Sligo Film Society takes a break over the festive season and will resume screenings in 2025 with a fresh slate of eight films, many hot from the 2024 festival circuit and taking in a number that featured in critics’ best of year lists. Opening our new season is the the Palme d’Or winner Anora, the uproarious new comedy-drama from acclaimed filmmaker Sean Baker (The Florida Project) in which farce and sharp class commentary are mixed to giddy effect.
The remainder of the programme provides a rich tapestry of stories from across the globe. All We Imagine As Light is the story of three nurses in modern-day Mumbai whose lives are governed by romantic and emotional insecurity, in The Last Dance, a Hong Kong wedding planner, whose business was scuppered by Covid, finds a new career in the funeral business and Bird tells the coming-of-age tale of Bailey, a 12-year-old who chances upon a mysterious stranger – who might be more than human.
A disillusioned scholar becomes his grandmother’s carer and discovers the vulnerability and the frailty of life in How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, while Nickel Boys is the extraordinary retelling of Colson Whitehead’s novel of physical and sexual abuse at a notorious Florida reform school in the 1960s.
The last film in this programme comes from Zambian filmmaker Rungano Nyoni, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, is a furious critique of patriarchal social norms examined through returning emigre Shula when she unearth a shared trauma that her family refuses to confront unearths a shared trauma that her family refuses to confront.
Check out the listings for the first eight screenings below.
Sligo Film Society, Jan - Feb 2025
9th January ***postponed****
ANORA
Director: Sean Baker
Film info: 139 mins | USA | 16
Update 7/1/25: due the yellow weather alert and the hazards that go with it, we have decided to cancel our first screening of the year
Anora “Ani” Mikheeva lives in Brooklyn, working as a stripper. When Ani meets Ivan – the young, party-loving son of a rich Russian oligarch – Ivan is smitten. He starts paying Ani to become his live-in partner. After a few whirlwind weeks of excess, they get married in Vegas. But everything falls apart when Ivan’s parents find out about Ani…
16th January
ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT
Director: Payal Kapadia
Film info: 115 mins | France/India/The Netherlands/Luxembourg | CLUB
Nurses Prabha and Anu share an apartment in Mumbai. Prabha’s husband moved abroad and no longer contacts her. Despite that, Prabha continues rejecting the romantic advances of a friendly doctor working in her hospital. Outgoing Anu, meanwhile, is in a passionate relationship with Shiaz – a relationship she keeps secret as it’s socially taboo for her to date a Muslim.
23rd January
THE LAST DANCE
Director: Chan Mou Yin Anselm
Film info: 127 mins | Hong Kong | 12A
Master Man is a serious-minded Taoist priest dealing with his family’s many trials and tribulations. He becomes an unlikely business partner with Dominic, an entrepreneur whose wedding planning firm has recently collapsed. Master Man’s stubbornness and Dominic’s embarrassing blunders lead to a tense start for their partnership. However, both men soon discover they have much to learn from each other.
30th January
SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ETAT
Director: Johan Grimonprez
Film info: 150 mins | Belgium/France/The Netherlands | 2024 | CLUB
The US sends “jazz ambassadors” to Africa to distract from a CIA-backed coup that will lead to the assassination of democratically elected Patrice Lumumba in Congo.
6th February
BIRD
Director: Andrea Arnold
Film info: 119 mins | UK | 2024 | 15A
Gravesend, England. 12-year-old Bailey lives in a dilapidated apartment with her caring but immature father Bug. When Bug abruptly announces he’s marrying his girlfriend, a furious Bailey runs away. She meets a mysterious stranger named Bird who is searching for his own parents. It’s a chance encounter that sets off a series of strange and life-changing events…
13th February
HOW TO MAKE MILLIONS BEFORE GRANDMA DIES
Director: Pat Boonnitipat
Film info: 125 mins | Thailand | 2024 | CLUB
Once a top scholar, M now wastes his days gaming. Hearing how a cousin inherited a fortune having cared for an ailing relative, M becomes his grandmother’s carer. She has terminal cancer and he hopes to reap the rewards once she passes away. Despite his usual indifference, M’s selfishness begins to dissipate when faced with his grandmother’s vulnerability and failing health.
20th February
NICKEL BOYS
Director: RaMell Ross
Film info: 140 mins | USA | 2024 | 12A
Florida, the 1960s. African-American teenager Elwood is sent to the Nickel Academy reform school after being falsely accused of car theft. There, he meets and befriends fellow inmate Turner. Together, the boys try to endure the abuses inflicted upon them by the school’s cruel officials. The two teenagers’ shared experiences create a bond that will have ramifications for decades.
27th February
ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL
Director: Rungano Nyoni
Film info: 99 mins | Ireland/UK/USA/Zambia | 2024 | 15A
Shula, who has recently returned to Zambia, is driving home late one night when she discovers her uncle Fred’s body in the middle of the road. As family members gather for the funeral, Shula reunites with two of her cousins. As they reconnect, a shared trauma surfaces – but the rest of the family doesn’t want to hear about it.
