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Programme No. 143

Two screens · 14 Gate Street, Bristol

November 2026

Book tickets
Telegraph poles and bare trees fading into thick fog over an empty field.
Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979). Screening from a 35mm print, Thursday 12 and Sunday 22 November.

Timeitself

The November season: six films that refuse to cut, from Akerman's kitchen to Tarr's seven-hour village. 9 to 22 November.

Read the programme notes
An audience in red velvet seats watches a bright screen in a darkened auditorium, seen from the back rows.
Screen One, a Friday, ten minutes into the 18:00. Row F is the one to ask for.

What's on

Monday 9 to Sunday 22 November. Pick a day, or a strand, or both. Tickets £11, members £7, under-25s £6.

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Programme notes · by Ruth Okonedo, head of programming

Nothing happens, and then everything does

Most films are built from cuts. A cut tells you where to look and when to stop looking; it is the editor's hand on the back of your neck. The six films in this season take the hand away. The camera stays, and the minutes keep arriving, and you find that you are the one deciding what matters.

Chantal Akerman spends three hours and twenty minutes in a Brussels flat, and the drama of Jeanne Dielman lives in a dropped spoon and a potato peeled out of order. Tarkovsky sends three men into the Zone and lets the wind across the grass carry more dread than any monster could. Kiarostami, in Close-Up and Taste of Cherry, holds on a man in a car until the landscape starts to talk back.

And then there is Béla Tarr. Sátántangó runs seven hours and twelve minutes, and we will show it the only way it should be seen: once, on a Saturday, with two intervals and soup at the bar. People who have done this tend to describe it afterwards the way others describe a long walk in bad weather. Nobody says they regret it.

“The camera stays, and the minutes keep arriving, and you find that you are the one deciding what matters.”

Bring patience, and a snack if you like; we have relaxed our usual rules about rustling for this season only. Every screening is introduced by a member of the programming team, and on Sunday 15 November the film critic Daniel Ferreira joins us for a talk on duration, boredom and attention.

  • A 1970s kitchen with patterned orange wall tiles and a steel sink, in flat daylight.

    Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

    Chantal Akerman · Belgium · 1975 · 201 min · 4K restoration

  • A muddy rural track full of rain puddles running straight to the horizon.

    Sátántangó

    Béla Tarr · Hungary · 1994 · 432 min · two intervals

  • A dusty road climbing between golden, harvested hills.

    Taste of Cherry

    Abbas Kiarostami · Iran · 1997 · 95 min · 35mm

  • A town square at night in fog, lamps glowing, small figures crossing the paving.

    Werckmeister Harmonies

    Béla Tarr · Hungary · 2000 · 145 min · 35mm

  • A motorcyclist rides along a sunlit road below bare brown hills.

    Close-Up

    Abbas Kiarostami · Iran · 1990 · 98 min · 4K restoration

New this month

Three films we chose because we couldn't stop talking about them in the office.

A lone figure stands on wet salt flats that mirror a low red sunset.

UK · 2026 · 112 min · dir. Maren Holt

The Salt Year

A widowed salt farmer on the Essex marshes takes in her grandson for one summer and teaches him nothing she means to. Holt shoots the estuary like a western, and the final ten minutes are the best thing we've seen this year.

Q&A with Maren Holt after the 18:00 screening on Thursday 12 November.

A long row of white beach huts with blue doors on the sand.

Belgium, France · 2026 · 97 min · dir. Pieter Vos

Low Tide at Ostend

Two estranged brothers sell their father's beach hut in one weekend. Dry, very funny, and then suddenly not.

A flock of starlings wheeling against an amber evening sky.

Spain · 2026 · 84 min · documentary · dir. Ana Ruiz

The Kinship of Birds

A year inside the starling roosts of the Ebro delta. No narration, very little music, and you won't miss either.

Become a regular

Membership keeps the 35mm projectors running and the programme odd. Half of our members joined after a single screening.

A man in a red velvet seat watches the screen, lit only by its glow.
Tuesday, 20:30, Screen One. He has had the same seat since 2012.
Friend£60 a yearRegular£120 a yearPatron£400 a year
Tickets£7£7, plus 8 free a year£7, plus 20 free a year
Priority booking48 hoursOne weekOne week
Café and bar10% off10% off15% off, and a drink on us each visit
Printed programmePosted monthlyPosted monthlyPosted, signed by the projectionist
Your nameNoNoOn the wall in the foyer

Join at the box office or by email

Past programmes

  • Cover of The Ardent No. 142, October 2026: Satyajit Ray at 105. A village lane between brick houses, in black and white.

    No. 142 · October 2026

  • Cover of The Ardent No. 141, September 2026: Cities at Night. A rain-wet city street at night under neon signs.

    No. 141 · September 2026

  • Cover of The Ardent No. 140, August 2026: The Sea, Filmed. Storm waves breaking below sea cliffs.

    No. 140 · August 2026

  • Cover of The Ardent No. 139, July 2026: Small Rooms. A single chair in a bare room lit by one window.

    No. 139 · July 2026

  • Cover of The Ardent No. 131, November 2025: Westerns Without Heroes. A lone wooden house on an open prairie under heavy cloud.

    No. 131 · November 2025

  • Cover of The Ardent No. 130, October 2025: Comedy Before Sound. A 1920s motor car parked on a cobbled shop street.

    No. 130 · October 2025

  • Cover of The Ardent No. 129, September 2025: Children's Eyes. A child's hand holding a balloon string against the sky.

    No. 129 · September 2025

  • Cover of The Ardent No. 128, August 2025: Animated Worlds. An animator's desk with pencils, drawings and a lamp.

    No. 128 · August 2025

The building

A 1931 picture house on Gate Street, closed in 1987 and reopened by its audience in 2012. Two screens, one projection box, one bar.

Rows of worn red velvet seats in a dim auditorium, lit from the side.
Screen One. 212 red seats, re-covered by volunteers when we reopened, and the original 1931 proscenium beyond them.
A view of an empty cinema with rows of red seats facing the illuminated screen.
Ten minutes before the 18:00. The beam is the last thing we test.
An older projectionist stands beside a vintage film projector in a dark room, a lit frame glowing on the wall behind him.
The box, upstairs. Most nights Walter is up here, threading the 20:30.
A small dark screening room with low tables, each lit by a little red lamp.
Screen Two. 64 seats, low tables, and a lamp at every pair so you can find your drink.
A vintage film projector with two reels on a tripod, against a dark curtain.
The 1950s projector that greets you in the foyer.
A curved cinema foyer with a deep red patterned carpet, low tables and soft ceiling light.
The foyer, half an hour before the 18:00. The carpet is a 1931 reproduction; the original wore through in 1987.

Finding us

Warm bulbs along the edge of a cinema marquee at dusk.
Look for the bulbs. The canopy has been lit every night since 2012.

Address

14 Gate Street
Bristol BS1 4QE

Five minutes from Temple Meads. Bike racks on Gate Lane.

Open the map at Temple Meads

Screens

Screen One: 212 seats, 35mm and 4K

Screen Two: 64 seats, 4K

Both step-free, with hearing loops and two wheelchair spaces each.

Café and bar

Daily from noon until the last film ends.

Soup, toasties, Bristol beer, and the best coffee on Gate Street. We checked.

Access

Captioned screenings every Tuesday.

Relaxed screenings every Sunday morning: lights up, sound down, come and go.