Deep Focus: 30 June - 6 July 2025
The Creative Nonfiction Weekend returns to the Rio, Miriam Bale's Dorothy Dandridge season launches at the BFI, and Richard Beymer's The Innerview comes to the Barbican
Kings & Extras: Digging for a Palestinian Image screens at the Rio on Saturday as part of the Creative Nonfiction Film Weekend
Monday, Sex-Change The World! a programme of archival trans documentary work is at the Rio, followed by a post-screening talk with Kristiene Clarke, Alissa Lebow and Biogal. Airwaves of Rebellion: Youth, Identity, and the Fight for Community Radio, a showcase of films on pirate radio in 80s and 90s Britain, is at the Barbican as part of their Rebel Radio season. One of the first British films to address Windrush and highlight a mixed-race romance, Basil Dearden’s Pool of London is in NFT3. The Goethe Institut has a screening of Lamprecht’s silent-era adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the author’s birth. Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case is Regent Street Cinema’s Monday Matinée.
Tuesday, Queen Mary University’s Centre for Film & Ethics, and the Centre for Law and Society present To Kill A War Machine, a documentary about Palestine Action by Rainbow Collective in the university’s Arts One building. “A masterclass in suspense and visual storytelling,” Shadows of a Hot Summer (Stiny horkého léta) screens at the Czech Centre, honouring the late Jiři Bartoška. Kurosawa’s I Live In Fear is screening on 35mm at The Prince Charles. The Garden Cinema’s Noir International season continues with a matinee screening of Le Samourai. Juan Piquer Simón’s Slugs is at The Nickel.
Wednesday, “One of the high points of Soviet silent cinema and the Georgian avant–garde,” My Grandmother screens in NFT2 as part of the BFI’s From Censored to Restored season, followed by an intro by season curator Giulia Saccogna. Preminger’s Bonjour Tristesse screens at The Garden Cinema, as part of Zodiac Film Club’s Summertime Sadness season. Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio screens at the Cine Lumière, featuring a conversation between make-up artist Morag Ross and professor Maria Delgado. Lazybones is at The Cinema Museum with a live piano accompaniment. The ICA has Pratibha Parmar: Memory Pictures, Flesh & Paper, Kush, a programme that explores South Asian queer diasporic life. The October Gallery is screening Mark of the Hand Aubrey Williams.
Thursday, The Innerview, an “almost-lost” kaleidoscopic tour of the filmmaking process and a portal into 60s psychedelia screens at the Barbican, followed by a ScreenTalk between academic Elena Gorfinkel and filmmaker and archivist Ross Lipman, marking the launch of his new book, The Archival Impermanence Project. Fae AF: Enchanted Shorts & Queer Midsummer Tales, a programme of “fantastical, flirtatious” shorts celebrating trans joy is at Coldharbour Blue. Never before seen publicly, Singing in the Rainy Afternoon (Hat Gura Cheiu Mura), “a story of love, music, loss and resilience” from 1990 opens Star Nhà Ease 2025 at Rich Mix. Banned in Thailand, there’s two chances to see Ing K’s Dog God at The Nickel. Spice World screens at the Castle Cinema. Haneke’s Funny Games (1998) is on 35mm at Genesis. Kurosawa’s Ran is on 35mm at The Prince Charles Cinema.
Friday, The Creative Nonfiction Film Weekend opens with Chronically Online: A Personal History of the UK Internet, a programme of vlogs, memes and other uncategorisable curiosities “that showcase the stories that Britain tells about itself through the internet”. Elaine May’s A New Leaf is a matinee screening at the Prince Charles. Also marking the release The Archival Impermanence Project, Ross Lipman’s live cinema essay The Cropping of the Spectacle is at Birkbeck, followed by a conversation with academic Ian Christie. Wild Flowers: Women of South Lebanon is at The Garden Cinema introduced by Dr Kareem Estefan. Welcome to the Moviedrome raises the curtain on Moviedrome: Bringing the Cult TV Series to the Big Screen at the BFI with director and former host Alex Cox and producer Nick Freand Jones in conversation; a screening of The Wicker Man follows in NFT1. Cronenberg’s latest, The Shrouds, releases today, available at the ICA or wherever you get your independent cinema.
Saturday, Carmen Jones is in NFT3, following an extended season intro by Re-introducing Dorothy Dandridge: The Cool Flame curator and critic Miriam Bale. A search for the lost films of the PLO’s Media Unit that follows contradictory and conflicting leads through Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, Kings & Extras: Digging for a Palestinian Image continues CNFW at the Rio. Prince Charles has a double-bill of Apocalypse Now and Eleanor Coppola’s documentary of the film’s making, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. The Garden Cinema has Wender’s Ripley adaptation The American Friend.
Sunday, a complex rendering of the daughter-father and filmmaker-subject relationship, Therese Henningsen’s All These Summers is The Creative Nonfiction Film Weekend’s closing night screening. Les roseaux sauvages is on 35mm at The Cinema Museum. The Phoenix Cinema screens Murnau’s The Last Laugh, accompanied by a live score. A Streetcar Named Desire is on 35mm at the Prince Charles. The Lexi Cinema has The Passionate Friends, with an introduction by the cinema’s co-director Johnathan Kirk. The BFI is showing Bright Road on 16mm, another Dandridge-Belfonte-starring vehicle directed by Gerald Mayer in NFT3.