BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Titane

+ pre-recorded Q&A with director Julia Ducournau In Titane we meet Alexia (Agathe Rousselle), a showgirl who performs ferociously sexual dances at a motor show and who has a strange, erotic co...

December 6, 2021 | PREVIEW

Scrooge

Although there will always be dispute over which is Alastair Sim’s finest screen performance, there’s little doubt as to which is the best known. His 1951 characterisation of Charles Dickens’ notor...

December 6, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Doctor Who
City of Death

We are delighted to welcome actor Julian Glover, who will be joining us for a Q&A and will be doing a signing after the screening. David Fisher had impressed producer Graham Williams with his ...

December 5, 2021 | IN PERSON & PREVIEWS

A Christmas Tale

Arnaud Desplechin on ‘A Christmas Tale’ Arnaud Desplechin’s new film A Christmas Tale is another addition to the currently burgeoning French family-drama cycle, assembling a heavyweight cast whi...

December 5, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Aimee Victoria + The Multi

+ Q&A Aimee Victoria is a deaf queer love story created entirely remotely during the height of lockdown in 2020. No members of the cast or crew met in person. One of the first films to feature...

December 5, 2021 | BUSTING THE BIAS

Love + Q&A

The creative team behind Love will be discussing disability, inclusivity and diversity within the film landscape and opening up the conversation about normalising creative support throughout the in...

December 4, 2021 | BUSTING THE BIAS

It's Personal + Q&A

It’s Personal Kyla requires 24 hour care with everything from making artwork to having a wee; struggling with a care shortage during the pandemic, she asks filmmaker friend Lou to swap cameras for ...

December 4, 2021 | BUSTING THE BIAS

The Innocents

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. ‘This perfectly independent and irresponsible little fiction,’ Henry James wrote in his preface to The Turn of the Screw, ‘this so f...

December 4, 2021 | A CLASS OF HIS OWN
THE FILMS OF JACK CLAYTON

Black Rain

Masuji Ibuse’s novel, published in 1966, is doubtless the most sophisticated of the many attempts by Japanese artists to come to terms with the experience and effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki ...

December 4, 2021 | JAPAN 2021
100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA

Terry Pratchett's The Abominable Snow Baby

What’s it about? When a great blizzard descends on the small town of Blackbury, home to Albert and his granny, it appears to have brought a 14-foot tall Abominable Snow Baby with it! Where the loc...

December 4, 2021 | BFI FAMILIES
FUNDAY TV PREVIEW

Woman of the Dunes

Hiroshi Teshigahara’s most famous film follows a hapless entomologist who misses the last bus home and ends up stranded on a beach in the hut of a destitute young widow. Anticipating Oshima Nagisa’...

December 3, 2021 | JAPAN 2021
100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA

Tokyo Drifter

Seijun Suzuki’s absurdist thriller, certainly one of the most brilliant genre movies ever made, really needs to be seen in context to be enjoyed to the max. Suzuki was contracted to Nikkatsu in 195...

December 3, 2021 | JAPAN 2021
100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA

Press Reset on Ableism + Disability On Screen – Past, Present and Future

Tackling the damaging impacts of Ableism, Press Reset aims to inspire decision makers in film and TV to reset their practices to establish a new normal for people with disabilities working in front...

December 3, 2021 | BUSTING THE BIAS

UK Premiere
Approaching Shadows

+ Panel discussion by TAPE Community Music and Film Approaching Shadows: The 2nd feature film from TAPE Community Music and Film During their golden wedding weekend away, Edward and Violet Knight...

December 3, 2021 | BUSTING THE BIAS

The Witches of Eastwick

‘A fantastic cast at the peak of their game… Jack Nicholson’s incredible wardrobe, strong female leads and let’s not forget Susan Sarandon’s hair!’ Eleanor Watkins, BFI Member Up Jumped the Devil ...

December 2, 2021 | MEMBER PICKS

The Shifting Spaces of
Modern Japanese Cinema

The 1960s brought seismic changes to Japanese cinema. In this richly illustrated panel discussion, our special guests will consider how the landscape of Japanese cinema changed between the 1960s an...

December 2, 2021 | JAPAN 2021
100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA

Room at the Top

+ intro by BFI Curator Josephine Botting (Thursday 2 December only). SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. John Braine was a librarian in the Yorkshire town of Bingley w...

December 2, 2021 | A CLASS OF HIS OWN
THE FILMS OF JACK CLAYTON

Remember the Night

‘At the studio, writing Remember the Night for my new producer, Al Lewin, almost caused me to commit hara-kiri several times, but I postponed it for some later assignment… As it turned out, the pic...

December 2, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Naomi Kawase
Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth + Birth/Mother

The youngest Cannes Camera d’Or winner at 28 with her debut feature Suzaku (1997), Naomi Kawase maintains the highest international profile among the new wave of Japanese female directors who arriv...

December 1, 2021 | JAPAN 2021
ANOTHER GAZE

In the Realm of the Senses

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. A contemporary review Perhaps it’s the fact that so few of Oshima’s films have been released here (twelve of the thirteen features m...

December 1, 2021 | JAPAN 2021
100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA