Taking Dickens' 1854 novel, set in a northern mill town, and relocating it to the contemporary milieu of 1980s Lisbon, Portuguese director João Botelho made a bold and remarkably original version of the hard-hitting story. Shot in appropriately melancholy black and white, this is one of the most critically acclaimed non-English language adaptations of Dickens. Overlooked since its original release, Hard Times is a highlight of our Dickens programme. "The film's manifest intelligence and profound sense of irony knocks spots off most British literary adaptations, while simultaneously constituting a love letter to cinema itself" (Time Out).