Cinecenta Films

Cinecenta Films Everyone is welcome at Cinecenta! CINECENTA FILMS is located at Student Union Building, University Films that matter and deserve to been seen on the big screen.

CINECENTA FILMS is division of the non-profit University of Victoria Students' Society, conceived as an Inexpensive alternative for students, the university community and the public at large. Since 1971, Cinecenta has offered an eclectic mix of independent, documentary and international cinema, as well as the best of Hollywood, both contemporary and classic. Our cozy 300-seat theatre is equipped w

ith both 35mm film and digital projection with Dolby stereo sound. Cinecenta has a terrific Munchie Bar with baked goods and espresso drinks featuring Kicking Horse Coffee. Damn fine popcorn, too, with real butter.

05/29/2026

Agatha's Almanac
May 31 & June 1: 5:10 pm, 7:00 pm
Director Amalie Atkins will be live & in-person for a Q&A after the May 31 7pm show
The focus is solely on Atkins’s 90-year-old aunt Agatha Bock, who spends her highly ritualized days tending to her farm in southern Manitoba. There is no inciting incident or dramatic tension, unless you count Agatha’s long-time war on the bugs who ruin the crops dotting her 64-acre property. Mostly, the film simply follows Agatha from dawn till dusk, the charming subject occasionally reflecting on her life and offering poignant but not exactly mind-blowing pearls of wisdom. Atkins, a multidisciplinary artist, proudly doesn’t obey the almost obligatory rhythms of documentary filmmaking. There are no talking heads, no manufactured narrative momentum. And, blessedly, it avoids the too-crisp digital sheen of contemporary docs, with the director enlisting cinematographer Rhayne Vermette (who has another defiantly avant-garde film out this week with Dead Lover) to capture Agatha on 16mm film, the images so gritty in texture and saturated in colour that they feel unearthed from another era altogether. Age, this time, comes after beauty.-Globe & Mail

05/28/2026

The Christophers
May 29 & 30: 5:00 pm, 7:00 pm
96% Rotten Tomatoes
The two artists at the center of The Christophers are introduced not hunched over their easels, but slogging through the dreariness of the gig economy: Cantankerous elder statesman Julian Sklar (a riveting Ian McKellen) is recording half-hearted Cameos for fans, and should-be rising star Lori Butler (Michaela Coel) is running a food truck to offset the loss of her art restoration business. The creative spark of their unlikely partnership becomes the crux of Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, an art heist tale that grows into a refreshingly layered meditation on the messy interplay between artist, muse, and viewer. A potential ticket out of Lori’s artistic slump comes in the form of Julian’s grown children, art school nepo classmate Sallie (Jessica Gunning) and her equally entitled brother, Barnaby (James Corden). Her mission? Complete The Christophers, a series of famously unfinished masterpieces their father made of his lover in the 90s, so the siblings can rake in millions by selling the forgeries.-Chicago Reader

Everest DarkMay 27 & 28 5:10 pm, 7:00 pmThe enduring fascination of the world’s highest mountain is reframed in this d...
05/27/2026

Everest Dark
May 27 & 28 5:10 pm, 7:00 pm
The enduring fascination of the world’s highest mountain is reframed in this dutifully stirring documentary about a renowned Sherpa’s quest to honour the peak that his people refer to as Chomolungma or the “Mother Goddess of the World”. Having retired from climbing, Mingma Tsiri Sherpa returns once more; his hope is to restore balance by bringing down some of the 200 or so bodies of dead climbers and sherpas that remain on the slopes. Jereme Watt’s film combines the requisite breathtaking shots of majestic towering peaks with insights into the profound spiritual significance of Mount Everest to the devout Buddhist Sherpas. …It’s undeniably spectacular, but the most arresting shots are not the traditionally beautiful frames full of blue skies and frosted peaks. More striking are the scenes that show snaking queues of climbers, trudging into the dead zone to take their turn at the summit; the necklaces of lights as chains of mountaineers ascend by night when the ice is firmer.-Screen Daily

OmahaMay 26 5:10 pm, 7:00 pm91% Rotten TomatoesWhat starts as a family road trip across the American West ends in quiet...
05/25/2026

Omaha
May 26 5:10 pm, 7:00 pm
91% Rotten Tomatoes
What starts as a family road trip across the American West ends in quiet devastation. In between, “Omaha” now in theaters, speaks movingly about ties that don’t always bind. John Magara, one of the best actors anywhere, stars as Dad—his name isn’t mentioned—who wakes up his kids early one morning and announces a surprise road trip. Screenwriter Robert Machoian and debuting feature director Cole Webley like withholding things, so get used to it. Extracting details is like pulling teeth. “Pretend there’s a fire,” he tells his nine-year-old daughter Ella (a star-is-born Molly Belle Wright) and her younger brother Charlie (Wyatt Solis), while he hustles them into a rattletrap car—it always needs a push to start—along with golden retriever Rex. The mood is hardly festive—we see an eviction notice on the door as Dad drives away. Charlie looks excited in the back seat with Rex, but Ella—upfront with Dad—gets the feeling something is off. She’s right, about a lot of things.-Travers Take

