BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Cinema Is Evil
Welcome to the World of Legendary, Queer Occult Filmmaker Kenneth Anger

Kenneth Anger, who died on 11 May 2023 in Yucca Valley, California, produced a body of work unique in cinema. His films never brought him a mass audience, even though they are as beautiful and tech...

May 11, 2024 | EXPERIMENTA

Bushman

+ intro with Journey Mercies director Tomisin Adepeju David Schickele’s 1971 film Bushman begins in enigmatic fashion. We’re greeted by sounds of a dog barking, trees swaying in the wind, melodiou...

May 11, 2024 | AFRICAN ODYSSEYS

Made in England
The Films of Powell and Pressburger

No filmography is an island, but the peak works of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger so tower over British cinema that they might constitute a loftier realm. For some years, too, they were shro...

May 10, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

Hoard

A visceral, pungent and playfully macabre coming-of-age story, Hoard plays nimbly with both meanings implied by its title – hoarding as madness, a hoard as treasure. When eight-year-old outsider Ma...

May 10, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

In Celebration

David Storey’s play In Celebration opened at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 22 April 1969, and earned rave reviews in its premiere engagement in the United States at the Arena Stage Theatre, ...

May 9, 2024 | O DREAMLAND!
LINDSAY ANDERSON’S DARK BRITISH CINEMA

Camille

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. On Broadway, a new generation is thronging to Garbo’s Camille. The actress, for whose return one has never given up hope, is proving...

May 8, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Journey through
Italian Neorealism

This wide-ranging exploration of the roots, context and legacy of Italian neorealism is the perfect starting point for our two-month long programme. Join season curator Giulia Saccogna together wit...

May 7, 2024 | CHASING THE REAL
ITALIAN NEOREALISM

If....

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. The first film in Lindsay Anderson and screenwriter David Sherwin’s great state-of-the-nation trilogy builds tensely to violent rebe...

May 6, 2024 | O DREAMLAND!
LINDSAY ANDERSON’S DARK BRITISH CINEMA

West Side Story

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. West Side Story magically transmutes Romeo and Juliet’s dramatic momentum and rich verse into the wit and longing of Stephen Sond...

May 5, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Ossessione

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. While Rossellini and De Sica were concerned explicitly with chronicling the hardships of wartime and the post-war era, Luchino Visco...

May 4, 2024 | CHASING THE REAL
ITALIAN NEOREALISM

Flight

+ intro and Q&A with director Alex Pillai, writer Tanika Gupta, actor Shaheen Khan, composer Nitin Sawhney and producer Behroze Gandhy. Hosted by Viji Alles. The idea for the film Flight came ...

May 4, 2024 | UK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2024

The Magic Flute

Music has always been close to Ingmar Bergman’s heart. To Joy (1949) took its title from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and featured Victor Sjöström as a distinguished conductor – a calling, incidental...

May 3, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Love Lies Bleeding

A crime and a romance – those American institutions that’ve animated the movies since the very beginning – Love Lies Bleeding is a fugitive tale that breaks the mould, at once dreamy and nightmaris...

May 3, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

Is That All There Is

A contemporary review This article, I had better start by saying, will not be an ‘objective’ review of Is That All There Is?, but as personal as the film Lindsay Anderson has made. An old friend, h...

May 2, 2024 | O DREAMLAND!
LINDSAY ANDERSON’S DARK BRITISH CINEMA

Henry V

Britain was at war when Olivier directed and starred in Henry V. In the spirit of Shakespeare’s play, the film uses history as lens through which to refract contemporary political concerns. The fil...

May 2, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Lindsay Anderson
Meet the Pioneer

Join season curators William Fowler and James Bell as they explore Anderson’s life and work, and interrogate the career of a filmmaker who remained a singularly combative thorn in the side of Briti...

May 2, 2024 | O DREAMLAND!
LINDSAY ANDERSON’S DARK BRITISH CINEMA

This Sporting Life

Impacting with a visceral power right from its opening scene, Anderson’s debut feature marked the first film in his long collaboration with David Storey, who adapted his own novel about a rugby pla...

May 1, 2024 | O DREAMLAND!
LINDSAY ANDERSON’S DARK BRITISH CINEMA

Bye Bye Love

+ recorded intro by director Isao Fujisawa The young man who calls himself Utamaro (after the painter) is on the street, phoning the girlfriend he’s been living with, when he’s dumped. His reactio...

April 28, 2024 | QUEER EAST FESTIVAL

Summer Vacation 1999

+ intro by writer and film curator Ren Scateni Shusuke Kaneko on ‘Summer Vacation 1999’ It’s very hard to explain where the idea for Summer Vacation 1999 came from. I did set out wanting to make ...

April 26, 2024 | QUEER EAST FESTIVAL

Omen

+ intro and Q&A with director Baloji Tomisin Adepeju will be hosting a post-screening discussion with Baloji. Their conversation will interrogate the film’s textured exploration of grief, cult...

April 26, 2024 | AFRICAN ODYSSEYS PRESENTS

Cinema Is EvilWelcome to the World of Legendary, Queer Occult Filmmaker Kenneth Anger