Programme Notes

BFI Southbank

A Fistful of Dollars

In Britain, Morricone is best known for his work with Sergio Leone. As Bernard Herrmann is to Alfred Hitchcock, Nino Rota to Federico Fellini, John Barry to James Bond and John Williams to Steven S...

August 2, 2021 | MORRICONE

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

With pre-recorded intro by Julie Lobalzo Wright, University of Warwick (Wednesday 18 August only) While monogamy remains the secular religion, Mazursky’s ambling satire, exploring a bourgeois 60s ...

August 2, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Of Human Bondage

Bette Davis shows her considerable range and ambition with the role of Mildred Rogers, who torments a would-be doctor (Howard) who’s obsessed with her. With several pictures under her belt and unde...

August 1, 2021 | BETTE DAVIS – HOLLYWOOD REBEL

Ernest and Celestine

What’s it about? Bears live upstairs and mice live downstairs and never the twain shall meet. That’s just the way it is. But this delicate balance between the species is blown apart when Ernest, a...

August 1, 2021 | BFI FAMILIES

Celebrating Britain's First Black Screen Star

Actor-director Burt Caesar presents an illustrated overview of the unique seven-decade career in film and television of this modest pioneer. Panel discussions featuring guests such as Esther Anders...

August 1, 2021 | EARL CAMERON

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World

‘His face recalled the noblest moment of Greek sculpture – pale, with a sweet reserve, with clustering honey-coloured ringlets, the brow and nose descending in one line, the winning mouth, the expr...

July 30, 2021 | NEW RELEASES

Limbo

In a boxy 4:3 frame, like an old television show, a narrow road spills down toward the sea and the hills of a Scottish island rise up toward the sky. It’s a scene most familiar from aesthetically p...

July 30, 2021 | NEW RELEASES

Culture Shock
Short Film Programme + Q&A with UNDR LNDN

UNDR LNDN and T A P E present a programme of short films selected from submissions responding to the theme of ‘But Where Are You Really From?’ The screening will be followed by a Q&A with UNDR ...

July 30, 2021 | T A P E PRESENTS
BUT WHERE ARE YOU REALLY FROM ?

The Horse Boy

Before the film we will screen a short pre-recorded discussion between Rupert Isaacson (Producer/narrator) and Benjamin Brown, series curator. Reaching the end of their tether, Texas couple Rupert...

July 27, 2021 | RELAXED SCREENING

A Prairie Home Companion

‘Somewhere there’s another land, different from this world below… We shall never find that lovely land of might have been…’ So goes one of the Ivor Novello songs that make up the soundtrack, and th...

July 25, 2021 | ROBERT ALTMAN - AMERICAN OUTSIDER

Pinocchio

What’s it about? When a wooden puppet is brought to life he must find his way in a world of strange creatures, with dangers at every turn. Acclaimed director Matteo Garrone turns his hand to the ...

July 25, 2021 | BFI FAMILIES

Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue

Jia Zhangke on ‘Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue’ When you made Dong and Useless more than ten years ago, you spoke about making a trilogy of films about China’s artists. Is Swimming Out the t...

July 24, 2021 | CHINESE VISUAL FESTIVAL

Lilting

Lilting – the debut feature by Cambodian-born, UK-based Hong Khaou – is a tender, low-key examination of grief, fractured communication and the inherent emotional danger of building one’s whole lif...

July 24, 2021 | T A P E PRESENTS
BUT WHERE ARE YOU REALLY FROM ?

Diary for My Loves
(Napló szerelmeimnek)

Juli (Zsuzsa Czinkóczi) is determined to be a film director and wants to engage with the new society. This second, inspirational entry in Márta Mészáros’ triumphant Diary trilogy tells of her life ...

July 24, 2021 | ORDINARY PEOPLE, EXTRAORDINARY LIVES
THE CINEMA OF MÁRTA MÉSZÁROS

Diary for My Father and Mother
(Napló apámnak, anyámnak)

‘Why do we have to lie?’ Juli asks friends in Moscow. Initially prevented from returning to Budapest during the 1956 uprising, she urgently wants to connect with those she loves. Márta Mészáros’ c...

July 24, 2021 | ORDINARY PEOPLE, EXTRAORDINARY LIVES
THE CINEMA OF MÁRTA MÉSZÁROS

Diary for My Children
(Napló gyermekeimnek)

+ pre-recorded extended intro by Márta Mészáros (Saturday 24 July only) Rejected by Communist censors for many years, this first part of the Diary trilogy shows Márta Mészáros expertly weaving bet...

July 24, 2021 | ORDINARY PEOPLE, EXTRAORDINARY LIVES
THE CINEMA OF MÁRTA MÉSZÁROS

My Blueberry Nights

Wong Kar Wai on ‘My Blueberry Nights’ What was the primary impulse behind the film? I was in New York, doing some research for Lady from Shanghai, a project I have with Nicole Kidman, and I someh...

July 23, 2021 | WORLD OF WONG KAR WAI

Mandabi (The Money Order)

Hearing of the difficulties faced by the BFI and the Cineteca di Bologna as they attempted to digitise the work of the great filmmaker Ousmane Sembène, Martin Scorsese was prompted to action. ‘It w...

July 23, 2021 | RE-RELEASES

Girlfriends

One of the key unsung films of ‘second wave’ 70s feminism, Claudia Weill’s spare, funny and vividly authentic study of Manhattan best friends severed by a sudden marriage, was a breath of indie fre...

July 23, 2021 | RE-RELEASES

The Hand

Like In the Mood for Love, The Hand is set in the hazy Hong Kong of the 1960s, but its characters couldn’t be more different from the earlier film’s restrained, haunted lovers. Originally conceived...

July 22, 2021 | WORLD OF WONG KAR WAI

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