05/24/2026

Omaha
May 26 5:10 pm, 7:00 pm
91% Rotten Tomatoes
What starts as a family road trip across the American West ends in quiet devastation. In between, “Omaha” now in theaters, speaks movingly about ties that don’t always bind. John Magara, one of the best actors anywhere, stars as Dad—his name isn’t mentioned—who wakes up his kids early one morning and announces a surprise road trip. Screenwriter Robert Machoian and debuting feature director Cole Webley like withholding things, so get used to it. Extracting details is like pulling teeth. “Pretend there’s a fire,” he tells his nine-year-old daughter Ella (a star-is-born Molly Belle Wright) and her younger brother Charlie (Wyatt Solis), while he hustles them into a rattletrap car—it always needs a push to start—along with golden retriever Rex. The mood is hardly festive—we see an eviction notice on the door as Dad drives away. Charlie looks excited in the back seat with Rex, but Ella—upfront with Dad—gets the feeling something is off. She’s right, about a lot of things.-Travers Take

05/23/2026

The Art of Adventure
May 24 & 25 5:10 pm, 7:00 pm
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!
The Art of Adventure is an inspiring and deeply human documentary about the extraordinary lifelong friendship between world renowned wildlife artist Robert Bateman and fearless biologist Bristol Foster. Through their epic 1957 journey around the world – armed with a 16mm camera and an artist’s brush – the film opens a vivid window onto a planet once wild and unscarred and a bond formed though curiosity, courage and love of nature. At it’s heart the film weaves together nature, art and activism showing how two very different men fought to protect the natural world: one thought art, the other through science. Now in their 90’s Bob and Bristol still find sanctuary in nature. Their story is a moving reflection on legacy, mortality and the wisdom of our elders – and a reminder that humanity and nature are inseparable. The Art of Adventure invites us to listen, to learn and to embrace life with curiosity, courage and heart.

05/21/2026

Sk+te’kmujue’katik: At the Place of Ghosts
May 22 & 23 5:10 pm, 7:00 pm
Two estranged brothers take a trip into the Canadian woodland and encounter the ghosts of the past in this atmospheric horror from Indigenous non-binary filmmaker Bretten Hannam. A member of Nova Scotia’s Mi’kmaw people, writer/director Hannam imbues their low-key chiller with enough cultural specificity to give it a voice in a crowded field, and it is further buoyed by unhurried pacing and strong performances. Mi’kmaw brothers Mise’l (Blake Alec Miranda) and Antle (Forrest Goodluck) were close as children but have since grown apart – Mise’l lives with his partner in the city, while Antle is raising his daughter in the suburbs. When Mise’l is visited one night by a dark, malevolent spirit, who evaporates into a cloud of leaves, he immediately recognises the apparition. The encounter is enough for him to persuade Antle to journey into the woodland near their childhood home and finally confront a long-buried secret.-Screen Daily

05/19/2026

Mother Mary
May 20 & 21 5:00 pm, 7:00 pm
Directed and written by David Lowery (“The Green Knight,” “A Ghost Story”), “Mother Mary” follows Hathaway as a pop star who, after abandoning her tour due to an existential crisis, seeks out an old friend and fashion designer, Sam (Coel), who helped craft her public persona. “Mother Mary” features original songs written by music heavyweights Jack Antonoff, Charli xcx and FKA Twigs, who also appears in the film. … In a Vogue cover story released in July, Hathaway said of her role, “What struck me right away, reading the script, is that you can’t ‘perform’ Mother Mary. If I got the part, I would have to become material David could craft with. … I had to submit to being a beginner. The humility of that — showing up every day knowing you’re going to suck. And it has to be okay. You’re not ‘bad.’ You’re just a beginner. Getting to that mindset — I had to shed some things that were hard to shed. It was welcome. But it was hard, the way transformational experiences can be hard.”-Variety

05/18/2026

Blow-Up
May 19 5:00 pm, 7:10 pm
Mod Movies Series
(Blow-Up) is about Thomas (David Hemmings), a photographer in Swinging Sixties London who accidentally takes a picture of a murder. Sort of: He’s photographed an amorous couple during a rendezvous in the park and, as he later looks through the images, he discovers, fuzzily hovering in the edges of his frame, a figure with a gun.-Village Voice

“An absolute must.”-Empire Magazine

Best in ShowMay 17 5:00 pm, 7:00 pmRemembering Catherine O’HaraThe scenario is simple: we follow the owners and handler...
05/16/2026

Best in Show
May 17 5:00 pm, 7:00 pm
Remembering Catherine O’Hara
The scenario is simple: we follow the owners and handlers of five dogs (a Weimaraner, Norwich terrier, bloodhound, Shih Tzu and standard poodle) headed for the prestigious Mayflower Dog Show in Philadelphia. The cast, which includes Parker Posey, co-writer Eugene Levy (as a man with two left feet), Catherine O’Hara, John Michael Higgins and Guest as a Southern bloodhound owner and aspiring ventriloquist, is uniformly wonderful.-Newsweek

“A wickedly funny mockumentary.”-Roger Ebert

Address

Student Union Bldg, 3800 Finnerty Road
Victoria, BC
V8P5C2

Telephone

+12507218365

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