Best Film Screenings in the North (15-22 July)

Carrie

Arguably the finest adaptation of a Stephen King novel (fans of The Shining might disagree), this is the film that helped a young Brian De Palma break into the mainstream. This story of a telekinetic teen (Sissy Spacek) who’s mercilessly bullied by her school chums (who include John Travolta and Nancy Allen) and demonised by her demented bible-thumping mother (Piper Laurie) gives De Palma the framework with which to explore his bravura style.

De Palma pulls out every trick in his playbook – slow motion, split screen, long takes and soft focus – but he also helps deliver three great performances (Spacek is heartbreaking; Laurie is terrifying; Allen is vicious) and some very funny moments before the grand guignol finale.

16 Jul, FACT, Liverpool, 9pm

The Deer Hunter

Paying tribute to the recently deceased Michael Cimino, the Cultivate Cinema crew are screening his most celebrated picture, 1978 Oscar-winner The Dear Hunter. Part of a wave of films in the 70s and 80s exploring the Vietnam war’s effect on American and its psyche, Cimino’s film follows group of Pennsylvania steelworkers before, during and after the war.

It’s a film filled with great acting (Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken’s performances are among their very best) and powerful scenes, including gut-wrenching sequences in which the Vietcong force their POWs to play Russian roulette. It’s a beautifully elegiac film too, and it’s Cimino’s quieter scenes that really linger.

17 Jul, Joshua Brooks, Manchester, 6pm (free)

Deep End

Part of HOME’s ongoing season curated by Nicolas Winding Refn, this is one of the great coming-of-age films. Chiefly set in a crumbling London Swimming Pool, it follows a gangly teen (John Moulder-Brown) who becomes dangerously infatuated with his older, more experienced female co-worker (Jane Asher).

It’s directed by the great Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski, a former boxer who got his start in film co-writing The Knife in the Water with Roman Polanski. The tone is a pleasant mixture of comic absurdity and Eastern European fatalism, with Skolimowski using striking colours and comic framing to create a distinctly skew-wiff take on puppy love. For our money, this is a contender for the greatest ever British film (we’ll ignore the fact that most of it was shot in Hamburg.)

17 Jul, HOME, Manchester, 6pm

Also screening in HOME's Nicolas Winding Refn Presents season this week: Man of Violence (15 Jul), Planet of the Vampires (16 Jul) and Only God Forgives (20 Jul). Read about the season here.

Wildwood, NJ (+ Dirty Girl)

Back in 1994, directors Carol Weaks Cassidy and Ruth Leitman took to the shores of Wildwood, NJ (the Jersey Shore of its day) in the height of summer with a Super 8 camera to take a snapshot of the Jersey girls who congregate there on the beaches and boardwalks. A couple of decades later they put the footage together for this joyous doc.

While there’s much fun to be had at looking back at the high hair, huge earrings and horrible fashion of early 90s Jersey, this collage of encounters is also an affectionate portrait of the romance, fistfights and fun had by teen girls over one wild and glorious summer. Director Ruth Leitman joins the audience by Skype following the film for a Q&A.

Part of Small Cinemas righteous 58% initiative, Wildwood, NJ is preceded by short Dirty Girls, which follows some zine-making teen riot girrls in LA. Before the screening there’s a day of zine-making happening at Small Cinema, kicking off from 12.45pm and headed up by the Salford Zine Library.

17 Jul, Liverpool Small Cinema, 6pm

Shoes

Lois Weber was one of cinemas first great auteurs, directing over 60 films in her career. “Nobody in the earliest years of the movies placed the camera as well as director Lois Weber,” said filmmaker and curator Mark Cousins. Unfortunately, Weber has been sorely neglected in the history of Hollywood and her films have rarely been shown over the years since her death in 1939.

Praise be, then, for Hyde Park Picture House's screening of of one of Weber’s best: 1916 drama Shoes, about a poverty-stricken shopgirl who supports her family of five. Film writer and researcher Ellen Cheshire, who contributed to the recently published book Silent Women - Pioneers of Cinema, will be on hand to introduce the film and discuss other unjustly forgotten female filmmakers of that era. Shoes is ccreening with a live musical accompaniment by Jonathan Best.

19 Jul, Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds, 6pm