BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Sunset Blvd.

Gloria Swanson on ‘Sunset Blvd.’ When we started Sunset Blvd. we had only 26 pages of script. [Screenwriter Charles] Brackett and Wilder were determined I should do it. I didn’t want to. Because in...

June 17, 2024 | MEMBER MONDAYS

Io Capitano

+ intro and discussion Senegalese youngsters Seydou and Moussa, keen to pursue a music career, leave Dakar for Europe. Their journey takes them across a vast expanse of desert, where they encounte...

June 17, 2024 | REFUGEE WEEK

Melvyn Bragg
Broadcasting the Arts

Over the course of an incredible 60-year broadcasting career, Melvyn Bragg has unfailingly championed the arts on television. More than this, he has revolutionised the way the arts are presented an...

June 16, 2024 | EVENTS

Àma Gloria

Marie Amachoukeli on ‘Àma Gloria’ In Marie Amachoukeli’s bittersweet coming-of-age drama Àma Gloria, Cléo (an extraordinary six-year-old, Louise Mauroy-Panzani) leaves France to spend a sun-drenche...

June 14, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

Gun Crazy

Gun Crazy’s inspired, lurid title hurtles onto the screen with the tabloid pizzazz of a headline. Just to complicate matters, however, Gun Crazy was originally released by United Artists in January...

June 12, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

8½

Back in the 1960s heyday of the pre-video art-house sector, two filmmakers stood as defining poles of the foreign-language art movie – Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini. Their qualities complemen...

June 10, 2024 | MEMBER MONDAYS

The 400 Blows

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. One of the greatest films about childhood, Truffaut’s partly autobiographical first feature is also profoundly moving. Forever in tr...

June 10, 2024 | MEMBER MONDAYS

Wish

What’s it about? The people of Rosas offer up their wishes for protection by their magical king. When young Asha seeks work at the king’s palace, she stumbles across a disturbing secret that thr...

June 9, 2024 | BFI FAMILIES

Human Law

+ Intro Isobel Elsom gives a strong performance as a wife deprived by her child by having technically ‘deserted’ her husband, despite being morally justified in doing so. Her husband, who spent thr...

June 9, 2024 | SILENT CINEMA

Alice in the Cities

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away the film’s ending. Wim Wenders’ first road movie contrives a situation whereby an emotionally detached photojournalist ends up chaperoning a precociou...

June 7, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Matrix

Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) works as a lowly IT programmer, leading a double-life as a hacker at night, under the alias ‘Neo’. One night he is visited by a group of rebels led by charismatic see...

June 7, 2024 | RE-RELEASES

The Beast

Bertrand Bonello on ‘The Beast’ The Beast deals with a lot of disparate ideas and themes, some of which you explored in Coma . When and how did you begin conceptualising the new film? For me it w...

June 7, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

Where Is the Friend’s House?

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away the film’s ending. Kiarostami’s classic centres on a young boy determined to return a schoolmate’s notebook he took home by mistake, but unsure of his...

June 5, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Umberto D.

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Vittorio De Sica made his name in the Italian cinema in the 30s as a light romantic actor. He appeared in a series of comedies, main...

June 5, 2024 | CHASING THE REAL
ITALIAN NEOREALISM

The Searchers

Cinema’s poet of the Wild West, John Ford already had countless westerns (among over 100 films) under his belt before reteaming with regular star John Wayne for this disturbing story of racism, obs...

June 4, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Runner

A young orphan lives on the shores of the Persian Gulf, a place of dazzling light and oil refineries. When he’s not running chasing trains, the boy has learned to survive in a hostile society by co...

June 4, 2024 | RESTORED

Easy Rider

Easy Rider’s impact was made possible by a bold synthesis of the disparate styles, moods and practices with which 60s pop culture was awash. The acting paid homage to the Actors Studio and the grou...

June 4, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Bellissima

It is unfortunate that Bellissima is not better known outside Italy, as it is a film which, in addition to its merits as an antidote to La terra trema, confounds a number of stereotypes that have b...

June 4, 2024 | CHASING THE REAL
ITALIAN NEOREALISM

Sullivan's Travels

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Sullivan’s Travels is a difﬁcult ﬁlm to categorise. It is a comedy, yet darkly dramatic in its third act. It is a satire about Holly...

June 3, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. The eruption of Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire at 30th place, the highest new entry in the [Sight and Sound] poll, mirr...

June 3, 2024 | MEMBER MONDAYS