BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Hard Target

+ intro by Ti Singh, BFI FAN season producer (Wednesday 27 November only) John Woo’s first US film paired him with the ‘muscles from Brussels’, Belgian action star Jean-Claude Van Damme, whose fla...

November 24, 2024 | ART OF ACTION
CELEBRATING THE REAL ACTION STARS OF CINEMA

The Coming War on China

With nuclear catastrophe, whether by accident or design, an ever-more chilling global threat, John Pilger’s 2016 film has renewed relevance and urgency. At a preview screening at BFI Southbank he i...

November 23, 2024 | HIDDEN TRUTHS
JOHN PILGER AND THE POWER OF DOCUMENTARY

Burp! Pepsi v Coke in the Ice Cold War + Flying the Flag – Arming the World

Inspired by Jill Chen Louis’s book The Cola Wars, John Pilger’s Burp! Pepsi v Coke in the Ice Cold War tells the story of the struggle between ‘those giants of carbonation and regurgitation, Coca-C...

November 23, 2024 | HIDDEN TRUTHS
JOHN PILGER AND THE POWER OF DOCUMENTARY

Black Box Diaries

+ Q&A with director Shiori Ito We are delighted to announce that following this event, director Shiori Ito will join us for a book signing located outside of the Blue Room. Copies of Shiori’s ...

November 22, 2024 | WOMAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA

District B13

+ intro by Chee Keong Cheung, writer, director, producer and CEO of Action Xtreme (Wednesday 20 November only) This dystopian actioner follows the same blueprint as the earlier Taxi: a cop and a c...

November 20, 2024 | ART OF ACTION
CELEBRATING THE REAL ACTION STARS OF CINEMA

Year Zero - The Silent Death of Cambodia + Breaking the Silence - Truth and Lies in the War on Terror

John Pilger’s shocking 1979 documentary Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia alerted the world to the horrors wrought by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, who had come to power in the turmoil followi...

November 18, 2024 | HIDDEN TRUTHS
JOHN PILGER AND THE POWER OF DOCUMENTARY

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