Empire of Light

Award Winning films from Cornwall Film Festival

Empire of Light |  Dir Sam Mendes |  2022  |  UK  |  Drama/Romance |  1h 53m

Following his BAFTA Best Film winner 1917, Sam Mendes returns with this majestic, personal work, set in a 1980s English coastal town.

Set in an English seaside town in the early 1980s, Hilary (Olivia Colman) manages a seafront picture palace. Once an opulent multiscreen cinema with a dance hall overlooking the sea, now only one screen remains open, albeit a grand one. In preparation for a regional premiere of Chariots of Fire, Hilary and her colleagues – played by a heavyweight ensemble that includes Toby Jones, Colin Firth, Tom Brooke and Micheal Ward – spruce up the venue. Outside, the town itself is crumbling, with a rising far-right presence and Stephen (Ward) regularly harassed by skinheads. Mendes delivers a stirring ode to the cinema – as a…