Gerakbudaya Bookshop - Penang

01/05/2026

TWELVE YEARS A BOOKSHOP

It was twelve years ago, on May Day 2014, that we opened the original, small bookshop on Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling. Anwar Fazal planted a coconut that has grown into a fine palm. Hameer Zawawi played a beautiful set of music. Hong turned up wearing shoes that must have last been seen in an Ottoman seraglio. We had a party. And we welcomed our first customers.

A lot has happened since then. The small bookshop is no more, shuttered in 2022, a victim of the Covid pandemic. But the bookshop on the ground floor of Hikayat survives. The past six years in particular have been tough (as has been the case for so many independent bookshops). Be we're still here. And grateful to everyone who has supported us, in small ways and large.

A luta continua.

01/05/2026

TALK and FILM SCREENING| LIANG SONG HORNG | THE FUTURE OF THE MALAYAN TIGER | 9 MAY 2026, 7.00pm

We are delighted to invite you to special talk by Liang Song Horng of Pelindung Alam Malaysia (PELINDUNG), one of the leading tiger conservation NGOs in the country. The event will also feature the Apple TV+ documentary film, The Wild Ones: Malayan Tigers, that covers the work of conservation.

Here are the details for your diary.

Talk and Screening: The Future of the Malayan Tiger
Dates: Saturday 9 May 2026, 7.00pm

Free admission
Refreshments will be served

➽ The talk

In this compelling session, Liang Song Horng, the executive director and co-founder of PELINDUNG, takes you to the frontlines of wildlife conservation. He unpacks the stark realities discovered during the first national tiger survey (2017–2020) and highlights how cutting-edge, science-based initiatives over the past few years are revolutionising the conservation landscape in peninsular Malaysia—benefiting not just the Malayan tiger but the entire ecosystem it sustains. Horng shares the reasons why data-backed actions and empowering local Orang Asli communities are our absolute best hope for reversing extinction. He also outlines a visionary roadmap for the next decade, inviting philanthropists, stakeholders and everyday people to invest in a legacy that saves Malaysia’s national symbol.

➽ The speaker

Liang Song Horng is a founder of PELINDUNG with over two decades of field expertise in wildlife conservation. His journey began as an undergraduate when he served as a field assistant for Malaysia’s first-ever camera-trap tiger research project in Taman Negara. After earning a degree in Canada and returning to Malaysia, Horng conducted undercover investigations into the illegal wildlife trade with TRAFFIC Southeast Asia. He subsequently spent nearly eight years managing tiger, prey and Asian elephant conservation programmes in the Endau Rompin Landscape for the Wildlife Conservation Society. Horng established PELINDUNG in 2016 to elevate and expand homegrown wildlife conservation capacity in Malaysia.

➽ PELINDUNG
https://www.linkedin.com/company/pertubuhan-pelindung-alam-malaysia-pelindung
https://www.facebook.com/pelindungalammalaysia
https://www.instagram.com/pelindungalammalaysia/

➽ The film
The Apple TV+ documentary film, The Wild Ones: Malayan Tigers (2025, 49 mins), focuses on the critically endangered Malayan tiger and the urgent fight to save the remaining tigers. The film features rare footage of tigers in Taman Negara, and showcases the dreadful impact of snares, habitat loss and poaching. More than anything, it offers insights into what can be done as a powerful catalyst for action

Hikayat
226 Lebuh Pantai
George Town
10300 Penang

T: 04 261 9001 (Hikayat)
04 261 8001 (Gerakbudaya Bookshop @ Hikayat)
E: [email protected]

30/04/2026

KAKI KINO | MAY 2026 | HISTORY, THEN AND NOW

A new month is upon us and that means a new Kaki Kino mini-season for May, with four award-winning films under the theme History, Then and Now. We begin with Alan Bennett’s new film, directed by Nicholas Hytner, The Choral: a quiet and consistent pleasure. The film is about men in a fictional Yorkshire town during the First World War who are variously too old or too young to fight, and the women who have to deal with the menfolk’s repressed emotions and their own. Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon is a witty, heartbreaking chamber piece that tells the story of the Broadway lyricist just after his split from Richard Rodgers; Ethan Hawke is terrific. Annemarie Jacir’s Palestine 36 is an emotionally stirring drama that follows a year of brutal conflict in the Middle East with a huge cast of characters caught up in the turmoil. It’s a vehement reminder of what doesn’t get taught in history. Completing the theme of historical drama that resonates today, James Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg is a chronicle of the events leading up to the Nuremberg trials. It’s an old-fashioned and satisfyingly complex morality tale in the guise of a courtroom drama and spy thriller, a tale that conveys the legal nightmare of holding the perpetrators of genocide to account in impressive style.

