, the One to One Benefit Concert, a rollicking, dazzling performance from him and Yoko Ono. Tat epic musical event is the starting point to recreate eighteen defining months in the lives of John and Yoko. Filmed in a meticulously faithful reproduction of the NYC apartment the duo shared, One to One: John & Yoko also includes a wealth of never-before-seen material, including home movies and numerous phone call recordings of John and Yoko to offer a unique take on a seminal time in the lives of one of music’s most famous couples.
Wind, Tide and Oar (PG)
- Friday 9th – Wednesday 14th May
Fri 9, 6pm
Sat 10, 2.30pm (Descriptive Subtitles)
Tue 13, 6pm
Wed 14, 8.30pm
Dir. Huw Wahl, UK/Netherlands/France, 2024, 84 mins.
Wind, Tide & Oar is a compelling exploration of engineless sailing. Shot over three years, the film delves into the experiences of those who travel solely by harnessing the natural elements alone, following a diverse array of traditional boats and uncovering the unique rhythms and motivations of engineless navigation. Journeying through rivers, coastlines, and open seas, spanning the UK, the Netherlands, and France, the film creates a contemplative space, addressing themes of ecology, heritage, traditional skills, and maritime history. Using a 1960s hand-wound camera, Wahl offers a poetic and intimate perspective on a millennia-old craft, upended by the invention of mechanised power.
Through the film’s reveries, sailing becomes a means to explore our interaction with and responsibility to the environment. It invites deep reflection on our relationship with nature, our understanding of and commitment to sustainability, and our care for the world around us.
Satu – Year of the Rabbit (12A)
Programmer’s Pick
- Friday 9th – Thursday 15th May
Fri 9, 8.30pm
Sat 10, 5.30pm
Tue 13, 8.30pm
Wed 14, 2.30pm
Thu 15, 6pm
Dir. Joshua Trigg, UK/Laos, 2025, 93 mins. In Lau with English subtitles. Cast. Tao Chanthavong, Tonxay Syvongdao, Pha Syvongdao.
A coming-of-age story set in the beautiful countryside of Laos, following two runaways as they traverse the landscape in search of Satu's long lost mother. A visually arresting and emotionally resonant film, Satu - Year of the Rabbit explores themes of identity, displacement, and belonging through the journey of a young girl navigating an unfamiliar world.
A heartwarming coming-of-age journey and the directorial debut of South-West based Joshua Trigg and shot entirely on 16mm by Cornish based cinematographer James Chegwyn, the film is shot with poetic realism and a distinctive cinematic voice, and has cemented Trigg as an emerging talent to watch.
Wild at Heart (18)
- Saturday 10th – Thursday 15th May
Sat 10, 8pm
Thu 15, 8.15pm
Dir. David Lynch, US, 1990, 125 mins. Cast. Laura Dern, Nicolas Cage, Willem Defoe, Isabella Rossellini, Diane Ladd, Harry Dean Stanton.
Cage and Dern play Sailor and Lula - two lovers struggling to remain together even when fate seems intent on keeping them apart. In this case, the fate is Lula's mother, Marietta Fortune; a desperate woman who hates Sailor and will do anything to keep him away from her daughter.
After Sailor is released from prison for murdering a man in self-defence, he and Lula embark on a sex-filled, rocking road trip, aware all the time that they are being hunted by Marietta's cronies. Wild at Heart is a Southern Gothic, crazed road-trip of a film that references The Wizard of Oz and melodramas of the Hollywood golden age in ways you will never forget.
“Those toe nails dry yet sweetheart, ‘cause we’ve got some dancin’ to do”.
Urban Tree Festival screening: Heart of an Oak (U)
- May, 6.30pmth Wednesday 14
- Saturday 17th May, 2.30pm (Relaxed and Family Friendly)
Dir. Laurent Charbonnier, Michel Seydoux, France, 2024, 81 mins. Cast. Woodland creatures.
