Programme Notes

BFI Southbank

Car Wash

‘Car Wash’: a contemporary review At a time when many of the old-style forms of community-minded entertainment have virtually vanished from American cinema – a demise unwittingly highlighted by suc...

September 11, 2021 | A PRYOR ENGAGEMENT

Blazing Saddles

Richard Pryor co-wrote this Mel Brooks classic and was originally meant to star in it, but unfortunately he was uninsurable at the time of shooting. One of Brooks’ bawdiest spoofs sees a corrupt Ol...

September 11, 2021 | A PRYOR ENGAGEMENT

The Big Heat

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Contemporary reviews With The Big Heat, Fritz Lang found a subject – a small town dominated by a racketeer, and a young detective’...

September 11, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

143 Sahara Street

Hassen Ferhani on ‘143 Sahara Street’ How does one meet a character as singular as Malika? After having made Roundabout in My Head, I wanted to hit the road, to cross landscapes and have the enco...

September 11, 2021 | THE TIME IS NEW

Sweet Thing

Teenager Billie (Lana Rockwell), a 15-year-old girl who fantasises that Billie Holiday is her sort of fairy godmother, and younger brother Nico (Nico Rockwell) share time between their separated pa...

September 10, 2021 | NEW RELEASES

Polytechnique

Versatile French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve’s eclectic filmography to date has run the gamut from eccentric art films (Maelström, 2000) and austere political cinema (Incendies, 2010), via c...

September 10, 2021 | DENIS VILLENEUVE
THE PATH TO DUNE

African Odysseys Presents
The Black History of Comedy

Comedians often use history in their material. In this interactive session we’ll piece together a visual tapestry of the best historical comedy from popular and lesser-known comics from the 1960s t...

September 10, 2021 | A PRYOR ENGAGEMENT

Annette

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away the film’s ending. The death of cinema has been proclaimed so frequently across the medium’s relatively short lifespan that the notion is now a clich...

September 10, 2021 | NEW RELEASES

Laura

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Otto Preminger had come out of Vienna (born in 1906), the son of a famous lawyer, and himself qualified in law before he threw in h...

September 8, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

As Above, So Below

The screening on Friday 1 October will feature a pre-recorded Q&A with director Sarah Francis. Director’s note A few years ago, the image of adults on a swing moving back and forth side by sid...

September 8, 2021 | THE TIME IS NEW

The Big Sleep

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. David Thomson on ‘The Big Sleep’ For decades now, since a Saturday in 1961 when I saw it three times in a row, coming out of one s...

September 7, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

200 Meters

Director’s Statement I carry lots of memories that I no longer have access to, or it could be that I fear to dwell back into it. Oppression does alienate you as it denies you your basic rights; esp...

September 7, 2021 | THE TIME IS NEW

The Undercover Man

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Picking through Joseph H. Lewis’ diverse filmography, it is quite easy to find evidence of a director with a strong personality – a...

September 6, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Copilot

+ Q&A with director Anne Zohra Berrached Anne Zohra Berrached on ‘Copilot’ What inspired you to make Copilot ? We live in a time when more and more families and relationships are broken by i...

September 6, 2021 | WOMAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA
POWERED BY JAGUAR

What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day?

+ Q&A with Pete Wiggs and Paul Kelly Once upon a time, most towns and cities had spots like the Lower Lea Valley. It was where the railway sidings were. Look in an old A to Z and the dense pa...

September 5, 2021 | THE FILMS OF SAINT ETIENNE

Saint Etienne Shorts Programme

Introduced by Paul Kelly and Pete Wiggs Banksy in London It would be easy to be sceptical about Banksy in London, a video-length assemblage constructed by Paul Kelly and Kieran Evans when they wer...

September 5, 2021 | THE FILMS OF SAINT ETIENNE

Lawrence of Belgravia

+ Q&A with Paul Kelly and Lawrence By turns funny and bleak, Lawrence of Belgravia is a finally moving portrait of an artist who has combined an unabashed but theoretical desire to achieve fam...

September 5, 2021 | THE FILMS OF SAINT ETIENNE

Cry of the City

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. The title and basic outline of Cry of the City (1948) might suggest that it belongs to a post-World War II cycle of urban crime mov...

September 5, 2021 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

How We Used to Live

+ Q&A with Pete Wiggs and Travis Elborough How We Used to Live is a celebration of post-war London by director Paul Kelly, created through a compelling use of rare footage drawn from the BFI N...

September 4, 2021 | THE FILMS OF SAINT ETIENNE

Finisterre

+ Q&A with Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs Back, further back… to 2003. Finisterre seemed to come out of nowhere. Its makers all had form – as video directors (Kieran Evans), as members of cherishe...

September 4, 2021 | THE FILMS OF SAINT ETIENNE

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