BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Polite Society

+ Q&A with director Nida Manzoor 16-year-old Ria is an aspiring stuntwoman, dreaming of her future excelling in the film business while her older sister Lena becomes a world famous artist. But...

November 17, 2024 | ART OF ACTION
CELEBRATING THE REAL ACTION STARS OF CINEMA

Bird

Andrea Arnold’s return to her British social-realist roots is warm, exuberant and absolutely soars. Twelve-year-old Bailey is a tomboy who lives in a busy squat in North Kent with Bug, her young fa...

November 15, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

Lousy Little Sixpence + Utopia

+ pre-recorded intro by Dr Alec Morgan and statement from Amy McQuire Lousy Little Sixpence: why the film was made Open any volume of Australian history and try to find any reference to William Co...

November 10, 2024 | HIDDEN TRUTHS
JOHN PILGER AND THE POWER OF DOCUMENTARY

Face/Off

The original tagline of John Woo’s outlandish, high-octane masterpiece read, ‘In order to trap him, he must become him’. That doesn’t come close to capturing the full insanity of this film, which s...

November 9, 2024 | ART OF ACTION
CELEBRATING THE REAL ACTION STARS OF CINEMA

Point Break

Production on Point Break began on 9 July 1990, some three years after the project was first developed. Of the long gestation period for the film, producers Robert L. Levy and Peter Abrams note, ‘W...

November 8, 2024 | RE-RELEASES

The Golden Dream

Ken Loach’s influence may not be so prevalent in current UK filmmaking, but turn to the Spanish-speaking world and he remains a key reference point for a number of directors forging tough, angry, s...

November 5, 2024 | HIDDEN TRUTHS
JOHN PILGER AND THE POWER OF DOCUMENTARY

Red Cliff

‘An Asian Troy’ is how John Woo describes the Manichean power struggles that gripped China at the end of the Han Dynasty, as recounted in the 14th-century literary classic Romance of the Three King...

November 2, 2024 | ART OF ACTION
CELEBRATING THE REAL ACTION STARS OF CINEMA

Death of a Nation - The Timor Conspiracy + Palestine Is Still the Issue (2002)

John Pilger introduced his 1994 East Timor film at BFI Southbank as follows: At Stanfords in London’s Covent Garden, reputedly the best map shop in the world, I asked for a map of the island of Ti...

November 2, 2024 | HIDDEN TRUTHS
JOHN PILGER AND THE POWER OF DOCUMENTARY

The Woman King

+ intro by Rógan Graham, freelance writer and film programmer (Friday 1 November only) Viola Davis is magnificent as General Nanisca, leader of the Agoji, the all-female army responsible for prote...

November 1, 2024 | ART OF ACTION
CELEBRATING THE REAL ACTION STARS OF CINEMA

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

‘Nothing can defeat the human spirit’ – Toby Kearton, BFI Member The question of what constitutes mental illness, how to depict it and the proper attitude towards it, was Milos Forman’s biggest ch...

November 1, 2024 | MEMBER PICKS

A Girl at My Door

Writer-director July Jung on ‘A Girl at My Door’ A Girl at My Door is your first feature film: how did the meeting with producer Lee Changdong ( Poetry , Secret Sunshine ) go and how did you convi...

November 1, 2024 | LONDON KOREAN FILM FESTIVAL 2024

Color Adjustment

This ground-breaking, critically acclaimed and Peabody Award-winning documentary, narrated by Ruby Dee, examines the representation of race in a selection of US television’s most popular shows, (in...

November 1, 2024 | TEAR THIS BUILDING DOWN
JAMES BALDWIN ON FILM

Anora

A certain minority of viewers has at times imagined a version of Pretty Woman (1990) in which Richard Gere’s car does not pull up near Julia Roberts’ sensitive striver Vivian, but next to Laura San...

November 1, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

Save the Green Planet!

This one-of-a-kind, completely insane film follows a disillusioned conspiracy theorist who believes that aliens have infiltrated society and plan to destroy Earth during the next lunar eclipse. He’...

October 30, 2024 | ECHOES IN TIME
KOREAN FILMS OF THE GOLDEN AGE AND NEW CINEMA

No Other Land

No documentarist could reasonably expect their work to change the world overnight. But for the makers of No Other Land, the process involved is a much longer one: this collective, two Palestinians,...

October 30, 2024 | PREVIEW

Battleship Potemkin

Eisenstein challenged cinematic form in his second film, an essential revolutionary classic. Dramatising the true story of the mutiny aboard the Potemkin, the filmmaker integrated bold imagery wi...

October 29, 2024 | RELAXED SCREENING

The War You Don't See

John Pilger: Why are wars not reported honestly? In the US Army manual on counterinsurgency, the American commander General David Petraeus describes Afghanistan as a ‘war of perception … conducted ...

October 28, 2024 | HIDDEN TRUTHS
JOHN PILGER AND THE POWER OF DOCUMENTARY

Taxi

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. This furiously fast and funny action flic flick kick-started one of the most successful franchises in French film history. A non-dri...

October 28, 2024 | ART OF ACTION
CELEBRATING THE REAL ACTION STARS OF CINEMA

The Quiet Mutiny

+ intro and Q&A with author Anthony Hayward When John Pilger reported from Vietnam for his first television documentary, The Quiet Mutiny, directed by Charles Denton, the World in Action film ...

October 28, 2024 | HIDDEN TRUTHS
JOHN PILGER AND THE POWER OF DOCUMENTARY

The Pilger Effect

John Pilger believed passionately that great documentaries frighten the powerful, unnerve the compliant and expose the hypocritical. Across a long career, Pilger was called a ‘dangerous subversive’...

October 28, 2024 | HIDDEN TRUTHS
JOHN PILGER AND THE POWER OF DOCUMENTARY

Polite Society

Bird

Lousy Little Sixpence + Utopia

Face/Off

Point Break

The Golden Dream

Red Cliff

Death of a Nation - The Timor Conspiracy + Palestine Is Still the Issue (2002)

The Woman King

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

A Girl at My Door

Color Adjustment

Anora

Save the Green Planet!

No Other Land

Battleship Potemkin

The War You Don't See

Taxi

The Quiet Mutiny

The Pilger Effect

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