BFI Southbank Programme Notes

High Hopes

High Hopes, Mike Leigh’s first theatrically released feature since Bleak Moments in 1971, is even less plotted than is usual for this director. Set mostly around the King’s Cross area of London, it...

October 28, 2021 | MIKE LEIGH

Darling

Released in the very middle of the 1960s, this John Schlesinger film also feels like the very epicentre of the scene. Julie Christie’s Diana Scott seems like the girl who has it all, but being the ...

October 28, 2021 | EDGAR WRIGHT’S LONDON AFTER DARK

Anatomy of Wings

+ pre-recorded Q&A In 2008 a group of Black girls in Baltimore signed up to an after-school programme, Wings, where they were taught filmmaking. Over the next eleven years it became not just a...

October 28, 2021 | WOMAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA
POWERED BY JAGUAR

Short Sharp Shocks II

Celebrate BFI Flipside’s second scintillating collection of strange, spooky British films lovingly remastered in 2K resolution from rare original archive materials. ‘The Politician who reached beyo...

October 27, 2021 | BFI BLU-RAY LAUNCH

Frenzy

No film represents the curdling of 60s fab into early-70s drab like Hitchcock’s last great shocker. While this bracingly dark thriller with the blackest of laughs represents Hitch at his most gleef...

October 27, 2021 | EDGAR WRIGHT’S LONDON AFTER DARK

Dirty Harry

+ pre-recorded intro by film scholar Hannah Hamad, Cardiff University (Wednesday 27 October only) Inspector Harry Callahan, aka Dirty Harry, came along as the conclusive step on Clint Eastwood’s p...

October 27, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Black Arts Movement on Film

Enjoy these radical and hugely creative films from pioneering Black artists. The Black Arts Movement is the name given to a number of fine artists who in the 1980s used a wide-range of different m...

October 27, 2021 | ART IN THE MAKING

Summer of Soul
(... Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

The screening will be introduced by Emma Dalmayne, autistic activist and campaigner for autistic rights, mother to wonderful big and little people, CEO of Autistic Inclusive Meets and author of It’...

October 26, 2021 | RELAXED SCREENING

Life Is Sweet
+ Q&A with Mike Leigh

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Life is Sweet takes food and family as its central themes. Released in 1991, like other films of that year, including The Commitment...

October 26, 2021 | MIKE LEIGH

Blue Velvet

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. In terms of David Lynch’s work, Blue Velvet marks a huge leap forward, almost magically establishing him as the most provocative and...

October 26, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Abigail's Party

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Originating as a Hampstead Theatre production and first broadcast as part of Play for Today, Abigail’s Party is Mike Leigh’s best-kn...

October 26, 2021 | MIKE LEIGH

A Time of Change and How Japanese Film Bore Witness to It

The mid-20th-century golden age of Japanese cinema emerged from a country in the throes of dramatic and irreversible transformation. In this richly illustrated talk, season co-programmer Alexander ...

October 25, 2021 | JAPAN 2021
100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA

Secrets & Lies

After the lonely nihilism of Naked (1993), a tense but tender insistence on the importance of human connections is the key to Secrets & Lies, Leigh’s mid-career masterpiece. Digging into the sh...

October 25, 2021 | MIKE LEIGH

The Pleasure Girls

A most entertaining example of the ‘young girl moves to the big city’ genre that was so common in 1960s British cinema. This one is a little more wholesome and affectionate than its racy title and ...

October 25, 2021 | EDGAR WRIGHT’S LONDON AFTER DARK

A Blonde in Love

Many of us were inspired by the Czech New Wave cinema, most especially by this seminal study of working-class life. Forman shot entirely on location in a documentary style, with a mixed cast of act...

October 25, 2021 | MIKE LEIGH’S CHOICES

Meantime

+ Q&A with Mike Leigh, Marion Bailey and Phil Daniels ‘I get cross with filmmakers who say “Oh I hate my films. How can you watch your own films?” That pisses me off. I don’t get it because if...

October 24, 2021 | MIKE LEIGH

Mandabi (The Money Order)

Acclaimed actor Adjoa Andoh has a rich body of work that has included performing on stage at the RSC, the National and the Royal Court, and on screen in projects such as Bridgerton , Invictus and D...

October 24, 2021 | SCREEN EPIPHANY

Humanity and Paper Balloons

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. ‘Though Sadao Yamanaka made only a handful of films,’ wrote the late Donald Richie, ‘his infuence has been great. Without him there ...

October 24, 2021 | JAPAN 2021
100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA

Happy-Go-Lucky

+ Q&A with Mike Leigh and Alexis Zegerman Let me tell you something about teaching,’ snaps bitter, lost Scott (Eddie Marsan) to bubbly, glass-half-full Poppy (Sally Hawkins) in Mike Leigh’s ne...