Ralph Fiennes leads an excellent ensemble of new and established talent in this funny and moving First World War drama by beloved writer Alan Bennett.

A Yorkshire village’s choral society finds its ranks depleted as men head off to war. With the annual performance looming, the society is forced to change its entry rules to enlist some unlikely teens and the musically gifted but socially scandalous Dr. Guthrie. Brimming with humour and hope, Bennett and Nicholas Hytner’s (The Madness of King George, The Lady in the Van) latest triumph celebrates the power of community in the darkest of days.

Stanley's War (2018, Dir. Tim Curtis) dramatises stories of love, loss and sacrifice, following the lives of Suffolk people during WW1.The film recounts the true life-changing experiences at the Western Front of Stanley Banyard, a farm hand from Ramsholt, and how he saved the lives of his comrades lost in no-man's-land by using skills he learnt as a boy from a Suffolk gamekeeper. In contrast, the Pretty family of Ipswich (later of Sutton Hoo fame) suffer family tragedy.

The War Just Outside Ipswich (2020, Dir. Tim Curtis) For nearly two decades, Akenham’s purpose-built trench system has drawn filmmakers seeking to recreate the chaos of the First World War, from Downton Abbey and Journey’s End to Private Peaceful and the iconic Sainsbury’s Christmas advert. This fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary explores Suffolk’s own cinematic battlefield, where mud, history, and movie magic collide. 

Tim Curtis joined forces with manager Neil to make the film during Covid, and it has been updated in 2025. 

Following the screening there will be an on stage discussion with war historian Taff Gillingham of Khaki Devil and our manager, Neil.

The much-anticipated second part to last year’s global musical hit brings this chapter of Elphaba and Glinda’s adventures to a close. Now demonised as a wicked witch and living in exile, Elphaba desperately tries to pull back the curtains and reveal the truth about the Wizard, while Glinda has become the glamorous symbol of Goodness for all of Oz, living at the palace in Emerald City. Jon M. Chu’s fabulous worlds-creating blockbuster is a must for the UK’s largest screen.

Tickets on sale from 31st October

Fire Over Shingle Street—Fact, Fiction, or Propaganda?

A new documentary by Suffolk-based filmmaker Tim Curtis (Life on the Deben, Stanley's War) delves into one of Britain’s most persistent Second World War mysteries, asking: Has this enduring enigma been fully accounted for, or are there still unanswered questions?

For decades the Shingle Street ‘Mystery’ has divided the views of locals, journalists and historians alike with incredible and unexplained stories of the sea being set on fire, dead soldiers bodies on the beach and strange happenings in the night.

Was this remote stretch of Suffolk’s coast the site of a German invasion attempt? Did British forces set fire to the sea with petroleum weapons to repel the enemy? Or could it have been part of an elaborate wartime deception, designed to maintain national morale?

The film examines how the Suffolk coast was a hub of military secrecy—home to radar development and experimental weapons testing. Did these classified operations (with some still under wraps) combined with wartime propaganda help create the perfect conditions for rumours to fuel a wartime mystery?

The Shingle Street ‘Mystery’ gained renewed attention in the 1990s when the East Anglian Daily Times was contacted by an ‘MOD Whistleblower’ claiming to have a file—soon to be destroyed—detailing a horrific accident in which British soldiers had been killed in a training exercise.

The ensuing media frenzy led to the early release of classified documents from the National Archives at Kew. However, the files revealed little, sparking claims of a cover-up.

This gripping documentary takes viewers deep into Suffolk’s wartime history, and attempts to unravel a mystery that refuses to fade.

The Muppets perform the classic Christmas tale by Charles Dickens, the iconic Michael Caine playing Ebenezer Scrooge, with Kermit the Frog playing Bob Cratchit. Miss Piggy, Gonzo and Fozzie Bear take up supporting roles as Scrooge receives visits from the spirits of Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas future. The Spirits do everything in their power to show him the error of his ways and to help him find redemption and lasting happiness.

Screening as part of our 6 for £6 each Christmas Films Season

There have been many contenders over the past twenty years, but ELF is clearly the first and best classic Christmas movie of the 21st century.  Buddy, a human orphan raised by Santa’s elves at the North Pole, learns that his father is still alive and on the naughty list. Determined to save his father from such a fate, Buddy travels to New York City to meet him for the first time and inspire some Christmas spirit, but the Big Apple is very different from the North Pole. Can Buddy save his father from the naughty list, but more importantly, figure out where Buddy truly belongs?

