FOR THIS WEEK’S MOVIES ON SBS, SBS VICELAND & NITV
- Audio Description (AD) available for Where Hands Touch, Only You, Brief Encounter, Sometimes Always Never, Destination Wedding, The Place Beyond the Pines, Mr. Holmes and Harry Brown
- Closed Captions (CC) available for Sometimes Always Never, Mr. Holmes and Harry Brown
WEDNESDAY 15 FEBRUARY
Where Hands Touch
7:30pm
M, AD
UK, 2018
Genre: War, Drama, Romance
Language: English, French
Director: Amma Asante
Starring: Amandla Stenberg, George MacKay, Abbie Cornish, Christopher Eccleston
What’s it about?
15-year-old Leyna (Stenberg, Bodies Bodies Bodies), daughter of a white German mother and a Black father, lives in fear due to the colour of her skin. When she meets Lutz (MacKay, 1917), the son of a prominent Nazi officer and a member of the Hitler Youth – mandatory for all Aryan boys since 1936 – the two fall helplessly in love, putting both their lives at risk.
Only You
9:45pm
MA15+, AD
UK, 2019
Genre: Drama, Romance
Language: English, Spanish
Director: Harry Wootliff
Starring: Laia Costa, Josh O’Connor, Lisa McGrillis, Stuart Martin, Peter Wight, Orion Lee
What’s it about?
Elena (Costa) and Jake (O’Connor) meet by chance on New Year’s Eve, fighting for the same taxi. But instead of going their separate ways after a shared ride, they start a passionate relationship. Within weeks they are living together, and not long after they talk about starting a family. But falling in love and staying in love prove to be two different things.
THURSDAY 16 FEBRUARY
Brief Encounter
7:35pm
M, AD
USA, UK, 1974
Genre: Drama, TV Movie
Language: English
Director: Alan Bridges
Starring: Richard Burton, Sophia Loren, Jack Hedley, Rosemary Leach, Ann Firbank
What’s it about?
Based on Noel Coward’s classic play of a chance meeting, this is a story of innocence and unexpected love. Anna (Loren) and Dr Alec Harvey (Burton) meet by chance and their casual friendship turns into a tormenting relationship. Realising the danger to her marriage, Anna avoids Alec who is unhappy in his own marriage and pursues Anna with increasing intensity. Unable to resist his charm, Anna accepts Alec’s invitation to a rendezvous in a friend’s apartment.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
9:30pm
M
France, 2019
Genre: Drama, Romance
Language: Italian, French
Director: Celine Sciamma
Starring: Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel, Luàna Bajrami, Valeria Golino, Christel Baras
What’s it about?
Brittany, France, 1760. Marianne (Merlant), a painter, is commissioned to do the wedding portrait of Heloise (Haenel), a young lady who has just left the convent. Intimacy and attraction grow between the two women as they share Heloise’s first and last moments of freedom, all whilst Marianne paints the portrait that will end it all. Recently placed #30 in Sight and Sound magazine’s decennial critics’ poll of the 100 greatest films ever made.
FRIDAY 17 FEBRUARY
Sometimes Always Never
6:15pm
PG, AD, CC
UK, 2019
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Language: English
Director: Carl Hunter
Starring: Bill Nighy, Sam Riley, Jenny Agutter, Alice Lowe, Tim McInnerny, Louis Healy
What’s it about?
Alan (Nighy) is a stylish tailor with moves as sharp as his suits. He has spent years searching tirelessly for his missing son Michael (Riley) who stormed out over a game of Scrabble. With a body to identify and his family torn apart, Alan must repair the relationship with his youngest son and solve the mystery of an online player who he thinks could be Michael, so he can finally move on and reunite his family.
Destination Wedding
7:55pm
M, AD
USA, 2018
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Drama
Language: English
Director: Victor Levin
Starring: Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, DJ Dallenbach, Ted Dubost, D. Rosh Wright, Greg Lucey
What’s it about?
Wedding guests Frank (Reeves) and Lindsay (Ryder) discover that they have a lot in common: they don’t like the bride, the groom, the ceremony, themselves, or each other. Their cheerlessness immediately isolates them from the other guests, but Frank and Lindsay find that if you verbally spar with someone long enough, anything can happen.
Endings, Beginnings
9:30pm
MA15+
USA, 2020
Genre: Romance, Drama
Language: English
Director: Drake Doremus
Starring: Shailene Woodley, Jamie Dornan, Sebastian Stan, Matthew Gray Gubler, Lindsay Sloane
What’s it about?
Reeling from a bad recent break-up, Daphne (Woodley) finds herself adrift in life. Living in her sister’s guesthouse, she regularly witnesses her sibling and her brother-in-law fighting, which only exacerbates the once-idealistic Daphne’s growing despair regarding long-term love. From Drake Doremus, writer-director of Like Crazy.
SATURDAY 18 FEBRUARY
The Big Steal
6:35pm
PG
Australia, 1990
Genre: Comedy
Language: English
Director: Nadia Tass
Starring: Ben Mendelsohn, Claudia Karvan, Steve Bisley, Marshall Napier, Damon Herriman
What’s it about?
