Loosely autobiographical, unconventionally structured and incorporating poems composed and read by the director’s father, the film unfolds as an organic flow of memories recalled by a dying poet of key moments in his life. In an effort to represent these themes visually, the film combines contemporary scenes with childhood memories, dreams and newsreel footage. Its cinematography shifts, often unpredictably, between colour, black-and-white and sepia. The film’s loose flow of stunning visually-oneiric shots, combined with its rich and symbolic imagery has been compared with the stream of consciousness technique in modernist literature. Mirror initially polarised critics and audiences, with many considering its narrative to be incomprehensible. It has however found favour with many Russians for whom it remains their most beloved of Tarkovsky’s works.

Chinese director Zhang Yimou fuses a wuxia martial arts drama with a tragic romance in this elegant period piece set in 859 AD. A dazzling epic of breathtaking action, Oscar-nominated cinematography and serene beauty with the literal English translation of the Chinese title being ‘Ambushed From Ten Directions‘. Hoping she will lead them to her fellow assassins, two captains hatch a plan to capture and trick Mei, a beautiful dancer suspected of having ties to the House of Flying Daggers, a powerful revolutionary faction. From there begins a trail of dangerous encounters, impossible love triangles and plot twists in which people are rarely as they seem …

Belgian actress Yolande Moreau stars in this biopic as, little-known but uncommonly brilliant painter, Séraphine Louis, who lived from 1864 to 1942. Though ostensibly a housekeeper whose chief duties involved cooking, cleaning and ironing, in her off-hours Séraphine joyously turned to the outdoor world, with which she felt a tremendous degree of emotional and spiritual communion. She channeled these passions through painting and, having only the scantest materials at hand, created paints from elements such as animal blood, oil from church candles and mud. Her life took a most fantastic turn when Wilhelm Uhde, a German art critic, turned up in Senlis – and laid eyes on the young woman’s creations for the first time. Yet, despite the success that Uhde brought to Séraphine, a sad future still lay ahead for the young woman – one accompanied by continued obscurity and emotional isolation.

Fred Astaire is fashion photographer Dick Avery (based on Richard Avedon) who is sent out by his female boss to find a “new face”. It doesn’t take Dick long to discover Jo (Audrey Hepburn), an owlish Greenwich Village bookstore clerk. Acting as Pygmalion to Jo’s Galatea, Dick whisks the wide-eyed girl off to Paris and transforms her into the fashion world’s hottest model. Along the way, naturally, he falls in love with her …

The Gershwin tunes include the title song, ‘S’wonderful’, ‘How Long Has This Been Going On’ and ‘He Loves and She Loves’; among the newer numbers is Kay Thompson’s camp and energetic opener ‘Think Pink’. For years available only in washed-out, flat prints, Funny Face has been restored to its full Technicolor and VistaVision glory which we will screen.