Discover the untold stories of the forest in a spectacular new wildlife adventure! This poetic and beautiful documentary follows a year in the life of a majestic, 210-year-old oak tree and its many inhabitants, exploring the immensely rich universe thriving beneath its branches. Featuring a unique cast including squirrels, birds, ants and mice, and packed with humour, joy and heart-in-your-mouth action, this remarkably unique feature offers a fascinating insight into the heart of a buzzing, vibrant, eco-system, completely immersing the viewer into the heart of a tree and telling stories that will both touch and surprise audiences, whether young or old, and irrespective of their ecological awareness.
Mesmerising… A hypnotic assault on the senses that captures the beauty and might of our natural world – Little White Lies
Saturday screening is a Family Friendly screening
Good One (15) + Jay’s Grave short
Programmer’s Pick | F-Rated
- Friday 16th – Wednesday 21st May
Fri 16, 6pm
Sat 17, 8pm
Tue 20, 6pm
Wed 21, 8.30pm
Dir. India Donaldson, US, 2025, 90 mins. Cast. Lily Collias, James Le Gros, Danny McCarthy.
The debut feature from American indie filmmaker Donaldson has echoes of Kelly Reichardt and Céline Sciamma but also demonstrates an authentic voice of its own. 17-year-old Sam is joining her dad and his buddy on a camping trip. Donaldson shows a remarkable facility for cutting deep into long-standing dynamics in just a few terse words, and when an awkward campfire encounter between Sam and Matt ruptures the trip, it casts the trio’s relationships in a new, ugly light.
What marks Good One as one of the best debuts for many years is the detail and quality of delivery from its tiny cast. But it is Lily Colias’ intelligent, cliché-resistant take on Sam that marks her out as one to watch. Tender and sure-footed Good One is a film that speaks quietly but with great force.
Jay’s Grave (15 mins)
Directed by the Award Winning director Justin Carter, this fifteen minute short film is based on a folklore tale from Dartmoor. We follow the true and known tale of Kitty Jay (played by Sophia Oram). A young, gentle and naive maid who falls in love with her master's son (played by Jed Cox). When she is soon abandoned with a shameful secret, Kitty is left to make a heart wrenching decision which would affect the moors forever.
Magic Farm (15)
F-Rated
- Friday 16th – Wednesday 23rd May
Fri 16, 8.30pm
Sat 17, 5.30pm
Tue 20, 8.30pm
Wed 21, 2.30pm & 6pm
Dir. Amalia Ulman, US, 2025, 93 mins. Cast. Chloe Sevigny, Alex Wolff, Joe Apollonio.
When a misguided American documentary crew in search of their next viral segment ends up in the wrong town in rural Argentina, chaos ensues. As they hire locals to fake a new music trend, unexpected relationships form, and an unfolding health crisis becomes apparent.
“Magic Farm features a stupendous cast fully in sync with Ulman’s deadpan absurdity” – The Hollywood Reporter
Keep Our Sea Chemical Free – The Documentary + Q&A
- Thursday 22nd May, 6pm
Dir. Senara Wilson, UK, 2024, 40 mins.
This 40-minute documentary is about what happened when a Cornish community was confronted with the sudden reality of a chemical experiment happening in St. Ives Bay. Canadian company Planetary Technologies reassured locals that this was going to heal the ocean and combat global heating. So, did demanding a halt to the experiment mean that local people were standing in the way of genuine progress in the climate crisis? After all, Elon Musk was backing the experiment and there'd already been a secret test that went ahead with no questions asked. Is the community scientifically illiterate and insular or is there more to this story?
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Senara Wilson, hosted by Climate Action Plymouth.
The Big Sea (tbc)
- Thursday 22nd May, 8pm
Dir. Lewis Arnold, UK, 2024, 75 mins.
Surfing is killing it. This $10 billion global industry, built on a clean, green dream, has never been more popular. But surfing has a dirty secret and people are dying.
This award-winning documentary exposes surfing’s hidden links to Cancer Alley and the devastating impact of the wetsuit world’s toxic addition to Neoprene. This synthetic material is born out of a carcinogenic chemical process so toxic that the California government requires wetsuits to carry health warnings. The sole chloroprene plant in the USA rises from the site of a former slave plantation, casting a deadly shadow over the community where the fallout from the plant has resulted in the highest cancer risk in the USA - 50 times the national average.