On Monday, Danny Clark (Mendelsohn) is the reluctant recipient of a birthday present he would rather forget – his father’s old Nissan Cedric. By Tuesday he has asked the beautiful Joanna Johnson (Karvan) out on a date; however, he promised to pick her up in a Jaguar. In a tight fix, Danny trades the Nissan Cedric for a Jaguar only to be ripped off by a dodgy car salesman, Gordon Farkas (Bisley). Danny sets out to rectify wrongs.
Original 1990 SBS Movie Show Review (VIDEO)
The Place Beyond the Pines
8:30pm
MA15+, AD
USA, 2012
Genre: Drama, Crime
Language: English
Director: Derek Cianfrance
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Ben Mendelsohn, Ray Liotta
What’s it about?
A motorcycle stunt rider (Gosling) turns to robbing banks as a way to provide for his lover (Mendes) and their newborn child, a decision that puts him on a collision course with an ambitious rookie cop (Cooper) navigating a police department ruled by a corrupt detective. Directed by Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Light Between Oceans).
Carmen & Lola
11:05pm
MA15+
Spain, 2018
Genre: Romance, Drama
Language: Spanish
Director: Arantxa Echevarria
Starring: Rosy Rodriguez, Zaira Morales, Moreno Borja, Rafaela León, Carolina Yuste
What’s it about?
Carmen (Rodriguez) is a Roma teenager living in the outskirts of Madrid. Like every other Roma woman, she is destined to live a life that is repeated generation after generation – getting married and raising as many children as possible. But one day she meets Lola (Romero), an unusual Roma women who dreams about going to university, draws bird graffiti and is very different. Carmen and Lola fall in love, leading to them being rejected by their community.
SUNDAY 19 FEBRUARY
Mr. Holmes
6:35pm
M, AD, CC
UK, USA, 2015
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Language: English
Director: Bill Condon
Starring: Ian McKellen, Laura Linney, Milo Parker, Hiroyuki Sanada
What’s it about?
An aged, retired Sherlock Holmes (McKellan) deals with early dementia as he tries to remember both his final case and a mysterious woman whose memory haunts him. He also befriends a fan, the young son of his housekeeper, who wants him to work again.
Harry Brown
8:30pm
MA15+, AD, CC
UK, 2009
Genre: Thriller
Language: English
Director: Daniel Barber
Starring: Michael Caine, Ben Drew, Jack O’Connell, Emily Mortimer
What’s it about?
Harry Brown (Caine) is an elderly ex-marine living in a dingy English housing estate apartment. The escalating crime and violence has made him so frightened that he won’t even use the underpass near his home. Shortly after his wife dies, Harry’s best friend is murdered, prompting Harry to seek revenge on the criminal lowlifes who have made his life hell.
Serena
10:30pm
MA15+
USA, 2013
Genre: Drama
Language: English
Director: Susanne Bier
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Rhys Ifans, Toby Jones, David Dencik, Sean Harris
What’s it about?
North Carolina mountains in the 1920s – newly-weds George (Cooper) and Serena Pemberton (Lawrence) begin to build a timber empire. Serena soon proves herself to be equal to any man – overseeing loggers, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving a man’s life in the wilderness. With power and influence now in their hands, the Pembertons refuse to let anyone stand in the way of their inflated love and ambitions. Directed by Susanne Bier (Brothers, After the Wedding).
MONDAY 21 FEBRUARY
Salvo
7:30pm
M
France, Italy, 2013
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Language: Italian
Director: Fabio Grassadonia, Antonio Piazza
Starring: Saleh Bakri, Sara Serraiocco, Mario Pupella, Giuditta Perriera, Luigi Lo Cascio
What’s it about?
Salvo (Bakri) is a body guard and hit man for a mafioso. After foiling an attack on his employer, Salvo hunts down the man who organised it and encounters the man’s blind sister. She causes Salvo to question himself and his existence.
An Act of Defiance
9:35pm
M
South Africa, Netherlands, 2017
Genre: Drama
Language: Afrikaans, Dutch, English
Director: Jean van de Velde
Starring: Peter Paul Muller, Antoinette Louw, Sello Motloung, Sean Venter, Izel Bezuidenhout
What’s it about?
On a winter’s day, July 1963, the police raid a farm in the village of Rivonia in South Africa. Nine leaders of the banned ANC and the Spear of the Nation are arrested. And a tenth member is added to the group of nine, who had been arrested earlier – Nelson Mandela (Motloung). More than anything the Apartheid Regime wants to sentence these freedom fighters to death – not only as a warning to their fellows but also to get rid of some of their most notorious enemies – to decapitate the freedom movement.
TUESDAY 22 FEBRUARY
An Almost Ordinary Summer
7:35pm
M
Italy, 2019
Genre: Comedy
Language: Italian
Director: Simone Godano
Starring: Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Alessandro Gassmann, Jasmine Trinca, Filippo Scicchitano
What’s it about?
Two families meet for a marriage that neither want. But things take a turn when the respective patriarchs (Bentivoglio, Gassmann) surprise their respective children by revealing to them that they have fallen in love.
Lovelace
9:30pm
MA15+
USA, 2013
Genre: Biography, Drama
Language: English
Director: Jeffrey Friedman, Rob Epstein
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard, James Franco, Eric Roberts, Chloe Sevigny
What’s it about?
Deep Throat, the first pornographic feature film to be a mainstream success, was an international sensation in 1972 and made its star, Linda Lovelace (Seyfried), a media darling. Years later, the ‘poster girl for the sexual revolution’ revealed a darker side to her story.
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