BFI Southbank Programme Notes

F for Fake

In 1970 François Reichenbach, with the British journalist Richard Drewett, made Elmyr: The True Picture?, a 40-minute BBC documentary about Elmyr de Hory, the Hungarian faker of 20th-century master...

July 22, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Daughters of the Dust

The ascension of Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust to recognition as one of the greatest films of all time hardly comes as a surprise to Black women moviegoers, who championed the film from its ea...

July 22, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

12 Angry Men

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away the plot. Lumet’s landmark courtroom drama – which actually takes place in the jury’s deliberation chamber – centres on Henry Fonda, typecast but supe...

July 22, 2024 | MEMBER MONDAYS

Crossing

Istanbul is a place people go when they want to disappear. At least, that’s how it seems to Lia (Mzia Arabuli), a retired history teacher who travels from Georgia to search for Tekla (Tako Kurdovan...

July 19, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

Climax

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. As Climax opens to the sound of Gary Numan’s recording of Satie’s Gymnopédies, and an overhead shot of a bloodied, barely dressed wo...

July 16, 2024 | DISCOMFORT MOVIES

The Third Man

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. It is hard now to credit that there was a time when Carol Reed was seriously touted as the world’s greatest living director. Still, ...

July 15, 2024 | MEMBER MONDAYS

Possession

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Andrzej Zulawski’s first and only English-language feature was originally released in the UK in 1982, around a year after its Cannes...

July 15, 2024 | DISCOMFORT MOVIES

Funny Games

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Michael Haneke on ‘Funny Games’ How have audiences reacted to Funny Games so far? Some people really related to the film because o...

July 15, 2024 | DISCOMFORT MOVIES

Double Indemnity

‘It has all the characteristics of the classic forties film as I respond to it. It’s in black and white, it has fast badinage, it’s very witty, a story from the classic age. It has Edward G. Robins...

July 15, 2024 | MEMBER MONDAYS

Unforgiven

A contemporary review When High Plains Drifter was released in 1972, Malpaso issued a press still which showed Clint Eastwood standing next to two gravestones: the inscriptions on them read ‘Donald...

July 14, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Kung Fu Panda 4

What’s it about? Po encounters a shapeshifting sorceress who seeks control of his Staff of Wisdom, in order to access the spirit realm. He must ensure she fails, but is also charged with seeking...

July 14, 2024 | BFI FAMILIES

Night of the Kings

+ intro and discussion on the role of griot with filmmaker Tomisin Adepeju and Tony Warner of African Odysseys and Black History Walks Set in a real-life Ivory Coast penitentiary, Night of the Kin...

July 13, 2024 | TIGRITUDES
A PAN-AFRICAN FILM CYCLE 1956-2024

Gloria

Tough-as-nails ex-mob moll Gloria lives alone with her cat, her gun and an endless supply of cigarettes, until she’s forced to go on the lam with a child in tow. Gena Rowlands’ energy and broad Bro...

July 13, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Sleep

‘Someone’s inside.’ Sleep begins with an ominous phrase muttered by Hyun-su, Soo-jin’s husband, when he wakes up one night. This phrase sets in motion a series of events that completely overturn th...

July 12, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

Bushman

Combining drama and documentary, Bushman follows the fate of a youth, escaping from Civil War in Nigeria and arriving in California at the tail end of the 60s countercultural revolution. It’s full ...

July 12, 2024 | RE-RELEASES

Threads

This remarkable television production, imagining how a nuclear war might unfold, remains one of the most shocking and devastating films ever to air in the UK. Combining documentary-style realism an...

July 11, 2024 | DISCOMFORT MOVIES

The Nature of Love

Philosophy professor Sophia has been living with her partner Xavier for ten years. Their relationship is intellectually stimulating; however, when she meets rugged carpenter Sylvain, an intense phy...

July 11, 2024 | WOMAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA

Yojimbo

Kurosawa on ‘Yojimbo’ For a long time I had wanted to make a really interesting film – and it finally turned into this picture. The story is so ideally interesting that it’s surprising no one else ...

July 8, 2024 | MEMBER MONDAYS

Theorem

Introduced by Espen Bale, BFI National Archive (Wednesday 10 July only). Pier Paolo Pasolini was a man of many qualities and contradictions – oft-noted when folks point to the strangeness of an at...

July 8, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Rashomon

Unreliable narration is taken to a new level in this landmark film, one of Akira Kurosawa’s finest, which introduced post-war Japanese cinema to international audiences. A murder takes place in a f...