The BFI has announced details of Station to Station: Kazuo Ishiguro’s Top Ten Train Films, a season at BFI Southbank from 1–31 July curated by the Nobel prize-winning and Academy Award-nominated writer Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go) that features some of the finest films set aboard trains.
Writing exclusively for the BFI, Ishiguro said: “I’ve always loved train movies. It seems I’m not alone. Since I began preparing this season, fiercely advocated suggestions kept pouring in, often from total strangers.
“Curiously, ‘train movie’ isn’t an acknowledged genre like, say, the Western or the musical. No director, actor, period or country is associated with it. And as this selection shows, the films themselves cross naturally with a wide range of other genres: thriller, whodunnit, romantic comedy, dystopian sci-fi, prison breakout.
“But we all recognise and love the tropes and atmosphere created by the jolting wheels, the steam, the narrow corridors, the compartments concealing mini-dramas, the confrontations in the restaurant cars.”
He continued: “To be clear: a ‘train movie’ isn’t one with just a memorable train sequence in the middle, still less one that happens to have ‘train’ or ‘express’ in its title.
“Unrequited love stories set on railway platforms aren’t train movies; neither are those in which protagonists fight on train roofs or dangle precariously off the side. What follows are real train movies. Some famous, others unjustly obscure. Each one wonderful.”
The season launches on 2 July with the Station To Station Season Introduction: Kazuo Ishiguro’s Favourite Train Films, when the acclaimed writer will join the BFI for a “richly illustrated conversation” that outlines his thesis for what makes a “train movie”.
Ishiguro will take audiences on a journey through his selection process, the well-known titles and the hidden gems he chose for the season, while sharing how his interest in trains and cinema began and what he loves most about train movies.
Following the event, Ishiguro will also introduce a screening of the ‘mother of all train movies’, Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg, 1932).
Other special guests appearing at BFI Southbank throughout the season will include writer Jonathan Coe introducing the riveting British thriller Rome Express (Walter Forde, 1932) on 21 July, Professor Philip Horne introducing Polish gem Night Train (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1959) on 7 July, and writer Sophie Hannah introducing Albert Finney’s mesmerising turn as Agatha Christie’s Poirot in the star-studded Murder on the Orient Express (Sidney Lumet, 1974) on 26 July, all hosted by Kazuo Ishiguro.
The remaining films playing at BFI Southbank in July will include Alfred Hitchcock’s finest British film The Lady Vanishes (1938), superb prison break parable Runaway Train (Andrei Konchalovsky, 1985), the underseen yet fascinating triptych film Tickets (Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kiarostami, Ken Loach, 2005), slow-burn psychological thriller Transsiberian (Brad Anderson, 2008), Bong Joon Ho’s celebrated slice of post-apocalyptic mayhem Snowpiercer (2013), and the sublime and heartwarming Cannes Grand Prix winner Compartment No. 6 (Juho Kuosmanen, 2021).
More information is available on the BFI website.