The screenings on Tuesday and Wednesday are at 6.00pm, while the Thursday screenings take place at 6.30pm.

Here are the details for your diary.

➭ Tuesday 5 May 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Wednesday 6 May 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Thursday 7 May 2026 | 6.30pm

The Choral
Dir. Nicholas Hytner | UK | 2025 | 113 mins
starring Ralph Fiennes, Roger Allam, Mark Addy

A choral society’s male members enlist in the First World War, leaving the demanding Dr Guthrie to recruit teenagers. Together, they experience the joy of singing while the young boys grapple with their impending conscription into the army.

Winner, Best Production Design, British Film Designers Guild Awards

★★★★★
‘A moving account of music as a way of coping with war, as well as keeping it at bay.’ — Glenn Kenny, New York Times

★★★★★
‘This wintry tale of art blooming in adversity is far from a schematic feel-good jaunt … it’s an anthem for doomed youth in a familiar Bennett key: wry, melancholic, sneakily profound.’ — Robbie Collin, The Telegraph

➭ Tuesday 12 May 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Wednesday 13 May 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Thursday 14 May 2026 | 6.30pm

Blue Moon
Dir. Richard Linklater | USA | 2025 | 100 mins
starring Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Scott

On the evening of 31 March 1943, the legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart confronts his shattered self-confidence in Sardi’s bar as his former collaborator Richard Rodgers celebrates the opening night of his ground-breaking hit musical Oklahoma!.

Winner, Best Supporting Actor, Berlin International Film Festival
Winner, Best Original Screenplay, Boston Society of Film Critics Awards

★★★★★
‘Blue Moon … is a romantic, funny, moving, life-affirming chamber piece that is itself a great example of a three-way creative collaboration – between director Richard Linklater, writer Robert Kaplow and actor Ethan Hawke.’ — Lee Marshall, Screen Daily

★★★★★
‘The way to enjoy Blue Moon – and I think it’s terrifically enjoyable, despite the bright thread of melancholy running down the middle – is to settle into the theatricality, especially Hawke’s performance.’ — Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times

➭ Tuesday 19 May 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Wednesday 20 May 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Thursday 21 May 2026 | 6.30pm

Palestine 36
Dir. Annemarie Jacir | Palestine | 2025 | 120 mins
with English sub-titles
starring Hiam Abbass, Kamel El Basha, Yasmine Al Massri, Jeremy Irons

Palestine, 1936. The uprising that took on an empire. As villages across Mandatory Palestine rise against British colonial rule, Yusuf drifts between his rural home and the restless energy of Jerusalem, longing for a future beyond the growing unrest. But history is relentless. With rising numbers of Jewish immigrants escaping antisemitism in Europe, and the Palestinian population uniting in the largest and longest uprising against Britain’s 30-year dominion, all sides spiral towards inevitable collision in a decisive moment for the British Empire and the future of the entire region.

Winner, Best International Film, São Paulo International Film Festival
Winner, Best Film, Tokyo International Film Festival

★★★★★
‘If Palestine 36 is indeed a filmic history lesson, it’s one worth sitting through. That a traditionally realized historical drama with impeccable production value and consistently effective performances centers the Palestinian perspective makes for an essential endeavor.’ — Carlos Aguilar, RogerEbert

★★★★★
‘This is a story of national identity and resistance with contemporary resonance, but it’s also a classic genre movie, its historical tapestry populated by a strong ensemble of screen stars as well as impressive newcomers.’ — Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter

➭ Tuesday 26 May 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Wednesday 27 May 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Thursday 28 May 2026 | 6.30pm

Nuremberg
Dir. James Vanderbilt | USA | 2025 | 148 mins
starring Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Leo Woodall

The Allies, led by the unyielding chief prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, have the task of ensuring the N**i regime answers for the unveiled horrors of the Holocaust while a US Army psychiatrist is locked in a dramatic psychological duel with former Reichsmarschall Herman Göring.

