BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Puss in Boots
The Last Wish

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish What’s it about? Puss in Boots is back. His nine lives are fast running out and his ex, Kitty Softpaws is back in his life as they both search for a map that has the ...

June 25, 2023 | BFI FAMILIES

Habemus Papam - We Have a Pope

‘My heart is blighted, and withered like grass; I forget to eat my food. I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof.’ With these words, taken from Psalm 102, Nanni Moretti’s erudite psy...

June 25, 2023 | MICHEL PICCOLI
A FEARLESS TALENT

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 good...

June 24, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

La Belle Noiseuse

The success of La Belle Noiseuse makes it plausible that audiences see in it a qualified but nonetheless comforting reaffirmation of the values not only of Art, but also of European art cinema. Ind...

June 24, 2023 | MICHEL PICCOLI
A FEARLESS TALENT

La Haine

Mathieu Kassovitz on ‘La Haine’ La Haine is 25 years old. Since Mathieu Kassovitz’s debut first screened there’s arguably not been another French film that has had as significant an impact. In the...

June 21, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Big Sleep

As the epitome of a Howard Hawks movie, The Big Sleep exhibited all the varied facets of his technical dramatic skill. Scenes are edited sharply and economically, designed to give viewers all the n...

June 21, 2023 | RAZOR SHARP
THE FABULOUS WOMEN OF HOWARD HAWKS

Belle toujours

I wasn’t expecting all that much from this follow-up to Buñuel’s 1967 masterpiece Belle de Jour, but any reservations disappeared the moment Michel Piccoli appeared on screen, twinkling with the ki...

June 21, 2023 | MICHEL PICCOLI
A FEARLESS TALENT

Asteroid City

+ Q&A with director Wes Anderson A one-car pioneer town, somewhere in the parched wilds of the California-Nevada desert, in the fresh-faced post-war years of the expanding American empire, on ...

June 21, 2023 | PREVIEW

The Return of the Frog

Introduction by film historian Jonathan Rigby SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Despite being defeated by Inspector Elk (Harker) in The Frog (1937), the infamous und...

June 20, 2023 | PROJECTING THE ARCHIVE

Champion

+ Q&A with Candice Carty-Williams, Déja J Bowens, Malcolm Kamulete, Ray BLK and John Ogunmuyiwa Champion is the first TV project from Candice Carty-Williams, author of the Sunday Times bestse...

June 19, 2023 | TV PREVIEW

Being Blacker

+ intro and Q&A with Molly Dineen and Blacker Dread. The event is hosted by Arike Oke, Executive Director of Knowledge and Collections at the BFI. Acclaimed documentary filmmaker and BAFTA awa...

June 19, 2023 | SENIORS’ FREE ARCHIVE MATINEE

Taxi Driver

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. New York in the 1970s as seen through the rabid eyes of disillusioned Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle (De Niro), working nights as a t...

June 18, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Milou en mai

Set in the South in peacetime, teeming with characters, full of jokes and sly allusions, sunny and mischevious, a comedy not a tragedy, Milou en mai might seem to confirm Louis Malle’s sometime rep...

June 18, 2023 | MICHEL PICCOLI
A FEARLESS TALENT

Elemental

+ Q&A with director Peter Sohn, producer Denise Ream and actors Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie It’s easy to imagine the wind having attitude or fire being angry. A happy bunch of flowers could ...

June 18, 2023 | PREVIEW

Mauvais sang

Reminiscent of Godard’s early genre movies, Leos Carax’s second feature combines a semi-parodic crime fable about rivals seeking to steal a vaccine for a new virus, a faltering romance between inno...

June 17, 2023 | MICHEL PICCOLI
A FEARLESS TALENT

Pretty Red Dress

‘Don’t be a pussy boy,’ Travis (Natey Jones) tells himself as he admires the striking look of a decorative necklace against his throat. Travis has just been released from prison and is trying to se...

June 16, 2023 | NEW RELEASES

Lost in Translation

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. In the opening sequence of Sofia Coppola’s off-beat romantic comedy Lost in Translation, Bill Murray’s Bob Harris, a washed-up movie...

June 15, 2023 | MEMBER PICKS

I Am Weekender

+ Q&A with Chloé Raunet and WIZ, hosted by Miranda Sawyer. Intro music: Weekender (Requiem for Lost Friends Mix) by Tim Dorney. All those attending tonight’s screening are invited to a privat...

June 15, 2023 | SONIC CINEMA PREVIEW

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Before even the credit titles can appear, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell arrive to a blast of music at screen centre from behind a black curtain, in matching orange-red outfits that sizzle the scr...

June 15, 2023 | RAZOR SHARP
THE FABULOUS WOMEN OF HOWARD HAWKS

Of Time and the City

With intro by film critic and lecturer Dr Julia Wagner (Wednesday 14 June only) There is something mysterious about Terence Davies’ Liverpool from the outset: at the heart of this meditation on th...

June 14, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Puss in BootsThe Last Wish