BFI announce programme highlights for December

The BFI announce the BFI Southbank programme for December 2024, starting with the second part of ECHOES IN TIME: KOREAN FILMS OF THE GOLDEN AGE AND NEW CINEMA, a major season which continues until 31 December.

Programmed by Young Jin Eric Choi and Goran Topalovic, ECHOES IN TIME focuses on two groundbreaking periods in the Korean cinema timeline, when huge technical, stylistic and thematic innovations took place: the golden age of the 1960s and the New Korean Cinema movement (1996-2003). Titles screening throughout the final month of this season will include THE COACHMAN (Kang Dae-jin, 1961), GORYEOJANG (Kim Ki-young, 1963), THE SEASHORE VILLAGE (Kim Soo-yong, 1965), THE DAY A PIG FELL INTO THE WELL (Hong Sangsoo, 1996), PEPPERMINT CANDY (Lee Chang-dong, 1999), BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE (Bong Joon-ho, 2000), OLDBOY (Park Chan-wook, 2003) and UNTOLD SCANDAL (E J-yong, 2003). Meanwhile, three years after the huge global success of SQUID GAME, we are delighted to unveil the first episode of the second series with a preview on 16 December. Vowing vengeance after playing and winning the deadly tournament, Lee Jung-jae’s Seong Gi-hun (Player 456) joins a new batch of contestants but this time, he is determined to make a difference. This promises to be an unmissable TV event.

Also taking place in December will be RICHARD EYRE: WEAPONS OF UNDERSTANDING. Few directors have so successfully spanned the worlds of theatre, film and television as Richard Eyre. In this season curated by Marcus Prince, we present a programme that demonstrates and celebrates Eyre’s wide range and versatility, from translating theatre classics to the small screen and embracing hard-hitting social realism, to exploring the complexity of real lives and probing the psychology of the most troubled individuals. Together, these works highlight a unique presence on our cultural landscape. We are delighted that Richard Eyre will join us for an IN CONVERSATION event on 8 December, with an illustrated discussion focusing on what makes good television drama, the contrast between television and film, and the state of the UK and global film and television industry. Also on 8 December, a screening of IRIS (2002) will include an onstage introduction by Eyre and Dame Judi Dench at BFI Southbank. Adapted from John Bayley’s memoir, chronicling the enduring relationship between Iris Murdoch and her husband, the film moves seamlessly between past and present, charting the couple’s college years, their burgeoning relationship and Murdoch’s determination to live life on her terms after the onset of Alzheimer’s. Other titles playing throughout the month will include PLAY FOR TODAY: COMEDIANS (1979), featuring an introduction from Eyre and actor Sir Jonathan Pryce on 1 December, plus PLAY FOR TODAY: JUST A BOYS’ GAME (John Mackenzie, 1979), SCREEN TWO: THE INSURANCE MAN (1979), PLAY FOR TODAY: THE IMITATION GAME (1980), THE CHERRY ORCHARD (1981), THE PLOUGHMAN’S LUNCH (1983), SUNDAY PREMIERE: TUMBLEDOWN (1988), PERFORMANCE: SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER (1993), STAGE BEAUTY (2004), NOTES ON A SCANDAL (2006) and THE DRESSER (2015).

Meanwhile, it wouldn’t be December at BFI Southbank without a jam-packed programme of CHRISTMAS FILMS and this year’s line-up includes bona fide classics THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940), MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (Vincente Minnelli, 1944), IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (Frank Capra, 1946), THE BISHOP’S WIFE (Henry Koster, 1947), SCROOGE (Brian Desmond Hurst, 1951) and THE APARTMENT (Billy Wilder, 1960), plus family favourites THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL (Brian Henson, 1993) and SPIRITED AWAY (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001). Meanwhile, this month’s Big Screen Classics programme of daily screenings for just £9 will also showcase films that feature at least one scene set during the holiday period, including MY NIGHT WITH MAUDE (Eric Rohmer, 1969), FEMALE TROUBLE (John Waters, 1974), MONTY PYTHON’S LIFE OF BRIAN (Terry Jones, 1979), FANNY AND ALEXANDER (Ingmar Bergman, 1982), MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE (Nagisa Ôshima, 1983), TORCH SONG TRILOGY (Paul Bogart, 1988), WHEN HARRY MET SALLY (Rob Reiner, 1989), GOODFELLAS (Martin Scorsese, 1990), THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN (Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1995), EYES WIDE SHUT (Stanley Kubrick, 1999), CAROL (Todd Haynes, 2015), TANGERINE (Sean Baker, 2015) and LITTLE WOMEN (Greta Gerwig, 2019). Finally, Christmas-adjacent titles playing on the UK’s largest screen at BFI IMAX throughout the month will include DIE HARD (John McTiernan, 1988), THE GREEN KNIGHT (David Lowery, 2021), THE POLAR EXPRESS (Robert Zemeckis, 2004), THE RED SHOES (Powell and Pressburger, 1948), THE WIZARD OF OZ (Victor Fleming, 1939), and TOKYO GODFATHERS (Satoshi Kon, 2003) with an introduction by Ghibliotheque’s Michael Leader and Jake Cunningham on 7 December.

