BFI Southbank Programme Notes

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

I Could Go On Singing

Introduced by Dirk Bogarde’s nephew, Ulric van den Bogarde (Tuesday 28 June only.) A contemporary review Movie stars have been rather out of fashion ever since Hollywood discovered the Actors’ Stu...

June 21, 2022 | JUDY GARLAND - A STAR IS REBORN

Le Havre

Aki Kaurismäki on ‘Le Havre’ A character named Marcel Marx appeared in your 1992 film La Vie de bohème: and André Wilms plays him again in Le Havre . Is he the same character? Yes, I saved some t...

June 20, 2022 | REFUGEE WEEK

A Star Is Born

Time magazine described Garland’s performance as ‘just about the finest one-woman show in modern movie history’ and it’s still hard to believe that she didn’t win the Best Actress Oscar® for it. Ne...

June 19, 2022 | JUDY GARLAND - A STAR IS REBORN

The Devil, Probably

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Contemporary reviews Having made his decision to trust his cellmate, the condemned man puts his escape plan into practice and drops ...

June 19, 2022 | OF SIN AND SALVATION
THE CINEMA OF ROBERT BRESSON

Certain Women

Taken from Maile Meloy’s stories, Kelly Reichardt’s wonderful triptych focuses on four women (and, sometimes, the men in their lives) trying to get by in rural America. The narrative is quiet, elli...

June 19, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Judy's Jukebox Singalong

To celebrate 100 years of the brilliant Judy Garland, we present a jukebox night playing clips of some of the best-known hits from her career. Our guest host Caroline George will lead you through s...

June 18, 2022 | JUDY GARLAND - A STAR IS REBORN

Looking for Langston

The influence of Isaac Julien’s groundbreaking, lyrical and poetic meditation on the life of revered Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes still ripples throughout the representation of queerness...

June 17, 2022 | BFI FLARE

Lancelot du Lac

It won’t be to all tastes, but there’s an aesthetic purity to Robert Bresson’s approach that gives Lancelot du Lac a startling, timeless quality. He chooses to shoot only parts of the body, often c...

June 16, 2022 | OF SIN AND SALVATION
THE CINEMA OF ROBERT BRESSON

Earwig

+ Q&A with director Lucile Hadžihalilović There is no straight story coming any time soon from David Lynch’s closest filmmaking heir, Lucile Hadžihalilović. Her new film – her first in English...

June 13, 2022 | PREVIEW

Stranger by the Lake

Imagine Bresson making an explicit gay erotic thriller. Unlikely, but Alain Guiraudie may have had him in mind when making this tale of a man disappointed by his encounters on a cruising beach unt...

June 12, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Swan Song

Director’s Statement Back in 1984, I walked into my small-town gay bar for the first time – The Universal Fruit and Nut Company. There he was, glittering on the dancefloor. Wearing a teal feather ...

June 10, 2022 | NEW RELEASES

Rosetta

I saw Rosetta three weeks ago, and haven’t recovered from it since. In fact, I didn’t see any film since the Dardennes’, except films for work. It moves me to the heart of my heart, this film about...

June 10, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Bergman Island

Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth are ‘Chris’ and ‘Tony’, a couple on a summer retreat to Fårö, the Swedish island home of Ingmar Berman. Both are filmmakers hoping to make progress on their respective scr...