BFI Southbank Programme Notes

The Legend of Hell House

Edgar Wright: I wanted to ask about the last film, in terms of chronology, on the list: The Legend of Hell House. I’ve always loved it and I always think it’s interesting because Pamela Franklin is...

September 28, 2024 | MARTIN SCORSESE SELECTS HIDDEN GEMS OF BRITISH CINEMA

Claude McKay,
from Harlem to Marseille

We are pleased to welcome writer and poet, Hannah Lowe, who joins this event and discuss her life and work in connection to the life and work of Claude McKay. We are also really pleased to welcome ...

September 28, 2024 | AFRICAN ODYSSEYS

The Pumpkin Eater

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. The Pumpkin Eater takes its title from the nursery rhyme: ‘Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater / Had a wife and couldn’t keep her. / He put ...

September 27, 2024 | MARTIN SCORSESE SELECTS HIDDEN GEMS OF BRITISH CINEMA

The Outrun

Saoirse Ronan’s bracing performance as a young alcoholic in recovery who returns home to Orkney is the focal point of Nora Fingscheidt’s poignant adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s award-winning memoir. ...

September 27, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

Dr. Strangelove or
How I Learned
to Stop Worrying
and Love the Bomb

+ Q&A with Armando Iannucci and Sean Foley We celebrate the 60th anniversary of Kubrick’s classic film in the company of the creative team behind the forthcoming stage production. When Dr. St...

September 26, 2024 | EVENTS

Film Repatriation and
New Relational Possibilities
An Illustrated Talk by
Xavier Pillai

Film heritage is now considered part of broader calls for the restitution of heritage objects. Unlike other cultural artifacts, however, film is an industrial art, which during the colonial era was...

September 25, 2024 | EXPERIMENTA

The Substance

The bravura opening of Coralie Fargeat’s bonkers body horror The Substance tracks, via time-lapse photography, the installation and subsequent deterioration of a Hollywood Walk of Fame star. At fir...

September 24, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

+ intro by Jason Wood, BFI Executive Director of Public Programmes & Audiences SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. A contemporary review The story of Billy the Ki...

September 24, 2024 | RESTORED

Went the Day Well?

+ intro by James Bell, Senior Curator, BFI National Archive ‘The critics, led by Miss Lejeune, literally pulled us to pieces,’ Cavalcanti wrote in his note for the Irish Film Society screening. In...

September 23, 2024 | MARTIN SCORSESE SELECTS HIDDEN GEMS OF BRITISH CINEMA

The Thief and the Cobbler
A Moment in Time

+ Q&A with Imogen Sutton Produced over 25 years and inspired by Middle Eastern folk tales and Persian miniatures, The Thief and the Cobbler is a legendary work among animation fans. It was unr...

September 22, 2024 | EVENTS

Station Six Sahara

Station Six Sahara is a big revelation. It’s minimal: they’re in the desert and these men are stuck together. I always found it to be very close to The King of Comedy, because it’s the comedy of ma...

September 22, 2024 | MARTIN SCORSESE SELECTS HIDDEN GEMS OF BRITISH CINEMA

The Damned

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. With its potent mix of mysterious scientific experiments, radioactive children, portents of dystopian doom and biker gang violence, ...

September 21, 2024 | MARTIN SCORSESE SELECTS HIDDEN GEMS OF BRITISH CINEMA

The Hunger

The Hunger helped challenge my perception of what dark fantasy could be. It didn’t have to be epic in scale, but by employing a quieter register and mood it was possible to weave an entrancing stor...

September 19, 2024 | ROOTS, RITUALS AND PHANTASMAGORIA

Zardoz

+ Q&A with writer-director John Boorman SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. The head is a ferocious Greek mask, hacked from stone, its eyes fixed in a malevolent, ...

September 18, 2024 | EVENTS

The Shout

+ Q&A with filmmakers Daniel Kokotajlo and Mark Jenkin (Wednesday 18 September only) Jeremy Thomas on ‘The Shout’ I came back to England via a short stay in America, and a friend called Michae...

September 18, 2024 | ROOTS, RITUALS AND PHANTASMAGORIA

The Servant

+ intro by Ruby McGuigan, BFI Programme and Acquisitions (Wednesday 18 September only) SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Adapted from a novel by Robin Maugham, The S...

September 18, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Elephant Man

Reece Shearsmith will introduce tonight’s screening – the first in an occasional series that sees him share his cinematic influences. SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away the film’s endi...

September 17, 2024 | EVENTS

White Lady + Children of the Stones

A woman in white holds a scythe and watches over a father repairing his rural home with his two daughters. I love White Lady – not just for its symbolic storytelling and rural setting, but for its ...

September 16, 2024 | ROOTS, RITUALS AND PHANTASMAGORIA

Mandy

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Nightmare is never far away in Alexander Mackendrick’s films. It’s there in the street-pursuit of Sidney Stratton in The Man in the ...

September 16, 2024 | MARTIN SCORSESE SELECTS HIDDEN GEMS OF BRITISH CINEMA

Terence Fisher Double Bill
To the Public Danger + Stolen Face

To the Public Danger Before he directed his series of horror classics for Hammer, Terence Fisher demonstrated his versatility across a range of genres. His early short To the Public Danger is an at...

September 15, 2024 | MARTIN SCORSESE SELECTS HIDDEN GEMS OF BRITISH CINEMA