BFI Southbank have unveiled the programme for July 2023, beginning with a major new season of screenings, talks, special events and singalongs to mark the centenary of The Walt Disney Company. A two-month season, Making Magic: 100 Years of Disney, will open in July with the UK premiere of the new restoration of Cinderella (1950) and include screenings of much-loved classics spanning the century, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Fantasia (1940), to Toy Story (1995) and Frozen (2013), along with live-action treasures such as Splash (Ron Howard, 1984), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Robert Zemeckis, 1988) and the game-changing TRON (Steven Lisberger, 1982).
Also in July, BFI Southbank collaborate with the SAFAR Film Festival and the Ciné Lumière to celebrate the work of Egyptian master filmmaker Youssef Chahine, whose cinema is an audacious swirl of exuberance and energy, brimming with idiosyncratic characters and sweeping storylines. Curated by BAFTA nominated producer, writer and curator Elhum Shakerifar, the season is a rare chance to see work from his vast and eclectic career on the big screen, with titles screening including Cairo Station (1958), The Land (1969), The Blazing Sun (1954), Alexandria…Why? (1978) and many more.
With the upcoming release of this summer’s hugely anticipated, first-ever big screen Barbie (2023), there has never been a better time to revisit the work of the film’s director/co-writer/executive producer Greta Gerwig. This month, BFI Southbank will host a season dedicated to her career on both sides of the camera, with titles including her acting breakthrough Greenberg (Noah Baumbach, 2010), the cherished Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012), and Gerwig’s much-celebrated directorial offerings Lady Bird (2017) and Little Women (2019).
The events programme in July will include a preview of Shamira Raphaëla’s hilarious, upbeat, better-than-fiction documentary Shabu (2023), which premiered at last year’s BFI London Film Festival. Fourteen-year-old aspiring rapper Shabu is not having a good time. The Dutch-Surinamese teen stole and crashed his grandmother’s car, leaving her fuming and him having to work all summer to pay her back. Tired of odd jobs, Shabu decides to stage a block party to showcase his talents as a rapper and, most importantly, win his grandma over. The preview on 1 July will be followed by a Q&A with director Shamira Raphaëla, and then, in the BFI Bar, a DJ set. Also previewing following its BFI London Film Festival premiere is The Damned Don’t Cry (2022) on 4 July, followed by a Q&A with director Fyzal Boulifa. Selim and his mother Fatima-Zahra live in close quarters, with so little money that a single moment of bad fortune is a crisis of survival. When a trip to her family village reveals some troubling secrets, a rift opens that will see them try to establish their independence from each other, but tests their fragile love.
The annual event Focus Hong Kong returns once again to BFI Southbank in July, with screenings from 12-15 July, beginning with the UK premiere of Where The Wind Blows (Philip Yung, 2022), a gripping epic that explores the complexity and danger present in 1960s Hong Kong starring screen icons Aaron Kwok and Tony Leung. Also screening will be one of the biggest hits of the year, the tense courtroom drama A Guilty Conscience (Jack Ng, 2023), which combines sly social commentary and sharp humour; it follows a lawyer who takes on a corrupt elite as he tries to free an innocent woman jailed some years earlier as a result of his own negligence. Spooky comedies are one of the most beloved institutions of Hong Kong cinema and the debut feature Let It Ghost (Wong Hoi, 2022), which will have its UK premiere, is a delightful reinvention of the form. An anthology featuring three tales of haunted film crews, sex-obsessed spectres and ghosts wandering gentrified shopping malls, the film pays tribute to tales of old while offering a modern twist on the genre. The line-up is completed by the director’s cut of Nomad (Patrick Tam, 1982), a new 4K restoration of which will have its UK premiere; starring the immortal Leslie Cheung, this classic film returns to the screen, now in its original uncensored, director-authorised version. At once hopeful yet cynical, this colourful film blends rebellion, burgeoning sexuality and the culture clash of a place still under British Colonial rule but looking to China and Japan for its identity.
BFI Southbank’s monthly event, Mark Kermode Live in 3D at the BFI, will take place on 17 July. A conversation between the audience and one of the nation’s favourite and most respected film critics, Mark Kermode will be joined by surprise guests from across the film industry to explore, critique and dissect current and upcoming releases, cinematic treasures, industry news and more.
