BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Girlhood

With her first two films – Water Lilies (2007) and Tomboy (2011) – Céline Sciamma sought to explore the complexity and range of female experience in contemporary France. Water Lilies examined the s...

September 2, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Tokyo Story

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot Yasujirō Ozu’s celebrated masterpiece, ranked fourth in the 2022 Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time poll and beautifully rest...

September 1, 2023 | RE-RELEASES

Passages

Ira Sachs is interested in the dynamics of couples – in how two people in a relationship relate to one another, passionately, affectionately, through conflict and stress and across time – and also ...

September 1, 2023 | NEW RELEASES

Out of Sight

Like Get Shorty, Out of Sight is adapted from an Elmore Leonard novel by Scott Frank and produced by Danny DeVito’s Jersey Films (and also features Dennis Farina in a bit part). But while Get Short...

September 1, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Innocent

When Sylvie (Anouk Grinberg), a prison drama teacher, marries convicted robber Michel (Roschdy Zem), her son Abel (Louis Garrel) is less than thrilled. It seems Sylvie has a habit of falling in lov...

September 1, 2023 | NEW RELEASES

Hospitalité

Kōji Fukada on ‘Hospitalité’ About Hospitalité , why did you pick that title? I started to write the script which was entitled Rotary at first. It referred to rotary printing presses, and the imp...

September 1, 2023 | KOJI FUKADA

Brother

+ Q&A with Marvyn Harrison, owner of BELOVD Agency When his childhood sweetheart Aisha returns to their Toronto neighbourhood of Scarborough for the first time in ten years, Michael is forced ...

September 1, 2023 | S.O.U.L FEST X ABFF GLOBAL LONDON 2023
OPENING NIGHT PREVIEW

Moolaadé

In Moolaadé, the villagers who support the practice of excision – the slicing away of most of the clitoris and labia of young girls, said to promote chastity and discourage female lust – invoke tra...

August 28, 2023 | REBEL CINEMA
OUSMANE SEMBÈNE AT 100

Scrapper

The debut feature of Charlotte Regan, best known for her award-winning shorts and music videos, is a triumphant comedy-drama with a lot of heart and a splash of magic. After her beloved mother pass...

August 25, 2023 | NEW RELEASES

The Living End

Contains scenes graphic violence, scenes of a sexual nature and uses of homophobic language. SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away the film’s ending. After they’re both diagnosed with HIV...

August 22, 2023 | BE GAY DO CRIME
A SEASON OF QUEER CRIME FILMS

Grove Music + discussion

+ discussion with filmmaker and writer Imruh Bakari, writer, critic and historian Rianna Jade Parker and musician and educator Deirdre Pascall. Host is Xavier Alexandre Pillai, BFI National Archive...

August 22, 2023 | ART IN THE MAKING

Gregory's Girl

+ intro and discussion Director Forsyth (Local Hero) also scripted this perceptive and very funny coming-of-age tale, set on the outskirts of Glasgow. The epitome of a gawky, awkward teen, Grego...

August 21, 2023 | RELAXED SCREENING

Ratatouille

Pixar has repeatedly taken audiences on totally original adventures with a host of cinema’s most surprising and unforgettable characters. From toys coming to life (Toy Story and Toy Story 2), to a ...

August 19, 2023 | MAKING MAGIC
100 YEARS OF DISNEY

Blue Velvet

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. A contemporary review In terms of David Lynch’s work, Blue Velvet marks a huge leap forward, almost magically establishing him as th...

August 19, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Serpico

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. For decades, American cinema sought a populist genre to replace the western as a form in which good and evil could be embodied in wh...

August 18, 2023 | RE-RELEASE

Red River

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away the film’s ending. Hawks’ first western remains one of his greatest, its story of an epic cattle drive that established the Chisholm Trail serving as ...

August 17, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

My Brother the Devil

Sally El Hosaini on ‘My Brother the Devil’ Occasionally festival juries get it right. The award for Best British Newcomer at [the 2011] BFI London Film Festival went to writer-director Sally El Hos...

August 16, 2023 | BE GAY DO CRIME
A SEASON OF QUEER CRIME FILMS

Beau travail

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. The first time I watched Beau travail, on DVD, in my childhood bedroom, in the spring of 2014, I didn’t know how it would end. My fa...

August 15, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Mildred Pierce

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. ‘She was thirty-seven years old, fat, and getting a little shapeless. She had lost everything she had worked for, over long and wear...

August 13, 2023 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Lion King

The adventure-filled journey of Simba, a heroic young lion struggling to find his place in nature’s ‘circle of life’ and follow in the regal paw prints of his father, the great King Mufasa, forms t...

August 13, 2023 | MAKING MAGIC
100 YEARS OF DISNEY