Four years in the making and giving voice to the lived experiences of community activists, accompanied by insights from scientists, surfers, industry insiders, environmentalists and more, The Big Sea uses the lens of surfing to unwrap issues of environmental racism, social justice, corporate responsibility and greenwashing.
This life and death tale of two seemingly unconnected communities holds an inconvenient mirror up to the surf industry while exploring the power we have as individuals to effect change.
A New Kind of Wilderness (12A)
F-Rated
- Friday 23rd – Tuesday 27th May
Fri 23, 6pm
Sat 24, 2.30pm
Tue 27, 8.30pm
Thu 29, 8.30pm
Dir. Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, Norway, 2024, 84 mins. In Norwegian and English with English subtitles).
In this Sundance-selected documentary, Englishman Nik and his Norwegian wife Maria attempt to forge a new life on a farm in her homeland’s lush woodlands. Their goal is to live sustainably, putting as little strain upon the planet as possible. But when the family suffers a tragedy, Nik’s resolve to continue on this singular mission is severely challenged and the ‘normal’ world comes knocking. Can they maintain some version of this idyll or is it a paradise out of reach?
A New Kind of Wilderness is not just a heartbreaking portrait of the endurance of a family, but also a breathtaking trip into the Norwegian wilderness.
The Marching Band (15)
- Friday 23rd – Wednesday 28th May
Fri 23, 8.30pm
Sat 24, 5.30pm
Tue 27, 6pm
Wed 28, 2.30pm & 6pm
Dir. Emmanuel Courcol, France, 2024, 103 mins. In French with English subtitles. Cast. Benjamin Lavernhe, Pierre Lottin, Sarah Suco.
Back by popular demand! If you missed this when we screened it as part of the French Film Festival, now is your chance to see the film that got a spontaneous round of applause at PAC!
When internationally acclaimed orchestra conductor Thibaut is diagnosed with a serious illness, a DNA test leads him to discover he has a biological brother, Jimmy, who works in a school cafeteria and plays the trombone in a local marching band in Lille. When Jimmy’s band loses its conductor, Thibaut steps in as replacement – giving the brothers a chance to learn more about the circumstances that shaped each other’s lives, and Thibaut the opportunity to see that his brother has a serious, and largely untapped gift.
Authentic, funny and very moving, the chemistry between the newfound brothers who forge an unlikely connection through the joy and power of music is wonderful.
Family Film TBC
- Wednesday 28th – Thursday 29th May
Wed 28, 11am (Family Friendly and Bringing in Baby)
Thu 29, 11am (Family Friendly and Bringing in Baby)
Unreachable (12A) + performance
- Thursday 29th May, 6pm
Dir. Lucy Bell and Naomi Turner, UK, 2025, total event running time 70 mins.
The film will be part of a double bill, with a choir performance of original makaton-signed songs created by Documental’s community of SEN families and a short post-screening opportunity to ask questions and share any thoughts.
Step into a history few have heard - and even fewer have told.
UNREACHABLE is a bold, imaginative documentary from Documental Productions, featuring The Pelican Project, and led by learning-disabled artists reclaiming their heritage with power and playfulness.
The film traces the journey of Documental creating a brand-new inclusive musical - also titled Unreachable - inspired by the extraordinary inspection reports of Dr Mary Sheridan, who exposed the realities of long-stay hospitals for children and adults with learning disabilities. With a mixed cast of learning-disabled and non-disabled performers and the use of Makaton signing, this musical in-development brings the past into the present in deeply moving and accessible ways.
To move the musical forward, the creative team at Documental embedded themselves in sessions at The Pelican Project, with all participants involved becoming aware of the very different perspectives on past treatment of people with learning disabilities, even the ways people identify with their differences. The work in the sessions were a response to Documental’s invitation to share what feels important to them in their daily lives today, using a variety of communication styles, and creatively exploring the history of the long stay hospitals in a sensitively held process.
