Gala Screenings

Booking Ref

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Thu 12 Aug: Gala Dinner 18:30 – film at 20:30 approx Also screens Fri 13 Aug 15:30 (Film Only – Normal Prices)

Gala Tickets £34

The Last Bus

UK Premiere We are delighted to open the 29th Chichester International Film Festival with the UK premiere of this wonderful British film starring Timothy Spall and Phyllis Logan. A touching story of an old man who crosses the country just using local buses. A heart-warming tale of Tom (Timothy Spall), a pensioner whose wife Mary (Phyllis Logan) has just passed away, who travels from Britain’s most northerly point, John O’Groats, to his original home town at its most southerly point, Land’s End, using his free bus pass. He carries with him his wife’s ashes in a small suitcase, travelling the length of the country to take her back home. Along the way, his adventures are recorded by the people he meets and helps, and by the end of his trip he has unwittingly become a social media celebrity. UK 2021 Gillies MacKinnon 86m

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Timothy Spall, Phyllis Logan and Gillies MacKinnon to open the Festival with the British Premiere of their film. Our thanks to Parkland Entertainment for this screening.

OPENING & CLOSING GALA FOOD

Hosted by BRASSERIE BLANC – Thu 12 Aug 18:30 & Sun 29 Aug 18:30

The cinema has forged an excellent relationship with Brasserie Blanc over the last seven years and continues the tradition of holding the two Gala Dinners at the restaurant. The festival is delighted to be hosting this year’s opening and closing dinners at the brasserie again. The chefs, under the direction of executive head chef Clive Fretwell, will offer two special set meals for each Gala dinner with a glass of wine included in the price, the menu highlighting chef owner Raymond Blanc’s classic dishes with the strong French regional influences of his youth. We are grateful for the generous support of Brasserie Blanc and its manager and staff who look forward to sharing the evenings with you.

Dinner will be from 18:30, followed by the film at 20:30. Book your place early to avoid disappointment. Tickets £34.

Booking Ref

Sun 29 Aug: Gala Dinner 18:30 – film at 20:30 approx Also screens Sun 29 Aug 10:30 (Film Only – Normal Prices)

Gala Tickets £34

The Duke

Preview We are proud to close our 29th Chichester International Film Festival with the special preview of this superb British film, starring Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren, which premiered in last year’s Venice Film Festival. Roger Michell’s warm take on the true story of how Kempton Bunton acquired the National Gallery’s new Goya, features a glorious performance by Jim Broadbent. In 1961, Kempton Bunton, a 60-year-old taxi driver, stole Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. He sent ransom notes saying that he would return the painting on condition that the government invested more in care for the elderly. What happened next became the stuff of legend. Broadbent’s wonderful Kempton Bunton is a wannabe playwright and soapbox revolutionary, a man who prefers Chekhov to Shakespeare because he feels that the Bard wrote too many plays about kings. By night he is sitting up in bed reading books by George Orwell. By day he is tilting at windmills, squabbling with shop-floor managers and getting under the feet of his pinched, knackered wife (a wonderfully un-regal Hellen Mirren). An uplifting true story about a good man who set out to change the world and managed to save his marriage. What a lovely, rousing, finally moving film this is. ‘The Duke’ is unashamedly sentimental and resolutely old-fashioned in the best sense of the term: a design classic built along the same lines as 50’s Ealing comedies. UK 2020 Roger Michell 96m

We hope to welcome director Roger Michell’s (‘Notting Hill’) to Chichester to introduce his film. Our thanks to Warner Bros for this screening.