Franta and Ondra are inseparable twins, living away from civilization in the deep bosom of nature. Their daily routine, permeated with peace and harmony with the surrounding world, begins to crack under the pressure of internal contradictions. Franta longs for freedom, change and adventure, while Ondra clings to the safety of immutability.

However, their dual existence breaks like a mirror, the same appearance, different desires. In the silent embrace of nature, a fragile drama of separation, reconciliation and perhaps even reunion takes place.

A magical story about what remains when what held us together begins to disappear.

£5 for Friend of the Forum members!

In Bitter Christmas Spanish maestro Pedro Almodóvar presents two alternating stories, one starring Elsa, an advertising director, in 2004, during a long weekend in December. The second takes place in 2026 and stars Raúl, a screenwriter and director who is writing a script that we soon discover is the story of Elsa, her boyfriend Bonifacio, and her friends Patricia and Natalia.

The film narrates the close relationship between reality and fiction, between inspiration and life, exploring the limits of autofiction and stories within stories.  

From the director of Blue Jean (filmed in Hexham!) comes an irresistible new take on Jane Austen’s iconic Sense and Sensibility: a charming, witty, and deeply relatable story of love and sisterhood starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Esmé Creed-Miles and George MacKay.

Book online to see the film with us and be automatically entered into a prize draw for a limited edition copy of the complete works of Jane Austen.

A record of one of the greatest survival stories in the history of exploration, now considered the world’s first documentary feature, screening as part of Hexham Abbey Festival of Music & Arts.

In 1914, the Endurance sailed from Buenos Aires taking British explorer Ernest Shackleton and his 28-man crew to land on then cross Antarctica via the South Pole. Disaster struck and Endurance, trapped in pack ice, drifted northward throughout a long, dark Antarctic winter, the ship slowly being crushed by the ice. Onboard, pioneering photographer/film maker, Frank Hurley, captured sensational footage of the Antarctic, the ship and crew (who all survived) giving cinema audiences the first moving images of the staggering beauty of this remote and alien continent. This was as astounding then as seeing images of distant planets is to us today. The film, painstakingly restored to wonderful quality by The BFI National Archive, was a sensation and continues to be an astonishing feat of film-making telling of an astonishing feat of endurance.

With live music from Jonny Best, one of the UK's leading improvising silent film pianists and the founding artistic director of Northern Silents, this is an unmissable and memorable movie matinee experience.

See more at https://hexhamabbeyfestival.org.uk/