Winner, Best Film, San Sebastián International Film Festival
Winner, Audience Choice Award, Heartland International Film Festival

★★★★★
‘Rami Malek and Russell Crowe lead a cast of actors doing excellent work in this large scale, old school ensemble piece.’ — Odie Henderson, Boston Globe

★★★★★
‘Well-paced, expertly performed, and an urgent call to stand up to fascism, Nuremberg is a powerful, sweeping story of the attempt to bring an unthinkable evil to justice.’ — Barry Levitt, Empire

Screenings and refreshments | RM15
Advanced booking is essential

Hikayat
226 Lebuh Pantai
George Town
10300 Penang

T: 04 261 9001 (Hikayat)
04 261 8001 (Gerakbudaya Bookshop @ Hikayat)
E: [email protected]

20/04/2026

KAKI KINO | THE THINGS YOU KILL
TUESDAY and WEDNESDAY at 6.00pm | THURSDAY at 6.30pm

We continue our 'Awakenings' mini-season with an excellent film from Turkey, directed by Alireza Khatami. Haunted by the suspicious death of his ailing mother, a university professor coerces his enigmatic gardener to execute a cold-blooded act of vengeance on his abusive father, plunging him into a surreal nightmare regarding memory, masculinity and identity.

Winner, Best Director, Sundance Film Festival

Hikayat
226 Lebuh Pantai
George Town
10300 Penang

T: 04 261 9001 (Hikayat)
04 261 8001 (Gerakbudaya Bookshop @ Hikayat)
E: [email protected]

138 likes, 12 comments. "The Things You Kill | Official Trailer"

14/04/2026

KAKI KINO | KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
TUESDAY and WEDNESDAY at 6.00pm | THURSDAY at 6.30pm

This week's film in our AWAKENINGS mini-season is Martin Scorsese's epid KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone. At the turn of the 20th century, oil brought a fortune to the Osage Nation, who became some of the richest people in the world overnight. Their wealth immediately attracted white interlopers, who manipulated, extorted and stole as much Osage money as they could before resorting to murder. Based on a true story, Killers of the Flower Moon is an epic western crime saga, where real love crosses paths with unspeakable betrayal.

★★★★★
‘A tremendous but chilling achievement from one of America’s great storytellers.’ — David Sims, The Atlantic

Hikayat
226 Lebuh Pantai
George Town
10300 Penang

T: 04 261 9001 (Hikayat)
04 261 8001 (Gerakbudaya Bookshop @ Hikayat)
E: [email protected]

Killers of the Flower Moon is “Scorsese’s most innovative and best movie in decades." Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Lily Gladstone. Watch K...

28/03/2026

KAKI KINO | AWAKENINGS | APRIL 2026

You are warmly invited to Kaki Kino’s mini-season for April, with five award-winning films under the theme Awakenings. We begin with Urška Djukić’s Little Trouble Girls, an utterly absorbing Slovenian debut reinvents the cliched idea of a Catholic girl’s sexual awakening, and proves that no teacher can be as cruel as a music teacher. Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s Cactus Pears offers an affecting culture clash between tradition and modernity, rural and urban, heteronormativity and queerness, with an unhurried deliverance that inspires moments of overwhelming beauty. Killers of the Flower Moon, directed by Martin Scorsese, is remarkable epic about the bloody birth of modern America – one of his finest films. Alireza Khatami’s The Things You Kill is a taut Turkish thriller, in which a literary professor unravels when his mother dies in mysterious circumstances. We conclude with Zach Cregger’s Weapons, a deep exploration of family life in the suburbs, with a talented cast of actors bringing depth to each character.

The screenings on Tuesday and Wednesday are at 6.00pm, while the Thursday screenings take place at 6.30pm.

Here are the details for your diary.

