Programme Notes

BFI Southbank

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

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...

October 24, 2021 | MIKE LEIGH

Education

Like many small boys, 12-year-old Kingsley dreams of the stars. Absorbed by astronomy and the careful drawing of rockets, he harbours dreams of becoming an astronaut. Yet his ambitions are routinel...

October 24, 2021 | SMALL AXE

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

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