BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Rome, Open City

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Made towards the end of WWII, Rossellini’s film about life in Rome under the Nazi Occupation – originally inspired by a priest servi...

July 3, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Pather Panchali

Satyajit Ray on ‘Pather Panchali’ I remember the first day’s shooting of Pather Panchali very well. It was in the festive season, in October, and the last of the big pujas was taking place that day...

July 3, 2022 | SATYAJIT RAY
THE LANGUAGE OF FILM

Horror of Darkness + Let's Murder Vivaldi

Horror of Darkness arrived in the early days of The Wednesday Play (BBC, 1964-70), just before the anthology series acquired its reputation as the often controversial highlight of the mid-1960s BBC...

July 3, 2022 | GLENDA JACKSON

Women in Love

When Women in Love opened theatrically in Britain in the autumn of 1969, its director, Ken Russell, had been a professional filmmaker for a full decade. Although he had only made two cinema feature...

July 2, 2022 | GLENDA JACKSON

Theorem

Pier Paolo Pasolini was a man of many qualities and contradictions – oft-noted when folks point to the strangeness of an atheist making The Gospel According to Matthew (1964) – and that is reflecte...

July 2, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Sankofa

The career of the Ethiopian-born, American-based writer-director Haile Gerima is a fascinating case study of the challenges faced by left-leaning, formally experimental black filmmakers. Consider t...

July 2, 2022 | IN THE BLACK FANTASTIC

Pandora's Box

Pandora’s Box (Die Büchse der Pandora) is a confounding film. It failed commercially, then soared in popularity long after it might have been forgotten. It is a masterpiece that has been mistreated...

July 2, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

In Conversation with Aparna Sen + UK Premiere - The Rapist

An early scene in Aparna Sen’s The Rapist sees a bunch of slum-dwelling boys mocking one among them for being weak ‘like a girl’, while playing football. In the subsequent scene, these young adult...

July 2, 2022 | LONDON INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL

The Adversary

Ray on ‘The Adversary’ Did you consciously set out with the idea that Days and Nights in the Forest , The Adversary and Company Limited would form a new trilogy? I didn’t think of it during the f...

July 2, 2022 | SATYAJIT RAY
THE LANGUAGE OF FILM

Wayfinder

Wayfinder is Larry Achiampong’s first feature and most ambitious film to date. Set during a pandemic, the film tracks the movements of its central protagonist – The Wanderer, a young girl (played ...

July 1, 2022 | NEW RELEASES

Nitram

Please note: this film contains scenes that some viewers may find distressing. Nitram (Landry Jones) is a troubled young man who lives with his parents in a small Tasmanian town and is profoundly ...

July 1, 2022 | NEW RELEASES

BUG 63

Welcome to BUG 63. Once again Adam Buxton is here to present a fresh and new episode of BUG, combining excellent new creative work in the field of music videos with a smattering of things we were u...

July 1, 2022 | EVENTS

All the President's Men

A contemporary review A reputation as one of the most faithful and artful of movie adaptations has preceded All the President’s Men to the screen. Beginning with Robert Redford’s acquaintance with ...

July 1, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Afterlight

+ Q&A with director Charlie Shackleton ‘More stars than there are in heaven,’ MGM boasted in its heyday. That motto could apply to Charlie Shackleton’s collage film, which places hundreds of s...

June 29, 2022 | PREVIEW

In Pursuit of Silence

+ intro and discussion. Exploring the words of Lao Tzu, ‘silence is a source of great strength’, this documentary encourages us to really observe the world around us. This contemplative, richly...

June 27, 2022 | RELAXED SCREENING

Gandhi

+ intro On the film’s 40th anniversary LIFF presents and re-examines the epic movie that brought Indian leader Gandhi to the world’s attention in the 1980s and allegedly helped inspire the non-vio...

June 25, 2022 | LONDON INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL

Wings of Desire

Few modern films have made the transition to classic status as quickly as Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire. His tale of a guardian angel in a still-Wall-divided Berlin who falls in love with – and to e...

June 24, 2022 | RE-RELEASES

Moon, 66 Questions

Jacqueline Lentzou’s short films have been winning prizes on the international festival circuit for some time. Moon, 66 Questions is her debut feature; its subtitle is A Film About Love, Movement a...

June 24, 2022 | NEW RELEASES

Dobaaraa

+ Q&A with Anurag Kashyap and other special guests India’s internationally best known director, Anurag Kashyap, returns to the festival with this surreal Sliding Doors-style story of a young n...

June 23, 2022 | LONDON INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL

Wayfinder

+ Q&A with director Larry Achiampong and Executive Director of Knowledge and Collections, BFI National Archive, Arike Oke Wayfinder is Larry Achiampong’s first feature and most ambitious film ...

June 21, 2022 | EXPERIMENTA PRESENTS - PREMIERE

Rome, Open City

Pather Panchali

Horror of Darkness + Let's Murder Vivaldi

Women in Love

Theorem

Sankofa

Pandora's Box

In Conversation with Aparna Sen + UK Premiere - The Rapist

The Adversary

Wayfinder

Nitram

BUG 63

All the President's Men

The Afterlight

In Pursuit of Silence

Gandhi

Wings of Desire

Moon, 66 Questions

Dobaaraa

Wayfinder

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