Baltic Cinema: Together! Solidarity & Community on Screen
In response to our exhibition Close to Home, the films in this season all circle ideas of community and solidarity and ask key questions about the limits of each. They are rooted in stories of working-class lives, from across different countries and times, from Gateshead to Prague via Helsinki. They explore the most basic conditions of life – labour and housing – and the determination, integrity and compassion to fight the erosion of those conditions.
Thu 5 Nov | 18:30 Two Days, One Night (Deux jours, une nuit) (15)
Wed 19 Nov | 18:30 Panelstory, or How a Housing Development is Born (12)
Sat 5 Dec | 14:30 The Nothing Factory (adv 12)
Sat 23 Jan | 15:00 Play for Today: United Kingdom (adv 15)
Thu 4 Feb | 18:30 Drifting Clouds (PG)
Sat 6 Mar | 15:00 Chronicle of a Summer + Would You Like to Meet Your Neighbor? (adv 12)
Supported by Film Hub North with National Lottery funding on behalf of the BFI Film Audience Network
November 2026 – March 2027
£6 Full price / £4.50*
In response to our exhibition Close to Home, the films in this season all circle ideas of community and solidarity and ask key questions about the limits of each.
What makes a community? What brings people together and gives them common purpose? And just what is possible when that common purpose yields strength and resolve — to resist, to maintain, to survive?
Baltic Cinema is supported by Film Hub North with National Lottery funding on behalf of the BFI Film Audience Network
Two Days, One Night (Deux jours, une nuit) (15)
Thu 5 Nov | 18:30
(15) Dirs. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne Belgium / France 2014 / 1h 35m
Oscar winner Marion Cotillard received another nomination for her searing, deeply felt performance as a working-class woman desperate to hold on to her factory job, in this gripping film. A powerfully humane drama about the importance of community in an increasingly impersonal world.
Book now
Panelstory, or How a Housing Development is Born (adv 12)
Thu19 Nov | 18:30
(adv 12) Dir. Věra Chytilová Czechoslovakia / 1979 / 1hr 36mins
Věra Chytilová’s film depicts one day in that construction chaos through the eyes of a handful of people of various ages who must deal with the hodgepodge of permanently makeshift solutions in what was conceived as a ‘garden city’.
Book now
The Nothing Factory (adv 12)
Sat 5 Dec | 14:30
(adv 12) Dir. Pedro Pinho Portugal / 2017 / 2hr 57mins
One night, a group of workers realises that the administration is stealing machines and raw materials from their own factory. As they organise to survey the equipment and block the relocation of production, they are forced to stand at their posts with no work to do, as a form of retaliation, while negotiations over general lay-offs take place. The pressure leads to a breakdown of the workers along with the world around them.
Book now
Play for Today: United Kingdom (adv 15)
Sat 23 Jan | 15:00
(adv 15) Dir. Roland Joffé UK / 1981 / 2hr 26mins
This incendiary feature-length film from 1981, written by Jim Allen and directed by Roland Joffé and filmed in Dunston, just upriver of Baltic – exactly contemporary with, and a stone’s throw from Tish Murtha’s Elswick – tells the story of a group of housing estate residents who attempt to organise against persistent rent rises.
Book now
Drifting Clouds (PG)
Thu 4 Feb | 18:30
(PG) Dir. Aki Kaurismäki Finland / 1996 / 1hr 37mins
The ever-poker-faced Ilona loses her job as a restaurant hostess, as her tram driver husband, Lauri, also finds himself out of work. Together they must hit the streets of Helsinki, facing up to hardship and humiliation in their quest for survival, guided through the gloom by a ray of hope.
Tish Murtha & Kuba Ryniewicz: Close to Home
This landmark exhibition in Baltic’s Level 3 gallery marks the first time four major series by celebrated documentary photographer Tish Murtha will be shown together in the North East, alongside a newly commissioned body of work by Newcastle–based artist Kuba Ryniewicz.