Screening as part of our 6 for £6 Christmas Season

Federico Fellini returned to the provincial landscape of his childhood with this carnivalesque reminiscence, recreating his hometown of Rimini in Cinecittà’s studios and rendering its daily life as a circus of social rituals, adolescent desires, male fantasies, and political subterfuge. Sketching a gallery of warmly observed comic caricatures, Fellini affectionately evokes a vanished world haloed with the glow of memory, even as he sends up authority figures representing church and state, satirizing a country stultified by Fascism. Winner of Fellini’s fourth Academy Award for best foreign-language film, Amarcord remains one of the director’s best-loved creations, beautifully weaving together Giuseppe Rottuno’s colourful Technicolor cinematography, Danilo Donati’s extravagant costumes and sets, and Nino Rota’s nostalgia-tinged score.

Screening as part of our Around the World in Technicolor Season

Basel Adra, a young Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, has been fighting his community's mass expulsion by the Israeli occupation since childhood. Basel documents the gradual erasure of Masafer Yatta, as soldiers destroy the homes of families - the largest single act of forced transfer ever carried out in the occupied West Bank. He crosses paths with Yuval, an Israeli journalist, and for over half a decade they fight against the expulsion while growing closer.

This film, by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four young activists, was co-created during the darkest, most terrifying times in the region, as an act of creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice.

????? "Powerful Israel-Palestine documentary is essential viewing" - The Guardian

Berlinale Documentary Award and Panorama Audience Award for Best Documentary Film

Please note that this is a private screening for members of Woodbridge Film Society and not open to the public. If you wish to join the Film Society then please visit their page here

Last Swim follows Ziba (Deba Hekmat) as she holds her breath on A-level results day. Desperate to study astrophysics at university, she’s equally determined to make the first day of her adult life a day to remember. But when her tight-knit group of friends are joined in a cross-London all-day party by newcomer Malcolm (Denzel Baidoo), she must reckon with a darker truth that none of her friends have been brought into.

Last Swim’s plot has plenty of high-stakes elements, but it never strays into melodrama, aided by an impressive young cast – many of them new faces – who bring improvisational and lived-in quality to the performances. At the centre of this group is the wonderful Deba Hekmat, in a performance that makes her one to watch. As in her terrific supporting role as tearaway best friend in Luna Carmoon’s Hoard, Hekmat conveys a world of grand and petty frustrations in a single look. Giving specificity to Ziba’s Iranian-British roots (as well as crafting a genuine friendship group to surround her), first-time director Sasha Nathwani captures a day that will live on in nostalgia; at once quotidian and human-sized, but tinged with emotions that scream with galactic significance for those on the edge of adulthood.

Five-time Olivier Award winner Imelda Staunton (The Crown) joins forces with her real-life daughter Bessie Carter (Bridgerton) for the very first time, playing mother and daughter in Bernard Shaw’s incendiary moral classic.

Vivie Warren is a woman ahead of her time. Her mother, however, is a product of that old patriarchal order. Exploiting it has earned Mrs. Warren a fortune – but at what cost?

Filmed live from the West End, this new production reunites Staunton with director Dominic Cooke (Follies, Good), exploring the clash between morality and independence, traditions and progress.

At one of her lavish parties, celebrated Parisan courtesan Violetta is introduced to Alfredo Germont. The two fall madly in love, and though hesitant to leave behind her life of luxury and freedom, Violetta follows her heart. But the young couple’s happiness is short-lived, as the harsh realities of life soon come knocking.

As intimate as it is sumptuous, La traviata features some of opera’s most famous melodies, and is a star vehicle for its leading soprano role sung by Ermonela Jaho. In director Richard Eyre’s world of seductive grandeur, the tender and devastating beauty at the centre of Verdi’s opera shines bright.

Cast:  

Violetta Valéry ERMONELA JAHO

Alfredo Germont GIOVANNI SALA

Giorgio Germont ALEKSEI ISAEV

Annina VEENA AKAMA-MAKIA

Doctor Grenvil BARNABY REA

Flora Bervoix ELLEN PEARSON

Baron Douphol SAM HIRD

Gastone de Letorières GIORGI GULIASHVILI

Marquis d’Obigny OSSIAN HUSKINSON

Creatives:

Music GIUSEPPE VERDI

Conductor ANTONELLO MANACORDA

Director RICHARD EYRE

Designer BOB CROWLEY

Lighting Designer JEAN KALMAN

Director of Movement JANE GIBSON