BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Time Bandits

+ intro and discussion Terry Gilliam’s family-friendly adventure takes us into the world of Kevin, a young boy whose disillusionment with modern life creates a fascination with knights, kings an...

October 30, 2023 | RELAXED SCREENING

Queen of Spades

Described by Martin Scorsese as ‘A uniquely haunting film’ and once thought lost forever, The Queen of Spades is the perfect horror tale. It’s 1806 and in St Petersburg, Captain Suvorin (Anton Walb...

October 29, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Michael Powell on ‘The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp’ There was one nice scene in One of Our Aircraft Is Missing which I shot but later had to cut out; it’s between Godfrey Tearle and Hugh Burden...

October 29, 2023 | CINEMA UNBOUND
THE CREATIVE WORLDS OF POWELL + PRESSBURGER

The Souvenir Part II

How do you follow a film like The Souvenir (2019)? Joanna Hogg’s unsparing portrait of the relationship between a student filmmaker, Julie (Honor Swinton-Byrne) and an older man, Anthony (Tom Burke...

October 28, 2023 | INTERNAL REFLECTIONS
THE FILMS OF JOANNA HOGG

The Killers

Michael Reeves, the short-lived English director, was obsessed with Don Siegel’s The Killers – a 1964 remake of Robert Siodmak’s 1946 adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s 1927 short story – and would w...

October 28, 2023 | JOANNA HOGG - INFLUENCES

Gone to Earth

In 1950, austerity and rationing still prevailed in Britain, but the Archers – Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger – chose to continue their series of post-war Technicolor melodramas (following B...

October 28, 2023 | CINEMA UNBOUND
THE CREATIVE WORLDS OF POWELL + PRESSBURGER

The Elusive Pimpernel

Although The Elusive Pimpernel is a light-hearted romp that refuses to take itself seriously, it was the source of bitter recriminations and a subsequent lawsuit between its executive producers. Th...

October 28, 2023 | CINEMA UNBOUND
THE CREATIVE WORLDS OF POWELL + PRESSBURGER

Donnie Darko

Richard Kelly on ‘Donnie Darko’ Is there anything about Donnie’s story that is autobiographical? Yes (laughs). All of it. Not literally. I didn’t grow up seeing rabbits. A jet engine never fell o...

October 28, 2023 | DESTINATION TIME TRAVEL
PLAYING WITH TIME IN FILM AND TV

Wings of Desire

Few modern films have made the transition to classic status as quickly as Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire. His tale of a guardian angel in a still-Wall-divided Berlin who falls in love with – and to e...

October 27, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Souvenir

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Early on in this delicate, acute story of artistic self-discovery and amour fou, shy film student Julie is introduced to Fragonard’s...

October 27, 2023 | INTERNAL REFLECTIONS
THE FILMS OF JOANNA HOGG

Smoke Sauna Sisterhood

While completing the deeply cleansing smoke sauna rituals and traditions of Estonia’s Võro community, a group of women share their innermost secrets and intimate experiences. Their stories touch on...

October 27, 2023 | NEW RELEASES

Run Lola Run

‘Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.’ Marilyn Bergman and Alan Bergman This roller-coaster of a film established Tom Tykwer as one of the most exciting writer-directors a...

October 27, 2023 | DESTINATION TIME TRAVEL
PLAYING WITH TIME IN FILM AND TV

Thelma Schoonmaker
in conversation

The collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker is the stuff of cinematic legend – not so very unlike that between Powell and Pressburger. It was Scorsese who introduced Schoonmake...

October 26, 2023 | EVENTS

Je t'aime Je t'aime

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. For Alain Resnais there is a place but not necessarily a time, for everything. There are often several times. A man’s stored experie...

October 26, 2023 | DESTINATION TIME TRAVEL
PLAYING WITH TIME IN FILM AND TV

Time Bandits

The screening on Wednesday 25 October will be introduced by director Terry Gilliam. Perhaps the most ferociously imaginative fantasy film Britain has ever produced, Time Bandits – a violent, absu...

October 25, 2023 | DESTINATION TIME TRAVEL
PLAYING WITH TIME IN FILM AND TV

Erase and Forget

+ Andrea Luka Zimmerman and James Mackay (via Zoom) in conversation with BFI National Archive curator William Fowler Two films from the BFI National Archive explore the charged and imagistic power...

October 25, 2023 | EXPERIMENTA

A Canterbury Tale

Probably Powell and Pressburger’s most personal and unusual film, A Canterbury Tale bewildered critics and audiences on its release, but has since come to be seen as one of their very best; Pressbu...

October 25, 2023 | CINEMA UNBOUND
THE CREATIVE WORLDS OF POWELL + PRESSBURGER

Blackmail

+ intro by Bryony Dixon, BFI National Archive Curator (Wednesday 25 October) SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Hitchcock’s first (part-)talkie, about a detective’s f...

October 25, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Red Ensign + The Night of the Party

Red Ensign In his twelfth film in four years, Michael Powell directed his own story of an ambitious shipbuilder, David Barr (Leslie Banks), and his attempt to turn around the fortunes of the Britis...

October 24, 2023 | CINEMA UNBOUND
THE CREATIVE WORLDS OF POWELL + PRESSBURGER

Playing Away

+ intro by writer Caryl Phillips (Tuesday 24 October only) In Playing Away the Brixton Conquistadores, a black cricket team from south London, accepts an invitation to play a ‘friendly’ charity ga...

October 24, 2023 | POWER TO THE PEOPLE
HORACE OVÉ’S RADICAL VISION

Time Bandits

Queen of Spades

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

The Souvenir Part II

The Killers

Gone to Earth

The Elusive Pimpernel

Donnie Darko

Wings of Desire

The Souvenir

Smoke Sauna Sisterhood

Run Lola Run

Thelma Schoonmakerin conversation

Je t'aime Je t'aime

Time Bandits

Erase and Forget

A Canterbury Tale

Blackmail

Red Ensign + The Night of the Party

Playing Away

FEATURED TAGS

Thelma Schoonmaker
in conversation