SESSION: Sunday 30th September at 7pm



The Red Shoes

(1948, dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, w/ Marius Goring, Jean Short, Gordon Littmann, Julia Lang)

Under the authoritarian rule of charismatic ballet impressario Boris Lermontov, his proteges realize the full promise of their talents, but at a price: utter devotion to their art and complete loyalty to Lermontov himself. Under his near-obsessive guidance, young ballerina Victoria Page is poised for superstardom, but earns Lermontov's scorn when she falls in love with Julian Craster, composer of "The Red Shoes," the ballet Lermontov is staging to showcase her talents. Vicky leaves the company and marries Craster, but still finds herself torn between Lermontov's demands and those of her heart. (IMDB)

FILM INFO 55555(Astor rating)

A Matter of Life and Death

(1946, dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, w/ David Niven, Kim Hunter, Robert Coote, Kathleen Byron)

A Matter of Life and Death will start at approximately 9:40pm, and finish at approximately 11:30pm.

Returning to England from a bombing run in May 1945, flyer Peter Carter's plane is damaged and his parachute ripped to shreds. He has his crew bail out safely, but figures it is curtains for himself. He gets on the radio, and talks to June, a young American woman working for the USAAF, and they are quite moved by each other's voices. Then he jumps, preferring this to burning up with his plane. He wakes up in the surf. It was his time to die, but there was a mixup in heaven. They couldn't find him in all that fog. By the time his "Conductor" catches up with him 20 hours later, Peter and June have met and fallen in love. This changes everything, and since it happened through no fault of his own, Peter figures that heaven owes him a second chance. Heaven agrees to a trial to decide his fate. (IMDB)

FILM INFO 4.054.054.054.05(IMDB rating)