The BFI has announced its programme for BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX in February and early March 2026, beginning with Andrzej Wajda: Portraits of History and Humanity, presented in partnership with the 24th KINOTEKA Polish Film Festival.
Marking both the centenary of Wajda’s birth and 10 years since his passing, this season “celebrates a visionary filmmaker whose work is inseparable from the fabric of Polish history and society”.
The BFI said: “From the outset of his career, Andrzej Wajda established himself as a singular voice in Polish and world cinema, using film to reflect how historical upheaval shapes both individuals and nations while also exploring the role of art and artists in revealing suppressed truths.
“Setting many of his films against politically and historically sensitive moments, he forged a powerful visual language that remains deeply relevant and influential.
“A recipient of every major international film honour, including the Palme d’Or and an Academy Award, Wajda was not only an important storyteller of Polish culture and history but also a profound chronicler of the human condition.”
Presented with the ICA and Ciné Lumière, the BFI Southbank season, curated by BFI contextual events programmer Aga Baranowska, launches on 1 February and features a number of restorations spanning six decades of Wajda’s extraordinary career, from A Generation (1954), Kanal (1957) and Ashes And Diamonds (1958) to Innocent Sorcerers (1960), The Wedding (1972), The Promised Land (1974), including a Q&A with lead actor Daniel Olbrychski on 11 March, Man Of Marble (1976), Man Of Iron (1981), for which Wajda won the Palme d’Or, Katyn (2007), and Wajda’s final film, Afterimage (2016).
The BFI Southbank season also includes the Opening Gala of the 24th KINOTEKA Polish Film Festival on 4 February, when Wajda’s revered Ashes And Diamonds (1958) will screen from a 35mm print.
Meanwhile, selected as Poland’s official Oscar submission, KINTOEKA’s gala screening of Agnieszka Holland’s Franz (2025) on 3 March at BFI IMAX will include a Q&A with the director.
“A bold and dynamic portrait of Franz Kafka, the film follows a creative young man at odds with the world,” the BFI summarised. “Idan Weiss excels as the young Kafka, while Tomasz Naumiuk’s cinematography beautifully evokes early 20th-century Prague.”
Also beginning in February, Close to the Edge: The Films of Kathryn Bigelow will present the career of director Kathryn Bigelow as “one defined by action, adrenaline and artistry”.
“Initially pursuing fine art, Bigelow turned to cinema after studying under British film theorist and filmmaker Peter Wollen and what emerged was a bold filmmaker with a distinctive style and radical approach to subverting genres,” the BFI explained.
“Early features demonstrated Bigelow’s talent for blending mood and action and as her cinematic canvases expanded, the scale of her work soared albeit underpinned by complex psychology.
“In recent years Bigelow’s high style has embraced realism, but the sense of the high-octane remained as she tackled politically charged stories in the US and internationally.
“Throughout her work, she explores the expression and representation of violence and identity, and repeatedly examines the human psyche under pressure, particularly through a moral prism.”
Bigelow’s season, curated by BFI Southbank lead programmer Kimberley Sheehan, will include screenings of The Loveless (1982), Point Break (1991), Strange Days (1995), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Detroit (2017) and A House Of Dynamite (2025), plus Near Dark (1987), Blue Steel (1990), The Weight of Water (2000), K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) and The Hurt Locker (2008) playing from 35mm film prints.
Another of the BFI’s seasons, Constructed, Told, Spoken: A Counter-History of Britain on TV, is drawn directly from a quote by Stuart Hall, examining the creation of identity; how a narrative, a story, a history is something constructed, told, spoken, not simply found.
“In the postwar era, Afro-Caribbean and South Asian Britons began to construct a new identity, a distinct form of hybrid British life, using television as a medium to advocate for their political and social representation,” said the BFI.
“As British society changed, a multicultural perspective emerged. Out of political advocacy multicultural television grew in parallel. A radical television movement that institutionalised a multicultural counter-positioning in Britain.
“This reached its height in the media with the advent of multicultural programming units in the 1970s and 1980s – collectives of Black and Asian media workers – that were formalised in broadcasting institutions, creating distinct programming across the BBC.”
This season, curated by BFI television programmer Xavier Alexandre Pillai, examines the legacy and reappraises the impact of this underexamined aspect of British television history.
Special events taking place in February and early March will also include the return of Cinema Made in Italy from 4-8 March, programmed by artistic director Adrian Wootton.
Representing the best and brightest selection of new films from some of the most vital and creative contemporary filmmakers working out of Italy, the festival encompasses biopics, period drama, historical epics, autobiographical memoirs, noir thrillers, drama documentaries and a special archive screening.
Created by established talent and first-time feature directors, many of whom will be in attendance at BFI Southbank to present and discuss their work, films receiving their UK premieres at the festival will include the Opening Night presentation Primavera (Damiano Michieletto, 2025) on 4 March and the Closing Night film Three Goodbyes (Isabel Coixet, 2025) on 8 March.
Meanwhile, The World of Black Film Weekend will see writer, broadcaster and film programmer Ashley Clark present an eclectic selection of films featured in his new book The World of Black Film: A Journey Through Cinematic Blackness in 100 Films.
Clark will introduce screenings of Malcolm X (Spike Lee, 1992), from a new 35mm print created by the BFI as part of an ongoing commitment to screening film on film, on 20 February, Black Girl (Ousmane Sembène, 1966) and Jemima + Johnny (Lionel Ngakane, 1966) on 21 February, and West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves Of Liberty (Med Hondo, 1979) on 22 February.
Other highlights include special Valentine’s Day screenings, previews of critically-acclaimed films like 100 Nights of Hero, and a trilogy of landmark Japanese monster movies.
Full details are available on the BFI website.
