Menu
Purchase
Hard Truths

Hard Truths (12A)

Thursday 13 Feb 20252:30pm (HoH Subtitled Screening)5:00pm

Friend of The Riverside, Mike Leigh, returns with this uncompromising, yet heartfelt, portrait of contemporary family life in London.


Sisters Pansy and Chantal are chalk and cheese, but their close bond is the foundation that their extended family is built upon. Lately, life has proven too much for Pansy, her anguish manifests in relentless criticism of the world, leaving her husband Curtley, son Moses and Chantal walking on eggshells. Things come to a head over the course of a Mother’s Day weekend. Rarely have the nuances of familial relations been so accurately captured on screen. Working with regular collaborators Dick Pope (cinematography), Jacqueline Duran (costume design), Gary Yershon (music) and Suzie Davis (production design), Hard Truths ranks with Leigh’s finest films. Michelle Austin, David Webber and Tuwaine Barrett excel as members of the Pansy family. But in reuniting with Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets & Lies), audiences are treated to a performance so intimate in its details, it could almost be moments from a home movie.

War Paint: Women at War

War Paint: Women at War (TBC)

Thursday 13 Feb 20257:30pm (Closed)
From the writer, director and producer of Eric Ravilious: Drawn to War comes War Paint: Women at War

Margy Kinmonth's film asks: When it's life or death, what do women see that men don't? 

Kinmonth’s latest feature documentary WAR PAINT shines a light on the trailblazing role of women war artists, championing the female perspective on conflict through art. Today wars are raging globally - contemporary artists punch through to create a unique artistic legacy alongside the daily media feed. Working on the front line, in the midst of the conflict zone and crucially in its aftermath, official and unofficial women war artists document and expose, inspire and provoke, memorialise and heal.

Traditionally a male domain, war art by women has been largely unrecognised and undervalued. Until now… Kinmonth assembles key artistic female witnesses and survivors of war, filming internationally with some of the world’s top contemporary artists - to tell the truth to power.  

An entirely female cast of artists and contributors make this film a unique undertaking - telling vital stories in turbulent times.