➭ Tuesday 31 March 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Wednesday 1 April 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Thursday 2 April 2026 | 6.30pm

Little Trouble Girls
Dir. Urška Djukić | Slovenia | 2025 | 90 mins
with English sub-titles
starring Jara Sofija Ostan, Mina Švajger, Saša Tabaković

At her mother’s urging, introverted 16-year-old Lucia joins her Catholic school’s all-girls choir, where she befriends Ana-Maria, a popular older student. When the choir travels to a countryside convent for a weekend retreat of intensive rehearsals, Lucia navigates the unfamiliar surroundings, complex teenage social structures, and her own awakening sexuality. A series of initiations test Lucia’s friendship with Ana-Maria and the other girls, as she begins to question her beliefs and disrupt the harmony within the choir.

Winner, FIPRESCI Prize, Berlin International Film Festival
Winner, Best Cinematography, Tribeca Film Festival

★★★★★
‘This is an utterly absorbing and outstandingly acted film.’ — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

★★★★★
‘With superb performances across the board … and an adventurous use of visual and aural elements, Djukić has conjured an alluring fusion of spiritual awakening and adolescent confusion.’ — Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter

➭ Tuesday 7 April 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Wednesday 8 April 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Thursday 9 April 2026 | 6.30pm

Cactus Pears
Dir. Rohan Parashuram Kanawade | India | 2025 | 112 mins
with English sub-titles
starring Bhushaan Manoj, Suraaj Suman

Anand, a 30-something city dweller compelled to spend a 10-day mourning period for his father in the rugged countryside of western India, tenderly bonds with a local farmer struggling to stay unmarried. As the mourning ends, forcing his return, Anand must decide the fate of his relationship.

Winner, Best Film, Guadalajara International Film Festival
Winner, Special Jury Award, San Francisco International Film Festival

★★★★★
‘It eventually takes on radiant form, with emotional complexities born out of characters walking around the truth, if only because euphemisms are the only language they have.’ — Siddhant Adlakha, Variety

★★★★★
‘While the film centers on the comfort Anand finds with Balya and vice versa, it is also an elegantly reserved study of Anand’s grief, finding a rhythm in its scenes of ritual that allows us to ache alongside.’ — Natalia Winkelman, New York Times

➭ Tuesday 14 April 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Wednesday 15 April 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Thursday 16 April 2026 | 6.30pm

Killers of the Flower Moon
Dir. Martin Scorsese | USA | 2023 | 206 mins
starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone

At the turn of the 20th century, oil brought a fortune to the Osage Nation, who became some of the richest people in the world overnight. Their wealth immediately attracted white interlopers, who manipulated, extorted and stole as much Osage money as they could before resorting to murder. Based on a true story, Killers of the Flower Moon is an epic western crime saga, where real love crosses paths with unspeakable betrayal.

Winner, Best Film, Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
Winner, Best Film, National Board of Review

★★★★★
‘DiCaprio and De Niro are brilliant, but it is relative unknown Lily Gladstone who is truly extraordinary.’ — Clarisse Loughrey, The Independent

★★★★★
‘A tremendous but chilling achievement from one of America’s great storytellers.’ — David Sims, The Atlantic

➭ Tuesday 21 April 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Wednesday 22 April 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Thursday 23 April 2026 | 6.30pm

The Things You Kill
Dir. Alireza Khatami | Turkey, Canada | 2025 | 114 mins
with English sub-titles
starring Ekin Koç Erkan, Kolçak Köstendil, Hazar Ergüçlü

Haunted by the suspicious death of his ailing mother, a university professor coerces his enigmatic gardener to execute a cold-blooded act of vengeance on his abusive father, plunging him into a surreal nightmare regarding memory, masculinity and identity.

Winner, Best Screenplay, Cairo International Film Festival
Winner, Best Director, Sundance Film Festival

★★★★★
‘This film is about the contagious power of storytelling — which includes lying and self-deception — and what a potentially lethal device it can be in the wrong or even right hands.’ — Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire

★★★★★
‘In its bold aesthetic courage and rigid thematic spine, Khatami’s movie is a full-body experience that leaves you fully alive.’ — Barry Hertz, Globe and Mail

➭ Tuesday 28 April 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Wednesday 29 April 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Thursday 30 April 2026 | 6.30pm

Weapons
Dir. Zach Cregger | USA | 2025 | 128 mins
starring Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Amy Madigan

When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.

