Programme Notes

BFI Southbank

Battleship Potemkin

Sergei Eisenstein on ‘Battleship Potemkin’ Every phenomenon has a chance, superficial manifestation. And underlying it is a profound feeling that reason has dictated it. So it was too with the film...

Watership Down

A landmark in British animation, this adaptation of Richard Adams’ novel makes a welcome return to our screens. A building project threatens the tranquil lives of the wildlife residing in a British...

The Room Next Door

Pedro Almodóvar on ‘The Room Next Door’ You’ve described working in English for this film like embarking on a new genre. Yes, like working on a western, or a science-fiction film. But this wasn’t...

Layla

In Amrou Al-Kadhi’s directorial feature debut Layla, the eponymous drag queen (played with great frankness and sensitivity by newcomer Bilal Hasna) lives a life full of fun, though pocked by confli...

Dahomey

Unfortunately director Mati Diop can no longer introduce the film. There will still be further introductions from patrons and organisers prior to the screening. A voice floods the dark screen as i...

Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon

‘Adventure’ would certainly describe Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But even for seasoned Lee watchers, it’s a touch startling to find a director of his high aesthetic sensibility straying into a ...

The Thief of Bagdad

Producer Alexander Korda originally assigned this Arabian Nights-style adventure – which had been a hit in its 1924 Hollywood version starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr – to the German director Ludwig B...

The Long Kiss Goodnight

+ intro by Melanie Hoyes, BFI Director of Inclusion (Wednesday 23 October) SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Eight years have passed since Samantha Caine emerged fro...

Bullitt

Peter Yates’ first American movie is memorable less for its plot – about a San Francisco cop trying to track down a crucial witness in a Mafia trial – than for its dramatic use of the city’s locati...

Round Midnight

+ discussion with writers Gary Younge and Caryl Phillips. The screening will be introduced by Caryl Phillips. Bertrand Tavernier on ’Round Midnight ’Round Midnight is a film about Black American ...

Timestalker

Alice Lowe on ‘Timestalker’ When and how did you come up with the story? Seven years ago. It was a slow percolation. It started off as a sketch that had a fucked-up Doctor Who thing – what if the...

Seven Samurai

When Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai premiered in Japan on 26 April 1954, it was the most expensive domestic production ever, costing 125 million Yen (approximately $350,000), almost five times the ...

The Apprentice

Screenwriter Gabriel Sherman on ‘The Apprentice’ When did you first come across Donald Trump as a public figure, and what was your impression of him? I’ve been thinking and writing about him for ...

Blake's 7

+ Q&A with actors Jan Chappell and Sally Knyvette Britain’s answer to the worldwide success of Star Wars (1977) didn’t come from cinema – despite George Lucas’ blockbuster having been partly sh...

The Goldman Case

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. The heated 1976 trial of French left-wing intellectual and activist Pierre Goldman, accused of murdering two pharmacists in a bungled...

Clean

Olivier Assayas on ‘Clean’ Was it very different writing about a character for Maggie to play as opposed to writing about her ‘as’ herself in Irma Vep ? For Irma Vep I was using the obvious image...

The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee

Q&A with Peter Serafinowicz, director Jon Spira, producer Hank Starrs and Christopher Lee’s biographer Jonathan Rigby Produced in association with the BFI, this unique documentary features exc...

This Is Going to Be Big

Giving a voice to a group of extraordinary young people as they prepare to stage a musical about the life of Australian pop singer John Farnham, this upbeat documentary reveals the limitations of...

Guns at Batasi

Edgar Wright: A good companion to Station Six Sahara in this season is John Guillermin’s Guns at Batasi. It’s also a single location film, a film of simmering tensions boiling over. Martin Scorses...

Wallace & Gromit
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

What’s it about? + intro by Nick Park and Steve Box Wallace and Gromit, who run a humane pest control business, are called to Tottington Hall to address an abundance of rabbits. Attempts to use ...