The BFI has announced TOO MUCH, a UK-wide season celebrating “the vivid visual language, heightened dramatics and emotional pathos at the heart of film melodrama”.
Exploring “the world of melodrama through the ages”, films on offer will range from cult classics to lesser-known international gems, with the likes of Todd Haynes’ Far from Heaven (2002), Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver (2006) and Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves (1996) among the highlights.
A centrepiece of TOO MUCH will be Douglas Sirk’s colourful, high-octane love story All That Heaven Allows (1955), which will return to cinemas UK-wide on 24 October, courtesy of Park Circus.
On the films in the season, the BFI teased: “United by their emotion driven plots, vivid visual language and self-conscious audience manipulation, these films are designed to make you break down in tears, cause a scene, fall in love, feel something.”
Presented by the BFI at BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX, and by the BFI Film Audience Network (BFI FAN) using funds from the National Lottery at cinemas and venues across the UK, TOO MUCH will take place from October-December 2025 via programmes of special events, talks and screenings.
TOO MUCH will also be available online via a curated collection of films available to stream on demand on BFI Player.
Ruby McGuigan, BFI programme development manager and TOO MUCH BFI Southbank season curator, said: “A story’s emotional heart is what brings us back to it time and time again and allows it to translate across generations and cultures.
“Melodrama–an embrace of emotion above all–is the lifeblood of great cinema, across decades and geographic borders.
“Melodrama has always revelled in the squashing of emotions too volatile for everyday life, and the inevitable explosion under pressure.
“As a young woman discovering these films, I felt understood. Perhaps I wasn’t insane, or ‘too much’. Perhaps life is just overwhelming sometimes. In recent years we’ve finally seen women’s emotional worlds take centre stage in literature, music and television–there’s a legacy of this in cinema which I believe is often overlooked.”
The season will be programmed around key themes–Love, Obsession, Duty, Defiance and Scandal–with more than 60 venues hosting events and screenings diving into each.
Some highlights include The New Black Film Collective presenting The Nolly-Oh Season, a nationwide tour celebrating iconic Nollywood films (from peak ‘90s to ‘00s), Stronger Than Love: ¡Too Much Mexican Melodrama!, a touring season of four visually lush, emotionally explosive films from Mexico’s Golden Age, and Crip Melodrama: She’s Hysterical, an Independent Cinema Office touring season focused on representations of disabled women.
The full UK-wide line-up of screenings, events and touring programmes will be announced soon via the BFI website.
