From old-school romance and swashbuckling adventure to jaw-dropping real-life feats and orgre-sized laughs, The Galileo Open Air Cinema presents a bold, genre-hopping line-up under the stars this week.
Expect war-tainted Hollywood magic with Casablanca (elevated by a luxe Royale experience), high-seas chaos with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, real-life edge-of-your-seat thrills in Free Solo and a whole lot of fairytale fun with Shrek. It’s a classic, chaotic and completely unforgettable kind of movie week.
So book your spot here, swing by when the doors open, grab your snacks, and soak in golden-hour picnic vibes and lawn games before getting cosy with your fellow film fanatics for movie night, officially beginning after sunset (± 7:30pm).
Here is what’s on the silver screen this week:
8 April: Casablanca (Royale experience)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid.
Filmed and set during World War II, American expatriate Rick Blaine (Bogart), who owns a nightclub in Casablanca, discovers his old flame Ilsa (Bergman) is in town with her husband, Victor Laszlo (Henreid), a famed Czechoslovak resistance leader with Germans on his tail.
Bogart is forced to choose between his love for a woman and helping her husband escape from the Vichy-controlled city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Nazis.
- Day: Wednesday
- Location: Norval Foundation
- Time: Gates open at 6pm, and the movie starts at 7:30pm
- Genre: Romance Drama
- Age restriction: PG
- Tickets: Webtickets
9 April: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is a 2006 Adventure Fantasy film starring Johnny Depp, Bill Nighy, Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom and Tom Hollander, and is the second instalment in the Pirates of the Caribbean series.
Set a year after the first film, Captain Jack Sparrow owes a debt to ghostly pirate Davy Jones (Nighy) and is pursued by the Kraken while he tries to find a way to avoid his fate lest his soul be damned for all time.
Meanwhile, Will Turner (Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann’s (Knightley) wedding is disrupted by Lord Cutler Beckett (Hollander), who wants Jack’s magical compass to locate the Dead Man’s Chest.
- Day: Thursday
- Location: Kirstenbosch Garden
- Time: Gates open at 6pm, and the movie starts at 7:30pm
- Genre: Adventure Drama Fantasy
- Age restriction: 10 V
- Tickets: Webtickets
10 April: Free Solo (National Geographic Mountain Climbing Documentary)
Free Solo is an Oscar-winning 2018 mountain climbing documentary steeped in pure suspense.
The film follows elite climber Alex Honnold as he prepares for the unthinkable: a rope-free, solo ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.
With no safety net and no margin for error, the climb traces a razor-thin line between absolute focus and overwhelming risk, offering a breathtaking portrait of ambition, discipline and the true cost of chasing a once-in-a-lifetime goal.
- Day: Friday
- Location: Kirstenbosch Garden
- Time: Gates open at 6pm, and the movie starts at 7:30pm
- Genre: Mountain Climbing Documentary Adventure
- Age restriction: 13 PG L
- Tickets: Webtickets
11 April: Shrek
Shrek is a 2001 American animated fantasy comedy and the first in the Shrek series, which stars Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz and John Lithgow.
Once upon a time, in a faraway swamp, there lived an ogre named Shrek (Myers) whose precious solitude is suddenly shattered by an invasion of annoying fairy tale characters. They were all banished from their kingdom by the evil Lord Farquaad (Lithgow).
Determined to save their home, not to mention his, Shrek cuts a deal with Farquaad and sets out, with Donkey (Murphy) by his side, to rescue Princess Fiona (Diaz) to be Farquaad’s bride. Heading back, it not only starts to become apparent that he’s falling in love with the princess but that she is also hiding a huge secret.
- Day: Saturday
- Location: Nederburg Wine Farm
- Time: Gates open at 5pm, and the movie starts at 7:30pm
- Genre: Comedy Fairytale Animation
- Age restriction: PG V
- Tickets: Webtickets
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Picture: Supplied
