SHERBORNE International Film Festival returns over the weekend 16th to 19th October at the Powell Theatre in Abbey Road, with the usual compelling mix of classic and new foreign films, including the multi Oscar winning Korean black comedy Parasite and Indochine, an epic drama set in south east Asia in the years before the Vietnam war.

Now in its 14th year, the festival is organised by Sherborne Rotary Club, and raises funds for charity. The opening film on Thursday 16th at 7.30pm is Pele – Birth of a Legend, which follows the footballer’s meteoric rise from the slums of Sao Paulo to leading Brazil to its first World Cup victory when he was just 17. Pelé is a sports legend who changed soccer forever, a national hero who carried the hopes and dreams of a country on his back. But before he was an icon, he was a kid from the slums of São Paulo, so poor that he couldn’t afford a real soccer ball. The film charts his rise from scrubbing floors to support his family to honing his electrifying playing style on the streets to leading Brazil’s national team World Cup glory.

There is a very different vibe to the next film, on Friday at 5pm. The 1990 French film La Femme Nikita, directed by Luc Besson, stars Anne Parillaud as Nikita, a nihilistic punk who is given a life sentence for killing a policeman. Without warning she is transferred to a secret training centre where the mysterious Bob (Tchéky Karyo) transforms her into a ruthless government assassin.

Parasite, the 2019 film by writer-director Bong Joon Ho, was one of the most awarded and lauded films of the year. It won four Oscars, including Best Picture, and put the director and the Korean film industry firmly in the spotlight. On screen on Friday at 7.30pm, it is a story of greed and class discrimination that threaten a newly formed symbiotic relationship between the wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim clan. It is an urgent, brilliantly layered look at timely social themes.

The first film on Saturday, at 5pm, is Belle et Sebastien. High up in the Alps and far away from the fighting of the Second World War, a small, peaceful village is home to a young boy named Sebastian. He is an orphan and life on the mountains is dangerous for a young boy. But he soon meets Belle, a wild dog who has a heart of gold. Sebastian tames Belle and they form an unshakable friendship. Based on a beloved children’s television series, this 2013 French film is a charming adventure story of a courageous young boy and his lovable dog.

The period – the Second World War – may be the same, but the mood is much darker in the Saturday evening film at 7.30. The German drama Der Untergang (Downfall) is set in 1942, as young Traudl Junge lands her dream job — secretary to Adolf Hitler at the peak of his power. Three years later, Hitler’s empire is now his underground bunker. The real-life Traudl narrates Hitler’s final days as he rages against imagined betrayers and barks orders to phantom armies, while his mistress, Eva Braun clucks over his emotional distance and other infamous Nazis prepare for the end.

Giuseppe Tornatore’s 1988 classic Cinema Paradiso (1988) is being shown on Sunday 19th at 5pm. Young Salvatore Di Vita discovers the perfect escape from life in his war-torn Sicilian village: the Cinema Paradiso movie house, where projectionist Alfredo instils in the boy a deep love of films. When Salvatore grows up, falls in love with a beautiful local girl and takes over as the Paradiso’s projectionist, Alfredo must convince Salvatore to leave his small town and pursue his passion for filmmaking.

The festival ends on Sunday at 7.30pm, with the 1993 French film Indochine, described as the French answer to Gone With The Wind. directed by Regis Wargnier and starring Catherine Deneuve, it spans the years 1930-1954 and the end of French colonial rule. The period is colonial-era Vietnam, where a dashing French naval captain, a wealthy plantation owner of French parentage and her adopted Vietnamese daughter are the three points of a cross-cultural romantic triangle. As the struggle against European imperialism sweeps Indochina, Jean-Baptiste and Camille have to choose sides and Eliane faces the emotionally difficult challenge of raising the child of her daughter and ex-lover.