Winner, Best Supporting Actress, Academy Awards
Winner, Best Supporting Actress, Critics Choice Awards

★★★★★
‘An innovative and intriguing plot, credible characters with edgy relationships navigating increasingly insane situations, plus jokes and scares built up with care or blasted out of disruptive nowhere with equal effectiveness — it’s all here, and even better.’ — Bob Strauss, San Francisco Chronicle

★★★★★
‘A hugely accomplished horror achievement: tense, sad, hilarious, unsettling, ridiculously entertaining, and ultimately oddly uplifting.’ — John Nugent, Empire

Screenings and refreshments | RM15
Advanced booking is essential

Hikayat
226 Lebuh Pantai
George Town
10300 Penang

T: 04 261 9001 (Hikayat)
04 261 8001 (Gerakbudaya Bookshop @ Hikayat)
E: [email protected]

24/03/2026

KAKI KINO | HAMNET
TUESDAY and WEDNESDAY at 6.00pm | THURSDAY at 6.30pm

This is one of the film highlights of the year ... and yes, Jessie Buckley is amazing.

After her son Hamnet dies, aged eleven, Agnes Shakespeare is struck with intense grief. As she mourns with her husband William, the pair struggle to come to terms with the frailty of life and the ruthlessness of the plague. Set in 16th-century England, Agnes, a healer by trade, must find a way to move on with her life and provide for her other children.

Wednesday's screening is full. We still have places for tonight (Tuesday) and Thursday.

Hikayat
226 Lebuh Pantai
George Town
10300 Penang

T: 04 261 9001 (Hikayat)
04 261 8001 (Gerakbudaya Bookshop @ Hikayat)
E: [email protected]

"A monumental cinematic experience." Watch the official trailer for HAMNET, winner of the 2025 TIFF People's Choice Award. Starring Jessie Buckley and Paul M...

06/03/2026

ARTIST'S TALK | KIT CHAN | BOND OR BOUND

Come along on Saturday evening to the opening of our new exhibition – Bond or Bound, with photographs by Kit Chan.

Here are the details for your diary.

Opening and Artist’s Talk: Saturday 7 March 2026, 7.00pm

Your chance to see the artworks and meet the artist. Kit will be in conversation with Gareth.

Free admission
Refreshments will be served

The exhibition will then run until Sunday 12 April 2026
Venue: Hikayat, 226 Lebuh Pantai, 10300 George Town, Penang

01/03/2026

ARTIST'S TALK AND EXHIBITION | KIT CHAN | BOND OR BOUND

We are delighted to invite you to our new exhibition – Bond or Bound by Kit Chan.

Here are the details for your diary.

Opening and Artist’s Talk: Saturday 7 March 2026, 7.00pm

Your chance to see the artworks and meet the artist. Kit will be in conversation with Gareth.

Free admission
Refreshments will be served

The exhibition will then run until Sunday 12 April 2026
Venue: Hikayat, 226 Lebuh Pantai, 10300 George Town, Penang

➽ The exhibition

City life has dulled our ability to sense the old communion between humans and animals. For thousands of years, there was a profound, often spiritual, connection that helped create shared, meaningful experiences. There is plentiful evidence that companion animals can fill important existential needs of humans. And many societies have sought unity with animal spirits via their ritual beliefs for strength and wisdom.

Rapid urbanisation just about everywhere has profoundly changed this communion. Few children now grow up with grass underfoot or the smell of dung in the air, with days shaped by the needs of the land and seasonal rhythms rather than schedules seemingly set in stone. In chasing supposedly higher forms of work and progress, humans have loosened their grip on a relationship that was once instinctive, visceral and unavoidable.

Asia has followed the same developmental trajectory, which has accelerated with unparalleled intensity across recent decades. Across some of the world’s fastest-growing nations, vast swathes of land have been traded for megacities. For the first time in history, over half the world’s population lives in urban areas. It’s a process that causes biodiversity loss, climate crisis, widespread pollution and the diminution of animal habitats. This is the Anthropocene.

And yet Nature does possess the remarkable capacity to adapt. Beyond sprawling cities, the Asian landmass still carries fissures where modernity hesitates, where progress sprouts unevenly, like mushrooms after rain. And even in these urban spaces, many species have adapted their behaviours to exploit these new environments, so that there is a new (sometimes tense) cohabitation and a greater appreciation of urban biodiversity.

