BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Au hasard Balthazar

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Robert Bresson drafted the rules of a new cinema and realised them in Au hasard Balthazar, his masterpiece. This seemingly aloof, co...

March 2, 2023 | SIGHT AND SOUND GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 2022
25=

Jeanne Dielman
23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Such a sudden shake-up at the top of Sight and Sound ’s ten-yearly poll! Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman 23, Quai du Commerce, 108...

March 1, 2023 | SIGHT AND SOUND GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 2022
1

Haunted Engines - UNICA and Other Films from Computer Generated Worlds

+ Q&A with Blaise Kirschner UNICA is the new, eagerly anticipated film by Blaise Kirschner, a personally absorbing exploration of post-apocalyptic game worlds that merges current forms of digi...

March 1, 2023 | EXPERIMENTA

Daisies + Meshes in the Afternoon

Daisies An early short film by Vera Chytilová bears the title A Bagful of Fleas (1962), an evocative image that neatly describes the intended effect of much of the work of Czech cinema’s arch-provo...

March 1, 2023 | SIGHT AND SOUND GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 2022
28 AND 16

Throne of Blood
(Relaxed Screening)

+ intro and discussion The ruins of the former Spiders Web Castle emerge from the mist for the second relaxed screening in our Kurosawa season. But why exactly has the castle met such a fate and...

February 27, 2023 | RELAXED SCREENING

Creature

The latest production choreographed by Akram Khan with the English National Ballet, Creature, has taken several years to arrive on stage. When it looked like the show might never come to life, dire...

February 24, 2023 | NEW RELEASES

Broker

Hirokazu Koreeda’s Cannes-winning feature, his first to be shot in Korea, focuses on the semi-illicit world of adoption markets. So-young leaves her recently born child at a church where Dong-soo w...

February 24, 2023 | NEW RELEASE

Shadow

Director’s Statement Shadow uses a combination of dramatic and documentary-style elements to tell the story of a group of activists who hold a public meeting only to discover their own prejudices a...

February 22, 2023 | YOU BEAUTIES - NEW AUSTRALIAN CINEMA

The Apartment

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away the film’s ending. Billy Wilder and IAL Diamond’s sharp, cynical script concerns an insurance clerk (Jack Lemmon) who, bent on promotion, lends his ap...

February 22, 2023 | SIGHT AND SOUND GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 2022
54=

A.K.

Notoriously media-shy, Kurosawa gave Marker permission to film the making of Ran. As his earlier Sans Soleil highlighted, the acclaimed French filmmaker was intrigued by Japanese culture and behavi...

February 22, 2023 | KUROSAWA

The Strays

+ Q&A with writer-director Nathaniel Martello-White and actors Ashley Madekwe, Bukky Bakray, Jorden Myrie, Maria Almeida and Samuel Small SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of ...

February 20, 2023 | PREVIEW

Madadayo

Just as the camera had panned down in the opening moments of Sanshiro Sugata [Akira Kurosawa’s first film], so it pans back up at the conclusion of Madadayo as a small boy raises his head to a swir...

February 20, 2023 | KUROSAWA

Yojimbo

Introduced by Asif Kapadia, season co-curator (Thursday 23 February only) Kurosawa on ‘Yojimbo’ For a long time I had wanted to make a really interesting film – and it finally turned into this pic...

February 18, 2023 | KUROSAWA

You Won't Be Alone

When writer and director Goran Stolevski took home the 2018 Sundance Festival prize for his short film Would You Look at Her, it immediately attracted the attention of producers Kristina Ceyton and...

February 17, 2023 | YOU BEAUTIES - NEW AUSTRALIAN CINEMA

Subject

+ Q&A with directors Camilla Hall and Jennifer Tiexiera, and contributor Margaret Ratliff, hosted by Kim Longinotto The advent of streaming has seemingly ushered in a golden era for documentar...

February 17, 2023 | PREVIEW

Friends and Strangers

James Vaughan’s remarkable debut feature is on its surface an indie mumblecore-influenced comedy about intertwined young lives, set between Sydney and Brisbane. But its simplicity is deceptive, and...

February 16, 2023 | YOU BEAUTIES - NEW AUSTRALIAN CINEMA

Dersu Uzala

Introduced by Ian Haydn Smith, season co-curator (Thursday 16 February) and by Doug Weir, BFI Technical Delivery Manager (Monday 27 February) From Rashomon (1950) to Yojimbo (1961), Akira Kurosawa...

February 16, 2023 | KUROSAWA

Summer of Sam

+ intro by Spike Lee A contemporary review Summer of Sam, set in New York during the heatwave of 1977 when serial killer David Berkowitz was terrorising the city, has been largely misrepresented b...

February 13, 2023 | EVENTS

Spike Lee
in Conversation

Director, writer, actor, producer, author and NYU Grad Film tenured professor Spike Lee is to receive a BFI Fellowship, the highest honour bestowed by the BFI. The fellowship recognises Lee’s pione...