Bring along some popcorn, a cushion and a friend to The Reach Gallery Museum Abbotsford on select Friday and Saturday nights during the summer to watch some great films. The Summer Film Series will feature big budget films like The Great Gatsby alongside foreign dramas like A Royal Affair. All of the films start at 7pm and are shown free of charge.
The seasonal film series at The Reach have been gaining popularity since being launched early last year. “We’ve had a lot of success with these films,” says Gabriel Kirkley, the coordinator of the series, “People really seem to appreciate being able to see films in Abbotsford that you might not otherwise be able to see on a bigger screen. Plus, you can’t complain about the price.”
On June 28, The Reach kicked off the series with the quirky film, Moonrise Kingdom. Set on an island off the coast of New England in the summer of 1965, it tells the story of two 12-year-olds who fall in love, make a secret pact, and run away together into the wilderness. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay this year.
This will be followed on July 13 by the 2009 film Moon starring Sam Rockwell, tying in with the Sith Happens @ The Reach event earlier in the day. Moon shows astronaut Sam Bell experiencing a quintessentially personal encounter toward the end of his three-year stint on the Moon.
A Royal Affair, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (Denmark) at this year’s Oscars, will be shown on July 26. It details the life of the young queen Caroline Matilda who, while married to the insane king Christian VII of Denmark, secretly falls in love with her physician and starts a revolution that changes her nation forever.
Tying in with the Abbotsford Airshow, on August 9 The Reach will be showing the classic war aviation movie Tora! Tora! Tora! about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Lauded as one of the most accurate war movies of all time, it shows the event from both sides with “almost perfect documentary accuracy.”
On August 16, The Great Gatsby will be up on the big screen at The Reach. This new adaptation of the classic F. Scott Fitzgerald novel stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby, Carry Mulligan as Daisy and Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway. Come dressed in costume to win great prizes – more details at thereach.ca.
Finally, the series ends on August 23 with War Witch, a Canadian-made film about a girl in sub-Saharan Africa who is kidnapped by rebels and forced to join their civil war. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film (Canada) and won the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actor at the 2013 Canadian Screen Awards. Stay afterwards for a dialogue with Project Interfaith of Abbotsford Community Services.
Call 604-864-8087 or email info@thereach.ca for more information about the Summer Film Series. The Reach is located at 32388 Veterans Way, Abbotsford.