BFI Southbank Programme Notes

12 Views of Kensal House

With pre-recorded introduction by Steven Foxon, BFI Curator (Non-Fiction) In 1936 Kensal House, situated in the west of London, was opened by the Gas Light and Coke Company as a model estate. Des...

August 18, 2022 | ART IN THE MAKING

Days and Nights in the Forest

Days and Nights in the Forest… the very title rings with enchantment, and the old Ray magic is soon at work again. This time the spell is a rug spread out in the sun, a picnic by the river, a charm...

August 18, 2022 | SATYAJIT RAY
THE LANGUAGE OF FILM

3 Faces

We are screening this film and There Is No Evil (Sheytan vojud nadarad) in solidarity with Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad. The BFI strongly condemns their prison sentence and...

August 17, 2022 | PREVIEWS & EVENTS

The Frog

Introduced by Vic Pratt, Producer, BFI Video Publishing Edgar Wallace’s 1925 novel The Fellowship of the Frog centres on the investigation by two Scotland Yard policemen, Captain Richard Gordon an...

August 16, 2022 | PROJECTING THE ARCHIVE

There Is No Evil

We are screening this film and 3 Faces (Se rokh) in solidarity with Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad. The BFI strongly condemns their prison sentence and the oppression of artis...

August 14, 2022 | PREVIEWS & EVENTS

Bigger than Life

Nicholas Ray’s Bigger than Life is among the most radical examples of what may be the most radical genre in American cinema: the small-town melodrama. Though long considered unworthy of serious att...

August 12, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Notorious

ALICIA: My car is outside. DEVLIN: Naturally. ALICIA: Wanna go for a ride? DEVLIN: Very much. Seven decades after its premiere in New York on 15 August 1946, it’s impossible to shake the feeling t...

August 11, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The White Ribbon

Michael Haneke on ‘The White Ribbon” Did you always envisage having a narrator? Right from the start. As in my other films, I wanted to nourish a certain sense of distrust regarding the veracity ...

August 9, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Kes

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Kes was Ken Loach’s second feature film, and marks his move away from the self-conscious experimentalism of his earlier work. As be...

August 9, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Kanchenjunga

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away the film’s ending. In Satyajit Ray’s view, Kanchenjunga differs from all his previous work: the story being his own, ‘the difference is between interp...

August 9, 2022 | SATYAJIT RAY
THE LANGUAGE OF FILM

Being Blacker

+ Q&A with Molly Dineen, Blacker Dread and Naptali, hosted by the renowned DJ and remixer, Radio 1Xtra’s Seani B After a ten-year absence, BAFTA award-winning filmmaker Molly Dineen returned w...

August 9, 2022 | IN PERSON & PREVIEWS

Kinuyo Tanaka
Film Pioneer

Join us for this richly illustrated talk exploring the career of Kinuyo Tanaka, which guides you through our film selection. This season introduction event will trace how Tanaka came to be consider...

August 8, 2022 | KINUYO TANAKA
A LIFE IN FILM

Teen Kanya

To mark Tagore’s centenary year, Ray adapted three short stories by the writer. In The Postmaster, a young man from Calcutta arrives as postmaster of a small village and soon forms a bond with an o...

August 7, 2022 | SATYAJIT RAY
THE LANGUAGE OF FILM

Citizen Kane

Andrew Sarris on the 50th anniversary of the opening of ‘Citizen Kane’ Citizen Kane erupted on to the screen, at least as a long-lived figure of speech, on 1 May 1941 at New York’s Palace Theater. ...

August 7, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Raging Bull

Sitting in a movie theatre as the credits rolled on The Death Collector (1975), Raging Bull’s casting director Cis Corman felt they could have found their Joey LaMotta. The film hadn’t made much of...

August 6, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

La Haine

Mathieu Kassovitz on ‘La Haine’ La Haine is 25 years old. Since Mathieu Kassovitz’s debut first screened there’s arguably not been another French film that has had as significant an impact. In the...

August 6, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Devi + Pikoo

+ pre-recorded intro by Sangeeta Datta SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Contemporary reviews On a first glance you might see Devi as no more than a film with a thes...

August 6, 2022 | SATYAJIT RAY
THE LANGUAGE OF FILM

Persona

What is emotionally darkest in Bergman's film is connected particularly with asub-theme of the main theme of doubling: the contrast between hiding or concealing and showing forth. The Latin word pe...

August 5, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Lightyear

What’s it about? Young astronaut Buzz Lightyear is the member of a spaceship crew who are stranded on a planet 4.2 million light years from Earth. His repeated attempts to return home backfire, but...

August 5, 2022 | FAMILIES

The Harder They Come

Jimmy Cliff brings a knockout soundtrack and charisma aplenty to this classic crime drama. A film that needs no introduction to anyone with so much as the slightest interest in reggae or Jamaican c...

August 5, 2022 | RE-RELEASES