Possession

MAC Birmingham is screening Possession on Saturday 31 October, just in time for Halloween. It's a 1981 film directed by Andrzej Żuławski, and it's one of those titles that's built up a bit of a reputation over the years as something you really have to see on a big screen to get the full effect.

Set in West Berlin, it follows an international spy named Mark, whose wife Anna abruptly asks for a divorce. As he starts digging into her secrets, he finds himself pulled into a reality that defies any logical explanation, all played out against the shadow of the Berlin Wall and the paranoia of the Cold War. It's described as one of the most tortured portraits of a disintegrating marriage ever put on screen, and that's not just marketing—the whole thing is built around the breakdown of a relationship, and it doesn't hold back on the intensity.

There's a personal side to it too. Żuławski drew on his own traumatic divorce and the fact that he'd been creatively blacklisted in his native Poland, so the film's obsession with betrayal and isolation comes from a real place. It's a foreign language film, so the screening is subtitled.

It runs for 2 hours and 19 minutes, starting at 5:00pm, with tickets from £11.95. If you're booking for more than one person, companion tickets are available for free once you've logged in.