BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Sebastiane

The mid-1970s were not an auspicious time to launch into feature film production. In 1975 the British film industry was collapsing fast. Cinema admissions had been falling rapidly since the 50s (in...

April 16, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Emigrants

+ pre-recorded intro by Sarah Lutton, season programmer Lots of films purport to show us what the past was like. Jan Troell’s magnum opus invites us to live there, so all-encompassing is its inves...

April 16, 2022 | LIV ULLMANN - FACE TO FACE

Playground

Director Laura Wandel on ‘Playground’ Playground, the debut feature by Belgian writer-director Laura Wandel, was one of the discoveries of 2021, winning the Fipresci Award for the Un Certain Regar...

April 15, 2022 | NEW RELEASES

Patlabor 2

It’s 2002, three years after the events of the original film, and national stability is threatened when Tokyo is placed under martial law amid tensions between the Japanese armed forces and police....

April 15, 2022 | ANIME

The Last Temptation of Christ

Scorsese on ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ Barbara Hershey, who plays Magdalene, gave you a copy of The Last Temptation of Christ in 1972. Did you read it then and know immediately you wanted to ...

April 15, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Cowboy Bebop – The Movie

It’s 2071 and Earth has been abandoned for settlements on different moons and planets in the solar system. The spaceship Bepop is home to a group of bounty hunters who are seeking a terrorist threa...

April 14, 2022 | ANIME

Patlabor - The Movie

In a speculative 1999, and facing an oncoming typhoon, the Tokyo police force finds itself caught up in a mysterious plot involving a suicide and the suspicious reprogramming of thousands of Labors...

April 13, 2022 | ANIME

Benedetta

Paul Verhoeven interviewed by Kleber Mendonça Filho When I visited the Benedetta shoot almost four years ago in Italy, on a very hot day, the scene I saw being shot was part of the insurrection at...

April 13, 2022 | PREVIEW

The Year of the Sex Olympics

The Year of the Sex Olympics was first broadcast as part of BBC2’s Theatre 625 and provides an excellent example of writer Nigel Kneale at his most imaginative but downbeat. His earlier work, Quate...

April 12, 2022 | NIGHTMARES & DAYDREAMS
A CENTENARY CELEBRATION OF SCREENWRITER NIGEL KNEALE

Royal Space Force
The Wings of Honneamise

Contains explicit imagery of sexual violence. In an alternative world we follow a would-be astronaut as he joins a small, disenfranchised group, the Royal Space Force. Known as much for its troubl...

April 12, 2022 | ANIME

Quatermass and the Pit

The third series – and perhaps the best – featuring Nigel Kneale’s hugely successful creation, the steadfast scientific genius Professor Bernard Quatermass, Quatermass and the Pit (BBC) was also th...

April 11, 2022 | NIGHTMARES & DAYDREAMS
A CENTENARY CELEBRATION OF SCREENWRITER NIGEL KNEALE

The Gospel According to Matthew

Although Pier Paolo Pasolini’s film The Gospel According to Matthew (Il Vangelo secondo Matteo) is habitually praised as a key work both of the director’s oeuvre and of world cinema as a whole, sma...

April 11, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Worzel Gummidge Restoration Screening

We are delighted to announce that the guests at this event will include actors Mike Berry, Lorraine Chase and Jeremy Austin Bullock. With renewed interest in Worzel Gummidge thanks to Mackenzie Cr...

April 10, 2022 | IN PERSON & PREVIEWS

Scenes from a Marriage

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Originally a six-part TV miniseries, Scenes from a Marriage was subsequently edited into this feature-length cinema version. Created...

April 10, 2022 | LIV ULLMANN - FACE TO FACE

The New World

This singular vision of early 17th-century America from Terrence Malick is a work of astounding elemental beauty, a poetic meditation on nature, violence, love, and civilisation. It reimagines the...

April 10, 2022 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Steamboy

A retro science-fiction epic set in Victorian England, Steamboy features an inventor prodigy named Ray Steam who receives a mysterious metal ball containing a new form of energy capable of powering...

April 9, 2022 | ANIME

Faithless

+ extended intro by Liv Ullmann The enigma that is Faithless has been created by at least seven storytellers, none of whom can be trusted. At its simplest, the film consists of the fantasies of an...

April 9, 2022 | LIV ULLMANN - FACE TO FACE

Cold Case Hammarskjöld

Please note: viewers may find allegations in this film deeply upsetting; they will be discussed in the post-screening Q&A. Around midnight on 18 September 1961, a small plane flying over a rem...

April 9, 2022 | AFRICAN ODYSSEYS

CODA

Oscar winner Marlee Matlin stars as Jackie and newly-crowned Oscar winner Troy Kotsur is her mischievous husband Frank, parents who have created a close knit family unit and have grown to depend on...

April 9, 2022 | NEW RELEASES

Maquia - When the Promised Flower Blooms

The vertical threads are the passing days. The horizontal ones are the lives of mankind. The people of Iorph live far away from the lands of men, weaving the happenings of each day into fabric call...

April 8, 2022 | ANIME