It is into these spaces that Kit Chan steps, camera in hand, guided by curiosity and concern rather than conquest or cruelty. Her work searches for something elemental: the fragile, evolving bond between the creatures that give the planet its pulse and the ways development has reshaped human–animal relationship once rooted in necessity.

That bond no longer revolves solely around survival. It has transformed into something more conflicted—human desire set against animal instinct, power balanced uneasily against dependence. Across generations, geographies and moments in time, this kinship stretches, frays and sometimes tears. Are we bonded to the animals we share space with or are they bound by us? When does care slide into control, coexistence into exploitation, and where should the line be drawn?

The images in Bond or Bound do not offer answers so much as quiet confrontations and intimate revelations. Through irony, humour and restraint, Kit Chan has created a visual narrative essential for interrogating what human–animal relations mean today. She captures moments that reveal the uneasy balance between development, modernity and the struggle to preserve life’s most basic meanings, between the wild and the tame, as they play out on the streets and in the overlooked corners of a changing Asia.

➽ The Photographer | Kit Chan

Born in Bukit Mertajam, Kit Chan is a Penang-based freelance photographer who traded a career as a Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking tour guide for the world of long-term travel and photography.

In 2012 Kit embarked on her first truly epic journey—an overland trip from Singapore to Europe, mostly hitchhiking and sleeping in a tent by the roadside, loosely following in reverse Marco Polo’s famous travels in the late thirteenth century. And she took photographs at every step along the way. Many of the images she captured on that trip with her husband, the Italian travel writer and journalist Marco Ferrarese, illustrate the book The Travels of Marco Yolo (2016).

Kit has never looked back. For the past fourteen years, she has maintained that travel bug and captured images in over sixty countries across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Central and South America.

When Kit travels, she is interested in observing what people around her do naturally, and her goal is to document the local life as she sees it—without filters. From snapping photos of novice monks at India’s largest Buddhist monastery in Tawang to the Mongolian camel herders she met in the Gobi desert or chasing alien-like tarsiers in Sulawesi, Kit has captured the difference and breadth of the world—Asia in particular—with stubborn authenticity.

Kit’s photography has appeared in international magazines, including some of the world’s landmark travel publications such as Lonely Planet, BBC Travel, CNN Travel, Rough Guides, Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia, the South China Morning Post, AirAsia’s Travel 3Sixty, the Guardian and NIKKEI Asia. In 2021 Kit also worked as a photographer for Médecins Sans Frontiéres, documenting the organisation’s work with the immigrant Rohingya community in Butterworth, Malaysia, for their promotional leaflets and image bay.

This is Kit’s second solo photography exhibition after her successful Women on the Road (2024), a collection of a dozen gripping images of a quiet female power she captured across the highways and byways of Asia.

The artworks from the exhibition will be on sale.

Hikayat
226 Lebuh Pantai
George Town
10300 Penang

T: 04 261 9001 (Hikayat)
04 261 8001 (Gerakbudaya Bookshop @ Hikayat)
E: [email protected]

28/02/2026

KAKI KINO | MARCH 2026 | CONFRONTING LOSS

You are warmly invited to Kaki Kino’s mini-season for March, with four award-winning films under the theme Confronting Loss, with a focus on how danger and grief impact on people’s responses. We begin with Brian Kirk’s Dead of Winter, in which Emma Thompson as Barb plays a good-natured Minnesota widow bringing her charm – and her gun – to tackle some concentrated nastiness. We follow this with Bugonia from Yorgos Lanthimos (director of Poor Things and The Favourite), a scaldingly topical kidnap thriller in which the fanatical Teddy (Jesse Plemons) abducts Stone’s dead-eyed corporate ice queen (Emma Stone). We change tack with a heartfelt film from Italy, Gabriele Fabbro’s Trifole, set in truffle-hunting landscape of Piedmont – a profound reflection on traditions as people’s stories, connecting them to their ancestors, to this patch of ground. We conclude with Chloé Zhao’s poignant adaption of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel Hamnet, a reimagining of the lives of Shakespeare’s family, with a finale of transcendent catharsis.

The screenings on Tuesday and Wednesday are at 6.00pm, while the Thursday screenings take place at 6.30pm.

Here are the details for your diary.

