NEWS: Strong female leads abound in the first season of films since lockdown at Poole's Lighthouse

Strong female leads link films in new Lighthouse cinema season  

Six months to the day that the curtain fell on the last film screening before lockdown cinema returns to Lighthouse, Poole’s centre for the arts, on 17 September with a season of film stories that have notably strong female roles in common. 

First up are Keira Knightley and Jessie Buckley in the feel-good comedy Misbehaviour (12A) based on the story of the real-life invasion of the 1970 Miss World contest by the newly formed Women’s Liberation Movement. Keeley Hawes, Lesley Manville, Greg Kinnear and Rhys Ifans also feature. 

The first Lighthouse film season since government guidelines permitted a return to cinemas also features Girlhood director Céline Sciamma’s sumptuous gothic romance Portrait of a Lady on Fire (12A), in which a portrait painter and her subject crackle across the canvas in 18th century France; and the welcome return of Bong Joon-ho’s pitch black modern fairy tale Parasite (15) – the first ever foreign language film to win the Best Picture Oscar. Bizarre, brilliantly layered and entirely gripping, Parasite has charmed critics around the world, landing four Academy Awards, two BAFTAs and the Palme d’Or at Cannes along the way. 

Recent box office hits such as Greta Gerwig’s universally feted adaptation of Little Women (U) and Peter Cattaneo’s rousing Military Wives (12A) are back on the big screen and there are first screenings for Jessica Swale’s elegant feminist wartime drama Summerland (12A). It stars Gemma Arterton and Gugu Mbatha-Raw (who also features in Misbehaviour) in the story of a reclusive writer whose emotions are reawakened when an evacuee from the London Blitz is left in her care. 

Released this summer, William Nicholson’s intense and intimate drama Hope Gap (12A) stars Annette Bening as Grace whose husband of 29 years (Bill Nighy) leaves her. Unravelling and feeling displaced in her seaside town, Grace regains her footing and ultimately finds a powerful new voice. 

The home of independent cinema in Dorset, Lighthouse also screens director Eliza Shroeder’s debut feature film, Love Sarah (12A), a charming comedy-drama about a young woman (Shannon Tarbet) who fulfils her mother’s dream of opening her own bakery. Celia Imrie and Bill Paterson co-star. 

For full details of the coming cinema season and to book tickets visit www.lighthousepoole.co.uk.