Programme Notes

BFI Southbank

Red, White and Blue

Reject existing systems, or change them from within? Opt out, or risk selling out? This chapter in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology approaches this most pivotal conundrum for social and politica...

October 23, 2021 | SMALL AXE

Radio Days

I’m not a fan of all Woody Allen’s films, but I love this one. It’s my go-to comfort movie. Savour its joyous kaleidoscopic cornucopia of characters and its feast of 1940s popular music. For me, it...

October 23, 2021 | MIKE LEIGH’S CHOICES

A Page of Madness

Probably the most famous of all surviving Japanese films of the 1920s, A Page of Madness resulted from the unique collaboration between former onnagata (male actor playing female roles) star Teinos...

October 23, 2021 | JAPAN 2021
100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA

Murder on the Orient Express

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Amid adaptations of Shakespeare, Beatrix Potter and E.M. Forster, the ever-tasteful British producers John Brabourne and Richard Go...

October 23, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Making of Small Axe

We’re delighted to welcome director Steve McQueen alongside his producers Tracey Scoffield and Mike Elliot, and Associate Producer Helen Bart for an insightful look at the making of _ Small Axe. I...

October 23, 2021 | SMALL AXE

I Was Born, But...

Only 36 of Ozu’s 54 films survive to this day. He made the bulk of the lost titles, including his debut and only period drama, The Sword of Penitence (1927), during the silent era. His early ‘nonse...

October 23, 2021 | JAPAN 2021
100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA

Hard Labour

In this, Mike Leigh’s first television drama, Mrs Thornley quietly endures a life of unceasing domestic work: as a char for Mrs Stone and at home for her demanding husband, Jim. Throughout, Mrs Tho...

October 23, 2021 | MIKE LEIGH

Alex Wheatle

The biopic Alex Wheatle, directed by Steve McQueen, is a thoroughly pleasing work of televisual cinema, part of his new anthology series Small Axe which focuses on West Indian communities in Englan...

October 23, 2021 | SMALL AXE

The Outsiders
The Complete Novel

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Coppola’s inspired adaptation of SE Hinton’s classic novel captures how it feels to be caught between childhood innocence and adulth...

October 22, 2021 | RE-RELEASES

Never Gonna Snow Again

To visit Małgorzata Szumowska’s Warsaw apartment is to meet one of the stars of the Polish director’s latest film, Never Gonna Snow Again: a charismatic British bulldog named Borys, who, having mad...

October 22, 2021 | NEW RELEASES

Mangrove

+ Q&A with director Steve McQueen and Small Axe Consultant Paul Gilroy SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Speaking to Sight & Sound at the time of the release...

October 22, 2021 | SMALL AXE

Lovers Rock

+ Q&A with director Steve McQueen and actor Dennis Bovell Lovers Rock, which premiered at the London Film Festival before heading to BBC Two and HBO, is a 70-minute-long hypnotic immersion int...

October 22, 2021 | SMALL AXE

Beat Girl

A personal favourite of mine, this exposé of late 1950s Soho and the nocturnal world of beatnik coffee shops and illicit strip joints is filled with famous faces: Christopher Lee, Adam Faith, Olive...

October 22, 2021 | EDGAR WRIGHT’S LONDON AFTER DARK

Last Night in Soho

This preview will feature a pre-recorded intro from director Edgar Wright and Q&A with Paul Machliss, Marcus Rowland, Odile Dicks-Mireaux and Steven Price. Louis CK once pointed out in a routi...

October 21, 2021 | PREVIEWS

Illustrious Corpses

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. During his peak years Francesco Rosi was one of Europe’s premier explorers of criminal-political rot and social anxiety. This key fi...

October 21, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Tree of Wooden Clogs

Peasant life in rural Lombardy in 1898. The eternal struggle of living and surviving from day to day, from season to season. Spiritual, infuriating, tender, moving and profound. The ultimate locati...

October 20, 2021 | MIKE LEIGH’S CHOICES

Tongues Untied

+ intro by programmer Rico Johnson-Sinclair What does it take to claim your rightful Black identity, as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community? Poignant yet playful, and affirming in the most importan...

October 20, 2021 | BFI FLARE

Nuts in May

Though far lighter than many other works for film and television by Mike Leigh, his 1976 episode for BBC’s Play for Today strand, Nuts in May, surprisingly asks more pertinent and still relevant qu...

October 20, 2021 | MIKE LEIGH

The Long Goodbye

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Leigh Brackett was one of the few women to publish science fiction in the pulp magazine era, albeit under a gender-neutral byline. ...

October 20, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

I Am Cuba

Mikhail Kalatozov’s epic about the Cuban Revolution is breathtaking both for its scope and the audacity of its cinematic experiments, including the legendary floating tracking shot at the cigar fac...

October 20, 2021 | MIKE LEIGH’S CHOICES

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