Skip to main content
Brief Encounter film image; woman leaning out a window towards a man

Brief Encounter

80th Anniversary

This event has passed

Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard meet by chance at a railway station (Milford Junction). Both are married and neither will stoop to impropriety. Yet there is an immediate attraction and a series of stolen lunch dates develops into one of the cinema’s most affecting love affairs. It was David Lean who hit on the flashback structure which takes Noel Coward’s one-act play out of the station, and for all the lovers’ stiff upper lip rectitude this is where the filmmaker’s romantic inclinations blossomed (Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No 2 does the rest). In a funny way it’s very In the Mood for Love, 1945 edition.

Nominated for three Academy Awards (Best Director, Best Actress and Best Screenplay) the film won the Grand Prix at Cannes. Today it is considered one of the greatest British films ever made.

Lean’s sad, buttoned-up account of unconsummated love is about all of us and our cautious natures.

Zadie Smith

One of the most vivid, impassioned and painfully believable love stories ever committed to celluloid.

Tom Huddleston, Time Out

Director

David Lean

Cast

Trevor Howard, Celia Johnson

Credits
Country of Origin

UK

Year

1945

Language

English

Awards

Grand Prix, Cannes

19+
87 min

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits

Producer

Noël Coward

Screenwriter

David Lean, Ronald Neame, Anthony Havelock-Allan

Cinematography

Robert Krasker

Editor

Jack Harris

Original Music

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2

Art Director

L. P. Williams

Also Playing

Rose

Dir. Aurélie Saada
102 min

Rose, 78 years old, has just lost her adored husband. When her grief gives way to a powerful impulse to live, making her realize that she can still redefine herself as a woman, the whole balance of the family is upset.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Thom Yorke's Tall Tales

Dir. Jonathan Zawada
65 min

Be among the first to experience Tall Tales, a collaboration between Thom Yorke, producer Mark Pritchard and visual artist Jonathan Zawada at 12:01 am at VIFF Centre.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

One to One: John and Yoko

Dir. Kevin Macdonald & Sam Rice-Edwards
100 min

Both a concert film (Madison Square Gardens, August 1972) and a time machine, dropping us into the dizzying political kaleidoscope of the early 1970s, Kevin Macdonald's latest documentary is a rewarding addition to Lennon Studies.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Marcella

Dir. Peter Miller
98 min

Marcella Hazan taught North Americans that there was more to Italian food than pizza and meatballs. She wrote what remains the definitive book on the subject (Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking). This is her story.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre