BFI Southbank Programme Notes

The Goldman Case

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. The heated 1976 trial of French left-wing intellectual and activist Pierre Goldman, accused of murdering two pharmacists in a bungled...

October 4, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

Clean

Olivier Assayas on ‘Clean’ Was it very different writing about a character for Maggie to play as opposed to writing about her ‘as’ herself in Irma Vep ? For Irma Vep I was using the obvious image...

October 3, 2024 | MAGGIE CHEUNG
FILMS OF ROMANCE, MELANCHOLY AND MAGIC

The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee

Q&A with Peter Serafinowicz, director Jon Spira, producer Hank Starrs and Christopher Lee’s biographer Jonathan Rigby Produced in association with the BFI, this unique documentary features exc...

October 1, 2024 | TV PREVIEW

This Is Going to Be Big

Giving a voice to a group of extraordinary young people as they prepare to stage a musical about the life of Australian pop singer John Farnham, this upbeat documentary reveals the limitations of...

September 30, 2024 | RELAXED SCREENING

Guns at Batasi

Edgar Wright: A good companion to Station Six Sahara in this season is John Guillermin’s Guns at Batasi. It’s also a single location film, a film of simmering tensions boiling over. Martin Scorses...

September 29, 2024 | MARTIN SCORSESE SELECTS HIDDEN GEMS OF BRITISH CINEMA

Wallace & Gromit
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

What’s it about? + intro by Nick Park and Steve Box Wallace and Gromit, who run a humane pest control business, are called to Tottington Hall to address an abundance of rabbits. Attempts to use ...

September 29, 2024 | FAMILY

The Legend of Hell House

Edgar Wright: I wanted to ask about the last film, in terms of chronology, on the list: The Legend of Hell House. I’ve always loved it and I always think it’s interesting because Pamela Franklin is...

September 28, 2024 | MARTIN SCORSESE SELECTS HIDDEN GEMS OF BRITISH CINEMA

Claude McKay,
from Harlem to Marseille

We are pleased to welcome writer and poet, Hannah Lowe, who joins this event and discuss her life and work in connection to the life and work of Claude McKay. We are also really pleased to welcome ...

September 28, 2024 | AFRICAN ODYSSEYS

The Pumpkin Eater

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. The Pumpkin Eater takes its title from the nursery rhyme: ‘Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater / Had a wife and couldn’t keep her. / He put ...

September 27, 2024 | MARTIN SCORSESE SELECTS HIDDEN GEMS OF BRITISH CINEMA

The Outrun

Saoirse Ronan’s bracing performance as a young alcoholic in recovery who returns home to Orkney is the focal point of Nora Fingscheidt’s poignant adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s award-winning memoir. ...

September 27, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

Dr. Strangelove or
How I Learned
to Stop Worrying
and Love the Bomb

+ Q&A with Armando Iannucci and Sean Foley We celebrate the 60th anniversary of Kubrick’s classic film in the company of the creative team behind the forthcoming stage production. When Dr. St...

September 26, 2024 | EVENTS

Film Repatriation and
New Relational Possibilities
An Illustrated Talk by
Xavier Pillai

Film heritage is now considered part of broader calls for the restitution of heritage objects. Unlike other cultural artifacts, however, film is an industrial art, which during the colonial era was...

September 25, 2024 | EXPERIMENTA

The Substance

The bravura opening of Coralie Fargeat’s bonkers body horror The Substance tracks, via time-lapse photography, the installation and subsequent deterioration of a Hollywood Walk of Fame star. At fir...

September 24, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

+ intro by Jason Wood, BFI Executive Director of Public Programmes & Audiences SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. A contemporary review The story of Billy the Ki...

September 24, 2024 | RESTORED

Went the Day Well?

+ intro by James Bell, Senior Curator, BFI National Archive ‘The critics, led by Miss Lejeune, literally pulled us to pieces,’ Cavalcanti wrote in his note for the Irish Film Society screening. In...

September 23, 2024 | MARTIN SCORSESE SELECTS HIDDEN GEMS OF BRITISH CINEMA

The Thief and the Cobbler
A Moment in Time

+ Q&A with Imogen Sutton Produced over 25 years and inspired by Middle Eastern folk tales and Persian miniatures, The Thief and the Cobbler is a legendary work among animation fans. It was unr...

September 22, 2024 | EVENTS

Station Six Sahara

Station Six Sahara is a big revelation. It’s minimal: they’re in the desert and these men are stuck together. I always found it to be very close to The King of Comedy, because it’s the comedy of ma...

September 22, 2024 | MARTIN SCORSESE SELECTS HIDDEN GEMS OF BRITISH CINEMA

The Damned

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. With its potent mix of mysterious scientific experiments, radioactive children, portents of dystopian doom and biker gang violence, ...

September 21, 2024 | MARTIN SCORSESE SELECTS HIDDEN GEMS OF BRITISH CINEMA

The Hunger

The Hunger helped challenge my perception of what dark fantasy could be. It didn’t have to be epic in scale, but by employing a quieter register and mood it was possible to weave an entrancing stor...

September 19, 2024 | ROOTS, RITUALS AND PHANTASMAGORIA

Zardoz

+ Q&A with writer-director John Boorman SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. The head is a ferocious Greek mask, hacked from stone, its eyes fixed in a malevolent, ...

September 18, 2024 | EVENTS