Through drama, art, music, behind-the-scenes moments, and rarely seen archival material, the documentary invites audiences into a process of collective remembrance and radical creativity. Narrated by a Pelican Project participant and shaped by the voices of learning-disabled people, UNREACHABLE is both a historical reckoning and a joyful act of resistance.
Content Note: Contains references to institutionalisation, outdated & problematic medical language, and potentially upsetting historical practices. The film is made with and for the Learning Disability community as well as for a mainstream cinema-going audience, but some preparation regarding the content is advised. The film’s producers will be on-hand to answer any questions after the screening.
We Are Fugazi From Washington D.C. (tbc)
- Saturday 24th – Wednesday 28th May
Sat 24, 8pm
Wed 28, 8.30pm
Curators Joe Gross, Jeff Krulik, Joseph Pattisall, US, 2022, 96 mins.
Created to commemorate the 20 years that have passed since DC-based post-hardcore band Fugazi’s last live appearance (4th November 2002, at London’s Forum), We Are Fugazi from Washington, D.C. is a 96-minute movie comprising crowd-sourced, fan-recorded live shows and rare archive footage of Fugazi curated by Joe Gross, Joseph Pattisall and Jeff Krulik.
Explicitly billed as a non-documentary, the film pays tribute to Fugazi’s prowess as a live act – for old fans to remember and for a new generation to discover what they missed. This unique archival assemblage celebrates the fans and their cameras, as much as the band itself – a collision/collusion of the ephemeral moment on stage, and the moments captured on camera.
Filmmakers’ profits from these screenings will be donated by Doc'n'Roll to Trevi House, a nationally award-winning women's and children's charity based in South West England, providing safe and nurturing spaces for women in recovery.
★★★★ CRACK –
“Rough around the edges and stitched together with love, We Are Fugazi is an unashamedly DIY project that beautifully and potently captures what an absolutely f**king ferocious and totally singular group Fugazi were.”
The Salt Path (12A)
F-Rated
- Friday 30th May – Wednesday 11th June
Fri 30, 6pm
Sat 31, 5.30pm
Tue 3, 8.30pm
Wed 4, 11am (Bringing in Baby), 2.30pm (Descriptive Subtitles) & 6pm
Thu 5, 8.30pm
Sat 7, 2.30pm
Tue 10, 6pm
Wed 11, 8.30pm
Dir. Marianne Elliott, UK, 2024, 115 mins. Cast. Gillian Anderson, Jason Isaacs, James Lance, Hermione Norris.
What do you do when you’re in your 50s, lose all your worldly possessions, and receive a devastating medical diagnosis? You decide to walk the South West Coast Path, a 630-mile trek, equivalent to climbing Mount Everest four times.
Raynor and Moth Winn, are the couple who decided to travel the south west’s famously gorgeous, rugged coastline in search of solace after a combination of crises in their lives, as captured in Raynor’s prize-winning memoir of the same name. Though emotionally and physically challenging, the journey also proves exhilarating and liberating, giving them a renewed vitality and a deeper connection to both the natural world and each other. Featuring understated performances from Anderson and Isaacs and a screenplay by Plymouth-born Rebecca Lenkiewicz, The Salt Path is an affecting, beautiful portrait of mid-life loss and rebirth.
Knitflix: Pride and Prejudice (U)
- Saturday 31st May, 2.15pm
Dir. Joe Wright, UK, 2005, 128 mins. Cast. Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen, Rosamund Pike, Carey Mulligan, Donald Sutherland.
What better film to watch while knitting and stitching? Knitflix is a relaxed screening where you can work on your knitting, crochet and other craft projects while you watch the film. The house lights will be left on low during the screening. Please bring your own crafts!
All tickets £4.50.
It has been 20 years since Joe Wright’s delightful and heartwarming adaptation hit our screens and it’s just as beautiful as ever. With stellar performances from a perfect cast, sparks fly when spirited Elizabeth Bennet meets single, rich, and proud Mr. Darcy. But Mr. Darcy reluctantly finds himself falling in love with a woman beneath his class. Can each overcome their own pride and prejudice?
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