BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Modern Times

+ intro SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away the film’s ending. This sound/silent hybrid is Chaplin’s last non-dialogue film and a farewell to the little tramp character. Its satirical ...

May 15, 2022 | SILENT CINEMA

Wolf Children

Japanese animated fantasy Wolf Children comes to Britain weeks after Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away) announced his retirement from filmmaking. On the evidence of this film (bolstered by two excellen...

May 14, 2022 | ANIME

To Die For

+ intro by Hannah Strong SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Nicole Kidman plays Suzanne not merely as a bimbo, but as a woman who has concentrated down to one obsessi...

May 14, 2022 | WOMAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA

Inside

The films of the New French Extremity and the accompanying focus on Gaspar Noé examine an important, controversial and highly violent cinema movement. They are not suitable for all. The film you a...

May 14, 2022 | CRUEL FLESH
FILMS OF THE NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY

Cléo from 5 to 7

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Agnès Varda came up the hard way. Starting as official photographer for the Théâtre National Populaire, she somehow managed to finan...

May 14, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Vortex

Gaspar Noé on ‘Vortex’ What was the origin of Vortex ? I’ve been wanting to make a film with elderly people for several years. With my grandparents, then with my mother, I realised that old age in...

May 13, 2022 | NEW RELEASES

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg enjoys a legendary place as an all-but-unique curiosity in French cinema – the film for which the epithet ‘bittersweet’ was invented, less a musical (though French examp...

May 13, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Laika + intro

+ Q&A with Asif Kapadia Walking beneath the graffitied railway arches where the smell of spray paint lingered in the damp air on the way to the London Film Festival’s VR venue at Leake Street,...

May 12, 2022 | BFI EXPANDED

Playing with Reality + panel

+ panel discussion Co-curated by ANAGRAM and Mind in Camden With support from BFI Expanded This evening is a companion event to the UK premiere of Goliath: Playing with Reality, a powerful virtu...

May 11, 2022 | BFI EXPANDED

Vortex + intro

+ intro by Gaspar Noé Françoise Lebrun on ‘Vortex’ Do you know why Gaspar Noé called you in? Yes! He saw The Mother and the Whore and he loves that film, it really moved him. But we didn’t talk m...

May 10, 2022 | PREVIEWS

The Long Day Closes

Terence Davies wrote in the introduction to the published script for Distant Voices Still Lives that he was ‘trying to create ‘a pattern of timeless moments’.’ Yet that picture has stronger dramati...

May 9, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

High Tension

The films of the New French Extremity and the accompanying focus on Gaspar Noé examine an important, controversial and highly violent cinema movement. They are not suitable for all. The film you a...

May 9, 2022 | CRUEL FLESH
FILMS OF THE NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY

Benediction

+ extended introduction with actor Jack Lowden Benediction explores the turbulent life of First World War poet, Siegfried Sassoon, through the eyes of the revered filmmaker Terence Davies. Sassoon...

May 9, 2022 | PREVIEWS

Enter the Void

The films of the New French Extremity and the accompanying focus on Gaspar Noé examine an important, controversial and highly violent cinema movement. They are not suitable for all. The film you a...

May 8, 2022 | FOCUS ON - GASPAR NOÉ

Syndromes and a Century

Considering the challenges it poses, Syndromes and a Century is an exceptionally easy and pleasurable watch. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s earlier features Blissfully Yours (2002) and Tropical Malady...

May 7, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Raça

+ Q&A co-hosted by Victor Fraga, DMovies This documentary focuses on Brazil’s struggle for civil rights through the life and campaigns of men and woman from different walks of life: Paulo Paim...

May 7, 2022 | AFRICAN ODYSSEYS

In My Skin

The films of the New French Extremity and the accompanying focus on Gaspar Noé examine an important, controversial and highly violent cinema movement. They are not suitable for all. The film you a...

May 7, 2022 | CRUEL FLESH
FILMS OF THE NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY

The Velvet Queen

High up on the Tibetan plateau. Amongst unexplored and inaccessible valleys lies one of the last sanctuaries of the wild world, where rare and undiscovered fauna lives. Vincent Munier, one of the w...

May 6, 2022 | NEW RELEASES

Romance

The films of the New French Extremity and the accompanying focus on Gaspar Noé examine an important, controversial and highly violent cinema movement. They are not suitable for all. The film you a...

May 6, 2022 | CRUEL FLESH
FILMS OF THE NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY

Morons from Outer Space

I first saw Morons from Outer Space at the ABC cinema in Oxford on its release in 1986. I went with my family and I remember two things. That the cinema was basically empty and that I laughed harde...

May 6, 2022 | RETURN OF THE OUTSIDER
THE FILMS OF MIKE HODGES

Modern Times

Wolf Children

To Die For

Inside

Cléo from 5 to 7

Vortex

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Laika + intro

Playing with Reality + panel

Vortex + intro

The Long Day Closes

High Tension

Benediction

Enter the Void

Syndromes and a Century

Raça

In My Skin

The Velvet Queen

Romance

Morons from Outer Space

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