BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Showing Up

From the rising tensions of a make-or-break week of a Portland artist getting ready for a big show, filmmaker Kelly Reichardt carves a profound, gorgeously layered portrait of a woman that is as mu...

February 11, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

Padre Padrone

Padre Padrone, a Sardinian-set true story about a young shepherd’s rebellion against his tyrannical father and the seventh feature from brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, is based on an autobiogr...

February 11, 2024 | MAGICAL REALISM
THE FILM FABLES OF THE TAVIANI BROTHERS

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

One of the earliest gags thrown out (and apparently away) by the Brothers Coen is their po-faced title-credit claim that O Brother, Where Art Thou? is based on the Odyssey. Aha, you think, typical ...

February 11, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Honor among Lovers

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away the film’s ending. Here, Dorothy Arzner’s instinct for story, casting and visuals are employed at the service of some of the era’s finest actors. Her ...

February 11, 2024 | A LEAGUE OF HER OWN
THE CINEMA OF DOROTHY ARZNER

Orphée

Cocteau took the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice (familiar from Virgil and Ovid) and updated it to a fantastical version of post-war Paris, where the poet, played by Cocteau’s muse and lover Marais, b...

February 10, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Kaos

As the Taviani brothers are to Tuscany so, they suggest, Pirandello is to Sicily. It’s doubtful that Pirandello himself ever felt that his Sicilian-ness was a decisive factor in his make-up, but he...

February 10, 2024 | MAGICAL REALISM
THE FILM FABLES OF THE TAVIANI BROTHERS

Don't Look Now

Nicolas Roeg on ‘Don’t Look Now’ To what extent was Don’t Look Now your own choice? A publicity handout says it was Peter Katz, the producer, who thought Daphne du Maurier’s story would make a goo...

February 9, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

All of Us Strangers

In an early scene in All of Us Strangers, Adam (Andrew Scott), a gay man entering middle age, leaves his London flat to visit the suburban area where he grew up. Across a field he spots a handsome ...

February 9, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

The Scent of Green Papaya

The papaya is a fruit when ripe. When green it is considered a vegetable. This is why the papaya is always planted behind the kitchen, in the vegetable garden, among the vegetable and culinary her...

February 8, 2024 | EVENTS

The Iron Claw

The true story of the inseparable Von Erich brothers, who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s. Through tragedy and triumph, under the shadow...

February 8, 2024 | PREVIEW

Dorothy Arzner
Pioneer, Queer, Feminist

Dive into the work of Dorothy Arzner with the UK premiere of this documentary, which traces the filmmaker’s groundbreaking Hollywood career. Following the screening, film historian Pamela Hutchins...

February 7, 2024 | A LEAGUE OF HER OWN
THE CINEMA OF DOROTHY ARZNER

Allonsanfan

Returning to the chaos of 19th-century Italy, the Tavianis tell the story of a once-renowned aristocratic activist (a superb Marcello Mastroianni), who is sick of all the violence and conflict, who...

February 7, 2024 | MAGICAL REALISM
THE FILM FABLES OF THE TAVIANI BROTHERS

Spies, Swingers
and Shadows
The Films and Scores of
John Barry

Join our special guests, including season curator Bob Stanley, composer Nainita Desai and writer and musician Neil Brand for a richly illustrated discussion about the distinctive sounds of John Bar...

February 6, 2024 | JOHN BARRY
SOUNDTRACKING BOND AND BEYOND

Love Unto Waste

In Stanley Kwan’s lovingly crafted, multi-layered masterpiece, romance and murder mystery underpin a poignant and haunting look at modern life. Against the hedonistic backdrop of 1980s Hong Kong, a...

February 6, 2024 | FOCUS ON HONG KONG

Babette's Feast

Towards the end of Isak Dinesen’s story, when the two Puritan sisters realise that the magnificent meal they have just been seduced into enjoying has cost the unheard of sum of 10,000 francs, that ...

February 6, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Loving

Mildred and Richard Loving didn’t begin their married life as outspoken civil rights activists and their story didn’t unfold on the frontlines of any marches, but their relationship would ultimatel...

February 5, 2024 | SENIORS

Four in the Morning

‘Four in the Morning’: a contemporary review Until now Anthony Simmons was a little known director of short films and documentaries. With Four in the Morning, written and directed by him and produc...

February 5, 2024 | JOHN BARRY
SOUNDTRACKING BOND AND BEYOND

Doctor Who - Horror of Fang Rock

+ Q&A with Louise Jameson, John Abbott and Annette Woollett The making of ‘Doctor Who: Horror of Fang Rock’ Even before it began, Season 15 was causing headaches for the Doctor Who production ...

February 4, 2024 | EVENTS

Petulia

John Barry wrote an unsettling, anxious score for Richard Lester’s time capsule of late sixties, psychedelia-era San Francisco. The film also includes cameos from the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin...

February 3, 2024 | JOHN BARRY
SOUNDTRACKING BOND AND BEYOND

American Fiction

Author and activist James Baldwin once said, ‘If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.’ This quote then begs the question: What does it mean to be seen as Black? Who...

February 3, 2024 | NEW RELEASES