MISSING BELIEVED WIPED, BFI Southbank’s annual presentation of items previously missing from the official archives, returns on 7 December with a bumper crop of finds thanks in part to the work of the Film is Fabulous initiative, which seeks to catalogue collections in private hands and isolate missing or precious footage. THE COMPLETE AND UTTER HISTORY OF BRITAIN (Maurice Murphy, 1969), long considered lost, was found in the ITV archive last year and Michael Palin will introduce one of the recovered episodes and share his memories of the series – screened alongside other rare clips, and BASIL BRUSH AND FRIENDS (Johnny Downes, 1970), a recently found episode of The Basil Brush Show, sees the feisty fox on top form, dishing out great one-liners and painful puns. Other special events in December will include a TV preview of WOMAN OF STONE – A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS (Mark Gatiss, 2024), followed by a Q&A with director Mark Gatiss. In her final days, E. Nesbit recounts the chilling tale of newlywed Victorians Jack and Laura, whose idyllic cottage life is overshadowed by the superstitious warnings of their housekeeper. Settle in for this spooky seasonal treat early on 9 December. Elsewhere, a Funday preview of MALORY TOWERS SEASON SIX (Bruce McDonald, Jack Jameson, 2025) will include a Q&A with guests to be announced on 14 December. Now in Sixth Form, Darrell and friends are determined to work hard and have fun, but they soon realise they have to start thinking about what life might be like after school. A Funday Workshop in the main foyer before the programme will let ticket holders try their hand at some animation and arts-and-crafts.

African Odysseys and BBC Africa Eye present MUGABE AND ME (Roy Agyemang, 2024) on 1 December, followed by a Q&A with director-producer Roy Agyemang and executive producer Andy Mundy-Castle. Over a ten-year period, British-born Ghanaian Agyemang gained rare access to Robert Mugabe. This resulting documentary portrait, screening in the year that Mugabe would have turned 100, chronicles the former Zimbabwean president’s lasting hold on power, his relationship with his people and complex association with the West. It also offers an assessment of this longstanding leader’s legacy.

Diane Morgan returns as pioneering documentary filmmaker Philomena Cunk in CUNK ON LIFE (Al Campbell, 2024), embarking on her most ambitious quest to date: venturing into the universe to examine life itself. This one-off special, which will preview at BFI Southbank on 5 December followed by a Q&A with Diane Morgan and Charlie Brooker, sees Philomena tackle the most complex concepts ever considered, from Quantum Physics to existentialism, nihilism, hedonism and at least four other isms. Elsewhere, Reece Shearsmith presents a screening of RAVENOUS (Antonia Bird, 1999) on 13 December. The Mexican-American war is the setting for this darkly comic and very gruesome horror western in which Guy Pearce plays a disgraced army officer sent to a remote outpost in Sierra Nevada. When a dishevelled stranger appears, regaling a terrible tale of suffering, it becomes clear that dark forces are at play. Finally, Andrea Luka Zimmerman’s deeply imaginative, collaborative and collectively-centred films short-circuit so many of the assumptions we make about cinema, including how it is made and what form it might take. With her work preserved in the BFI National Archive, a new Blu-ray collection available through Second Run and the UK premiere of her new feature Wayfaring Stranger, we present a special Experimenta focus on Zimmerman’s radical, rousing vision, including the UK premiere of WAYFARING STRANGER (2024) followed by a Q&A with Zimmerman on 7 December.