BFI Southbank Programme Notes

October 16, 2023 | INTERNAL REFLECTIONS
THE FILMS OF JOANNA HOGG

Rynox + Hotel Splendide

During the 1930s, Michael Powell worked on 31 feature films, yet most of these are little known. This can be attributed mainly to two factors: first, they belong broadly to that category of films c...

October 16, 2023 | CINEMA UNBOUND
THE CREATIVE WORLDS OF POWELL + PRESSBURGER

A Matter of Life and Death

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Michael Powell’s experience of working on The Thief of Bagdad (1940) had given him a strong taste for spectacle and fantasy; but bet...

October 16, 2023 | CINEMA UNBOUND
THE CREATIVE WORLDS OF POWELL + PRESSBURGER

The Age of Innocence

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Martin Scorsese on ‘The Age of Innocence’ Set in New York in the 1870s, The Age of Innocence tells the story of Newland Archer, who ...

October 16, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Twilight City

+ intro by BFI National Archive Curator, Xavier Pillai Tender letters between a recent UK arrival and her mother back in Dominica, juxtaposed with choice archival footage and personal recollection...

October 3, 2023 | TOGETHER
THE LONDON FILMS OF LORENZA MAZZETTI

R.M.N.

Writer-director Cristian Mungiu packs a lot into three letters. RMN is the internationally recognised abbreviation denoting Romania, and it also stands for rezonanță magnetică nucleară (in English,...

September 29, 2023 | NEW RELEASES

The Old Oak

If at any time in the last 60 years you were asked the question, ‘Where do I look to find British political cinema?’, the quick, if reductive, answer was one name: Ken Loach. That the long stretch ...

September 29, 2023 | NEW RELEASES

Three Little Birds

+ Q&A with Sir Lenny Henry and directors Charles McDougall and Yero Timi-Biu and composer Benjamin Kwasi Burrell, hosted by Miquita Oliver. Spirited, moving, funny and utterly heartfelt, Three...

September 28, 2023 | TV PREVIEW

Good Morning

+ intro and discussion Following the popular Relaxed Screenings as part of our Kurosawa season, we return to Japan with a link to this month’s Ozu programme. The director’s pared-back aesthetic...

September 25, 2023 | RELAXED SCREENING

Danny Dyer in Conversation

Danny Dyer’s career has been nothing if not eclectic, beginning his career under the guidance of playwright Harold Pinter. His breakout role in Human Traffic catapulted him into the limelight, maki...

September 25, 2023 | IN PERSON & PREVIEWS

Mona Lisa

Contains strong violence, sexual violence and racist terms. A bunch of chrysanthemums is hurled at a slammed front door, smartly followed by a dustbin. Enraged by the wife who wants rid of him, Ge...

September 24, 2023 | ACTING HARD
WORKING CLASS MASCULINITY IN BRITISH CINEMA

An Autumn Afternoon

Critics, especially auteur critics, tend to take an artist’s last work as a summing up, the goal toward which every other work has moved. The impulse is hard to resist with respect to An Autumn Aft...

September 24, 2023 | A FAMILY AFFAIR
THE FILMS OF YASUJIRO OZU

Sexy Beast

Contains strong violence. If Scum’s Carlin made it to adulthood, he might have resembled Gal, an ex-con enjoying life in the south of Spain. But the arrival of terrifying gang enforcer Don Logan d...

September 23, 2023 | ACTING HARD
WORKING CLASS MASCULINITY IN BRITISH CINEMA

A Year in a Field

Winter Solstice 2020: with his camera and tripod, BAFTA winning documentary filmmaker Christopher Morris began filming each day in a field near his home. ‘I’ve never glued my hand to a road, or st...

September 22, 2023 | NEW RELEASES

Muscle

+ Q&A with director Gerard Johnson, actors Craig Fairbrass, Cavan Clerkin and Polly Maberly. Contains scenes of unsimulated sex. Gerard Johnson’s films frequently confront the banality of mal...

September 22, 2023 | ACTING HARD
WORKING CLASS MASCULINITY IN BRITISH CINEMA

Attack the Block

+ panel discussion with actors Michael Ajao and Jumayn Hunter, hosted by Dr Clive Chijioke Nwonka Joe Cornish’s 2011 sci-fi comedy about a group of youths defending their south London housing est...

September 21, 2023 | EVENTS

My Beautiful Laundrette

Contains strong violence and racist terms. SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Originally shot for television in six weeks on a low budget, My Beautiful Laundrette (19...

September 20, 2023 | ACTING HARD
WORKING CLASS MASCULINITY IN BRITISH CINEMA

Au revoir les enfants

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. ‘Do you realise,’ muses the 12-year-old Julien Quentin, rapt in the entranced solipsism of early adolescence, ‘that there’ll never b...

September 20, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Kid with a Bike

Brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have few equals in terms of consistently magnificent filmmaking. Their latest film The Kid with a Bike may differ from its predecessors in small, subtle ways, ...

September 19, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Exorcist

Introduced by Mark Kermode When 12-year-old Regan displays unusual and disturbing behaviour, and after all medical options have been exhausted, her mother becomes convinced the girl is possessed b...

September 18, 2023 | 50TH ANNIVERSARY

Programme Notes

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