This film was released on Friday 1st March 2015 and is no longer screening. 

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Advancing on the romantic themes and experimental techniques they had developed in The Red Shoes (1948), Powell and Pressburger once again cast the luminous Moira Shearer to feature prominently in their opulent Technicolor interpretation of Jacques Offenbach’s 1881 opera. These tales are told by a German poet E.T.A. Hoffman (Robert Rounseville), who, upon having his heart broken by the prima ballerina Stella, holes up in a tavern and tells three stories of amorous escapades to revellers there, recounting fables of love and sex that lead his audience on a fantastic flight of fancy through some of the most famous cities in Europe.

Newly restored by Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation and the BFI National Archive in association with STUDIOCANAL, The Tales of Hoffmann is a delirious, surreal spectacle and should rightly be considered one of the greatest films The Archers produced. (Notes by Michael Hayden)

Don’t forget we now schedule weekly.

★★★★★ The Guardian ★★★★★The Irish Times