Booking opening soon for May screenings at Buckingham cinema The Film Place

Booking opens on May 1 for all May screenings at Buckingham’s independent cinema, The Film Place. No films are scheduled for Friday and Saturday, May 5 and 6.

In American science fiction horror film M3GAN on Friday, May 12, nine-year-old Cady loses her parents in a car accident and is sent to live with her aunt, a roboticist, at a Seattle high-tech toy company. But her aunt is covertly using the company's resources to develop M3GAN, a child-size AI powered robot which develops lethal intent towards anyone coming between her and Cady. Satisfying and psychologically compelling nightmares ensue.

Tom Hanks stars in the comedy drama A Man Called Otto on Saturday, May 13. When a lively young family moves in next door, grumpy widower Otto Anderson meets his match in quick-witted, pregnant Marisol, leading to an unlikely friendship that turns his world upside down. A heartwarming film in which Hanks’s son plays a younger version of Hanks himself.

Billed as a Hidden Gem, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom is on Friday, May 19. An aspiring singer living with his grandmother in the capital dreams of getting a visa to relocate to Australia.

This photogenic, emphatically feelgood film, set in an isolated mountain community in Bhutan, garnered such a warm global reception that it ended up nominated in last year’s Oscars – quite an achievement for the tiny Himalayan kingdom. Unashamedly and beautifully sentimental and visually stunning.

The Whale, on Saturday, May 20, stars Brendan Fraser as a reclusive, morbidly obese English teacher who struggles to connect with his students via video-calls, whilst dealing with his own past traumas. When friend and nurse Liz tells him that he is in danger of dying, he attempts to strike up a relationship with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption. Shocking at times but always profoundly compelling. A triumph of a film.

Kate Blanchett won the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Actress for her starring role in Tar on Friday, May 26. Lydia Tar, the passionate, demanding, autocratic conductor of a major German orchestra is at the height of her career. She is preparing both a book launch and a much-anticipated live performance of Mahler's Fifth Symphony. And then her life begins to unravel and several disturbing events make us increasingly uneasy and lead to a breathtaking, surrealistic and deranged climax during a performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto.

The historical drama Corsage, on Saturday, May 27, is in German and French with English subtitles. Empress Elisabeth of Austria, is renowned for her beauty and high fashion. But as she reaches her 40th birthday, the courtiers around her make their distaste for her intelligence and vitality clear by limiting her to a mere decorative role in the rigid protocols of the court. Amongst other humiliations, they insist on her appearing absurdly slim, by lacing her corset ever tighter. But her hunger for knowledge and zest for life make her restless enough to come up with a plan to protect her legacy. Atmospheric, funny and moving.

All films are screened in the lecture theatre at the Vinson Centre at 7.30pm. For full details and to book, visit The Film Place website.