BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Life Moves Pretty Fast – The John Hughes Mixtapes Launch
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Please note, the discussion will take place before the screening. The panel will feature music supervisor (for John Hughes) Tarquin Gotch; journalist and 80s film enthusiast Hadley Freeman; musicia...

November 11, 2022 | IN PERSON & PREVIEWS

The Greenaway Alphabet

Anyone looking for a way into the works of Peter Greenaway would do well to begin with The Greenaway Alphabet. His films are visually appealing but can challenge the unsuspecting viewer not prepare...

November 11, 2022 | NEW RELEASES

The Entity

Horror icon Barbara Hershey stars in this underseen and affecting film about a single mother repeatedly attacked by an unseen force. She is beaten, sexually assaulted and hounded by this spectral c...

November 11, 2022 | IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS

The Draughtsman's Contract

Peter Greenaway on ‘The Draughtsman’s Contract’ The Draughtsman’s Contract. A film that is 40 years old. Made in 1982 about events in 1694. Elaborate, stylised, enjoyable, spiteful and mysterious,...

November 11, 2022 | RE-RELEASES

Ganja & Hess

Marlene Clark and Duane Jones star as the eponymous lovers of Bill Gunn’s iconic vampire romance, one of the defining classics of the genre. After his erratic assistant stabs him with an ancient da...

November 7, 2022 | IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS

The Unreliable Narrator
Adventures in Storytelling,
Documentary and Misinformation

Veracity and doubt play off each other to uncanny, witty ends in imaginative films by Greenaway, John Smith, Patrick Keiller, Steven Ball and Philip Sanderson. The voice illuminates and obscures in...

November 6, 2022 | FRAMES OF MIND
THE FILMS OF PETER GREENAWAY

Black Panther

Black Panther, from director Ryan Coogler and co-screenwriter Joe Robert Cole, begins with a history lesson. A colourful animated sequence unravels the origins of the fictional African nation of Wa...

November 6, 2022 | CLOSE-UP - RYAN COOGLER

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

With a remarkable cast (Benedict Cumberbatch, Kathy Burke, Tom Hardy and Stephen Graham are in there too), this adaptation of John Le Carré’s Cold War espionage mystery is inevitably classy and (gi...

November 5, 2022 | GARY OLDMAN

Possession

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Part divorce drama, part creature feature, part Cold War thriller, Possession is one of the most unsettling films of all time. With ...

November 5, 2022 | IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS

Peter Greenaway
Pioneer of Cinema

Few directors have been as committed to articulating film as a medium distinct from other forms of drama and storytelling as Peter Greenaway. Working as filmmaker and visual artist, Greenaway has e...

November 5, 2022 | FRAMES OF MIND
THE FILMS OF PETER GREENAWAY

Fright Night

When certified horror buff Charlie Brewster becomes convinced the two guys next door are vampires, everyone thinks he’s just watched too many spooky movies. But as the signs add up, Charlie turns t...

November 4, 2022 | IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS

Cronos

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. In this early hit from horror master Guillermo del Toro, an elderly antiques dealer Jesús Gris (Luppi) finds an ancient gold scarab ...

November 4, 2022 | IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS

BUG Special - Video Nasties

Welcome to a very special edition of BUG, the BFI’s regular strand for all things music video-related, with a show designed to send a shiver down the spine, chill the blood, and even leave you scre...

November 4, 2022 | EVENTS

Elgar + Dance of the Seven Veils

Monitor: Elgar In the late 1950s, Ken Russell’s amateur films secured him a position at the BBC, making documentaries for the Monitor arts strand run by the benevolently autocratic Huw Wheldon. He ...

November 3, 2022 | BFI’S 100 BBC TV GAMECHANGERS

Let's Scare Jessica to Death

We are pleased to be screening an original 35mm distribution print of this film. Given its age, the colour of the picture has now faded to a pink hue. We hope this does not take away from your enjo...

November 2, 2022 | IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS

The Firm (Alternative Cut)

With his wife (Manville, then married to Oldman), child, comfortable home and job as an estate agent, Clive ‘Bexy’ Bissel (Oldman) would seem a respectable citizen; his abiding passion, however, is...

November 2, 2022 | GARY OLDMAN

A Bunch of Amateurs

+ Q&A with director Kim Hopkins, producer Margareta Szabo and special guests from the Bradford Movie Makers Director’s Statement A Bunch of Amateurs is set in Bradford in the north of England,...

November 2, 2022 | PREVIEW

Us

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. A middle-class family’s relaxing getaway turns into a waking nightmare when their lake house is invaded by a group of strangers who...

November 1, 2022 | IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS

Prospero's Books

Prospero’s Books is a version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest starring John Gielgud. Shakespeare’s play centres on Prospero, Duke of Milan, who has been deposed by his brother, Antonio, supported by A...

November 1, 2022 | FRAMES OF MIND
THE FILMS OF PETER GREENAWAY

Living

+ Q&A with director Oliver Hermanus, writer Kazuo Ishiguro and actor Aimee Lou Wood Living began rather serendipitously. One night, when author Kazuo Ishiguro and producer Stephen Woolley wer...

November 1, 2022 | PREVIEW

Life Moves Pretty Fast – The John Hughes Mixtapes LaunchFerris Bueller’s Day Off