The mission of the Maleny Film Society is to foster an appreciation of and an interest in the art of film by screening quality films to members in a range of genres and from a wide range of countries and cultures, and to promote stimulating social interaction by presenting films in a theatre restaurant atmosphere.

A Continuing Tradition...

The Class

(France) documentary/drama 130 minutes M
Winner Palme d'Or , Cannes Film Festival 2009
Based on an autobiographical novel by teacher Francois Begaudeau, this is the story of
Marin, a teacher in an ethnically diverse, inner-city Paris high school. Although a
dramatic fiction, the film has the energy of a documentary. Through a series of
extraordinarily perceptive sequences, it explores the daily details of school life as
Marin deals with adolescent behaviours, difficult parents and fellow teachers.
However, a heated exchange with one of his students spirals out of control, and brings
into question his classroom ethics. The film avoids the clichés of the redemptive
teacher and allows us to see Marin’s shortcomings as well as his strengths. It depicts
the delicate bond between teacher and student and the challenges for both in the
contemporary education system.

Doubt

(USA) drama 103 minutes M
This absorbing film pivots on the fraught relationship between Father Flynn
(Seymour-Hoffman) and Sister Aloysius (Streep), mother superior at the school
attached to the church. He's approachable, committed to the values of a liberal
education, a 20th-century man. She's a dragon, authoritarian, always seeing the
worst in people. After Sister James (Amy Adams), a naïve novice teacher, tells Sister
Aloysius there might be something amiss in Father Flynn's dealings with a socially
isolated black student (Joseph Foster), the older nun makes her move against him.
Streep and Hoffman match one another move for move, accelerating from shrewd
contempt until his urbanity is stripped away and her certainty has hardened into
implacability.

Summer Hours

(France) drama 103 mins M
This elegant film by writer-director Olivier Assayas is a reflection on family ties,
inheritance, the nature of loss and the meaning of objects. It tells of three
fortysomething
siblings whose divergent paths cross again when they gather in their family
home in the French countryside for the 75th birthday of their mother, Helene. She is
heiress to her uncle’s exceptional 19th century art collection, and her sudden death
requires her children to decide on what is to become of the house and its contents, a
process which reveals some telling differences amongst them. With subtlety and
restraint the film explores issues of attachment and sentiment