➭ Tuesday 3 March 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Wednesday 4 March 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Thursday 5 March 2026 | 6.30pm

Dead of Winter
Dir. Brian Kirk | UK, Ireland | 2025 | 118 mins
starring Emma Thompson, Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca

Hit by a blizzard, a grief-stricken Barb gets lost among backroads near a Minnesotan lake and stops for help at a remote cabin in the woods. Here she discovers a young woman kidnapped by a desperate couple who are armed and intent on murder. Isolated and without cell service, this unlikely hero realises she is the woman’s only hope of survival.

Nominee, Audience Award, Locarno Film Festival
Nominee, Audience Award, Warsaw International Film Festival

★★★★★
‘The Dead of Winter has an old-school barnstorming brashness, some edge-of-the-seat tension, a mile-wide streak of sentimentality, a dash of broad humour and a horrible flourish of the macabre.’ — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

★★★★★
‘A thrillingly tense game of kill-or-be-killed.’ — Kevin Maher, The Times

➭ Tuesday 10 March 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Wednesday 11 March 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Thursday 12 March 2026 | 6.30pm

Bugonia
Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos | USA | 2025 | 118 mins
starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis

Two conspiracy obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.

Winner, Green Drop Award, Venice Film Festival
Winner, Best Actress, Irish Film and Television Awards
Nominated for 4 Academy Awards

★★★★★
‘Stone and Plemons prove ideal co-conspirators, with carefully balanced performances that have them taking turns as hero and villain without ever quite annihilating our sympathies or winning them outright.’ — Robbie Collin, The Telegraph

★★★★★
‘It’s a serious message delivered in typically entertaining Lanthimos style and hammered home via a bravura climax which manages to be both gonzo and gut-wrenching in equal measure.’ — Nikki Baughan, Screen Daily

➭ Tuesday 17 March 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Wednesday 18 March 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Thursday 19 March 2026 | 6.30pm

Trifole
Dir. Gabriele Fabbro | Italy | 2024 | 101 mins
with English sub-titles
starring Ydalie Turk, Umberto Orsini, Margherita Buy

In Italy’s Piedmont region, aging truffle hunter Igor faces failing health and the loss of his family home. When his aimless granddaughter Dalia arrives from London to care for him, their strained reunion transforms as she embarks on a quest for a legendary truffle that could change both their lives.

Winner, Honorary Award, Castellinaria International Festival of Young Cinema
Winner, International Prize, Il Festival N**ionale del Doppiaggio Voci nell’Ombra

★★★★★
‘Knowledge is passed down literally—recipes, sewing patterns, hand-drawn truffle maps—but also symbolically; myths, fables, fairy tales. You can’t put a price on any of it, and that, ultimately, is what Trifole is all about.’ — Sheila O’Malley, RogerEbert

★★★★★
‘Yes, it is another truffle hunting movie, but it gives us a disarmingly lively story once it gets going. Turk as Dalia and Orsini as Igor are both excellent. As is the dog. And Piedmont. Well worth rooting out.’ — Perry Norton, Film Threat

➭ Tuesday 24 March 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Wednesday 25 March 2026 | 6.00pm
➭ Thursday 26 March 2026 | 6.30pm

Hamnet
Dir. Chloé Zhao | UK, USA | 2025 | 126 mins
starring Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson

After her son Hamnet dies, aged eleven, Agnes Shakespeare is struck with intense grief. As she mourns with her husband William, the pair struggle to come to terms with the frailty of life and the ruthlessness of the plague. Set in 16th-century England, Agnes, a healer by trade, must find a way to move on with her life and provide for her other children.

Winner, Best Actress, BAFTA Film Award
Winner, Best Film Drama, Golden Globes
Nominated for 8 Academy Awards

★★★★★
‘Ultimately, the filmmaker invites the world to feel loss in a new way, and in letting go, liberates something fundamental in all of us.’ — Peter Debruge, Variety

★★★★★
‘The last moments of Hamnet are transcendent, and perhaps the most moving thing I’ve seen on screen this year.’ — Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times

Screenings and refreshments | RM15
Advanced booking is essential

Hikayat
226 Lebuh Pantai
George Town
10300 Penang

T: 04 261 9001 (Hikayat)
04 261 8001 (Gerakbudaya Bookshop @ Hikayat)
E: [email protected]