September highlights at the Showroom

The phenomenal theatrical success of Barbie and Oppenheimer over the summer may be starting to wind down, but fortunately the Autumn has an abundance of exciting new films. The September programme at Showroom Cinema features new releases to satisfy all tastes and there is plenty on offer for anyone with a rekindled interest in cinema.

Starting the month with a bang, Passages is the French-language debut by acclaimed American director Ira Sachs. A seductive drama that tells the story of a gay couple whose marriage is thrown into crisis when they enter a love triangle with a woman, the film has garnered controversy and admiration for its explicit scenes and nuanced depiction of complex romantic relationships.

The romantic theme continues the following week in Celine Song’s meditative film, Past Lives. In this wistful drama, two deeply connected childhood friends from Korea reconnect after many years apart for one week in New York. Unlike the explicit nature of Passages, Past Lives focuses on things left unsaid and connections missed, recalling Richard Linklater’s thoughtful Before… trilogy, also screening at Showroom the same week.

For fans of a good ‘whodunnit’, A Haunting in Venice is an unsettling, star-studded supernatural thriller based upon the novel by Agatha Christie, directed by Kenneth Branagh who returns as detective Poirot, in the sequel to Death on the Nile.

The final week sees the release of The Old Oak, the last film by British filmmaking legend, Ken Loach. It tells the connected stories of a struggling pub landlord and a group of Syrian refugees who are placed in empty houses in an ex-mining community.

As if that wasn’t enough, special events include Stage on Screen offering A Little Life, which is already selling fast. Adapted from the best-selling novel, the play follows four college friends in New York City as ambition, addiction, and pride threaten to pull the group apart.

Last but not least is the highly anticipated new Pedro Almodóvar short, Strange Way of Life.

Silva (Pedro Pascal) rides a horse across the desert to visit his friend Sheriff Jake (Ethan Hawk), who he hasn’t seen for 25 years. The short film will be accompanied by an unmissable recorded Q&A by the iconic Spanish director.

All of this barely scratches the surface of the new and classic films gracing our screens this September; tickets for the full programme are on sale now: www.showroomworkstation.org.uk/sept23