BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Signs of Life

Herzog’s highly atmospheric first feature centres on three German soldiers posted, towards the end of WW2, far from military action at a munitions base on the Greek island of Kos. Eventually inerti...

January 1, 2024 | JOURNEY INTO THE UNKNOWN
THE FILMS OF WERNER HERZOG

Shoot the Pianist

Based on David Goodis’ novel Down There, François Truffaut’s second feature is a breezy New Wave concoction of genre pastiche, playful stylistic tricks and romantic reverie. Aznavour is charismatic...

January 1, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Fata Morgana + The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner

Werner Herzog’s third feature takes the reductio ad absurdum narrative patterns of his other films to their logical conclusion by dispensing with narrative altogether. Fata Morgana consists exclusi...

January 1, 2024 | JOURNEY INTO THE UNKNOWN
THE FILMS OF WERNER HERZOG

Basket Case

By the end of 1983, the Scala was using its cinema programme to campaign against the strictures of the Video Recordings Act. Along with The Evil Dead, the similarly banned black comedy horror Baske...

January 1, 2024 | SCALA
SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK AND ROLL CINEMA

Priscilla

If you had somehow forgotten who made Priscilla, the very first shot would set you right. Girlish bare feet, sporting a bright coral pedicure, pad across a bedroom, every step sinking deeper into t...

December 27, 2023 | PREVIEW SCREENINGS

The Boy and the Heron

Toshio Suzuki (Producer and Studio Ghibli President/Co-founder) on ‘The Boy and the Heron’ You and Miyazaki have spoken before about wanting each new film to betray audience expectations of Studi...

December 27, 2023 | NEW RELEASES

Fanny and Alexander

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. A contemporary review Ingmar Bergman has declared that Fanny and Alexander is to be his last film. There have, it should be noted, b...

December 23, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Carol

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Adapted from a Patricia Highsmith novel, Haynes’ typically elegant yet acerbic movie charts the intense (yet hesitant and furtive) r...

December 21, 2023 | CHRISTMAS FILMS

A Year in a Field

+ intro and discussion Filmed in solitude, between the winter solstices of 2020 and 2021, this meditation on the natural world and human impact on the landscape raises questions rather than give...

December 18, 2023 | RELAXED SCREENING

A Woman of Paris

The screening on Sunday 17 December will be introduced by Mark Fuller, Michael Powell expert. Michael Powell interviewed by Kevin Brownlow on ‘A Woman of Paris’ I heard second-hand about the effe...

December 17, 2023 | SILENT CINEMA

Mr. India

+ Q&A with producer Mr Boney Kapoor Mr. India is the only real ‘Bollywood’ film made by Shekhar Kapur, whose earlier film Masoom was more in the style of the parallel Hindi cinema, while his l...

December 17, 2023 | FILM WALLAHS

Tish

Paul Sng, the BIFA-winning director of Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché and Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle, crafts an intimate portrait of Tish Murtha, a working-class photographer from...

December 15, 2023 | NEW RELEASES

The Shop around the Corner

Ernst Lubitsch grew up in Berlin as the son of the Russian Jewish émigré owner of a dressmaking company. He knew the world of shops and they feature often in his films. Perhaps witnessing the patte...

December 15, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Poor Things

Unfortunately Yorgos Lanthimos has fallen ill and is no longer able to introduce this preview. However we are delighted to announce that Willem Dafoe will now join us to introduce the screening. F...

December 13, 2023 | PREVIEW

Michelle Williams Gamaker
and Powell + Pressburger

+ Michelle Williams Gamaker in conversation with Dr Kulraj Phullar Michelle Williams Gamaker’s stunning, beautifully-staged films trouble the too often overlooked political dynamics trapped in cla...

December 13, 2023 | CINEMA UNBOUND
THE CREATIVE WORLDS OF POWELL + PRESSBURGER

It's a Wonderful Life

Frank Capra cleared his throat, and began. The war was over and he was anxious to make another movie. In early October 1945, he approached Lew Wasserman, James Stewart’s agent at MCA, telling him t...

December 13, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Queering Powell + Pressburger

A panel discussion exploring the special resonances Powell and Pressburger’s films have for queer cultures today. With the theatrical high style of The Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffmann, queer pe...

December 12, 2023 | CINEMA UNBOUND
THE CREATIVE WORLDS OF POWELL + PRESSBURGER

Tim Burton's
The Nightmare before Christmas

Director Henry Selick on ‘The Nightmare before Christmas’ The film has been marketed as Tim Burton’s The Nightmare before Christmas , but you’re the director. What do you think is distinctively yo...

December 10, 2023 | CHRISTMAS FILMS

Buck and the Preacher

Black American history is presented through the prism of a Western. Sidney Poitier’s directorial debut, in which he stars opposite Belafonte, tells the story of a wagon master and con-man pastor wh...

December 10, 2023 | HARRY BELAFONTE
MOVIES RACE DEFIANCE

Kansas City

+intro by actor Miranda Richardson and season curator Burt Caesar (on Sunday 17 December only) Appearing in both The Player (1992) and Prêt-à-Porter (1994), Harry Belafonte was among the galaxy of...

December 9, 2023 | HARRY BELAFONTE
MOVIES RACE DEFIANCE