BFI Southbank Programme Notes

You've Got Mail

You’ve Got Mail began with executive producer Julie Durk, who, after watching the classic film The Shop around the Corner, thought it would be a great movie to remake. She brought it to the attenti...

May 18, 2024 | MEMBER PICKS

Rome, Open City

‘The overwhelming experience of 1945 was Rome, Open City,’ wrote influential film critic David Shipman in his book Cinema: The First Hundred Years, ‘it made every movie made until then seem old-fas...

May 17, 2024 | RE-RELEASES

Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry

After I Am Truly a Drop of Sun on Earth (2017) and Wet Sand (2021), it’s no surprise that the title of Elene Naveriani’s third feature makes poetry of natural imagery. If Ingmar Bergman hadn’t got ...

May 17, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

Shoeshine

The screening of Shoeshine on Tuesday 14 May will be introduced by season curator Giulia Saccogna. In the devastation of post-war Rome, two street kids shine shoes to escape starvation. Dreaming t...

May 14, 2024 | CHASING THE REAL
ITALIAN NEOREALISM

La Règle du jeu

‘For us there was only one French director, and that was Jean Renoir’, said Claude Chabrol, while François Truffaut called Renoir ‘the greatest filmmaker in the world’. New Wave directors, as criti...

May 13, 2024 | MEMBER MONDAYS

Mulholland Dr.

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. For all its mood shifts from black wit to sheer terror (Peter Deming’s camerawork creeps around corners and into darkened rooms to d...

May 13, 2024 | MEMBER MONDAYS

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