Press room

Barbican Cinema
February 2022
barbican.org.uk/whats-on/cinema 

  Curated by the Barbican: 

• Homeland: Films by Australian First Nations directors
• Family Film Club
• Bill Murray’s New Worlds
• My Twisted Valentine: Interview with the Vampire

  Event Cinema:

• National Theatre Live: The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage
• The Royal Ballet: Romeo and Juliet

In February Barbican Cinema presents Homeland: Films by Australian First Nations directors showcasing seven of the very best movies by Indigenous Australian filmmakers from the last three decades.

Despite an extraordinary range of exciting films by Indigenous Australian directors being made every year, very few are released in the UK. The season includes ScreenTalks with Leah Purcell, Stephen Page, and Rachel Perkins   as well as a focus on the Bangarra Dance Company including a conversation with the company’s Associate Artistic Director Frances Rings and musician Jessie Lloyd, hosted by Alistair Spalding, Artistic Director & Chief Executive of Sadler’s Wells.

Other highlights this month include the annual Twisted Valentine screening, this year featuring Interview with the Vampire in 35mm; and Bill Murray's New Worlds, filmed one summer night in Greece, this captures Bill Murray and cellist Jan Vogler (and friends) rock the Acropolis with a mix of music and poetry. 

Family Film Club in February introduces younger audiences to the joys of musicals on screen and includes Vivo, a new animation with show stopping songs by Lin Manuel Miranda  with a live introduction all about Cuban music by Jose Zalba-Smith and Encanto (also scored by Manuel Miranda); as well as the classic films Bugsy Malone and Singin’ in the Rain.

Event Cinema screenings offer the chance to see National Theatre Live’s The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage; and The Royal Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet.

Curated by the Barbican:

Homeland: Films by Australian First Nations directors
www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2022/series/homeland-films-by-australian-first-nations-directors
 2 Feb – 23 Feb 2022
Cinemas 1&2

Barbican Cinema is proud to present Homeland: Films by Australian First Nations directors which explores a thrilling selection of seven of the very best movies by Indigenous Australian filmmakers from the last three decades, including ScreenTalks and guest speakers.

Themes of displacement and marginalisation as well as resilience and humour surface in many of the films, which showcase Indigenous Australians’ rich cultural heritage through documentaries and feature films starring many of the country’s greatest actors.

Homeland: Films by Australian First Nations directors is presented as part of the UK/Australia Season 2021-22, a major programme of cultural exchange taking place across the two nations. It is curated by the Barbican in partnership with Screen Australia. With thanks to Penny Smallacombe and Savannah Glynn-Braun (Screen Australia).

The season opens with the European Premiere of Leah Purcell’s directorial debut The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson (Australia 2021, 109 min) + ScreenTalk with the Director; this is a fierce, feminist Australian revenge western, which the director adapted from her own play of Henry Lawson’s 19th century short story.

Two films in the season, Spear (Australia 2015, Dir Stephen Page, 85 min), + virtual ScreenTalk with Stephen Page; and Firestarter – The Story of Bangarra (Australia 2020, Dir Wayne Blair & Nel Minchin, 95 min), focus on the work of the iconic Indigenous Australian dance company, the Bangarra Dance Theatre.

The screening of Firestarter will be hosted by Alistair Spalding, Artistic Director & Chief Executive of Sadler’s Wells and also includes a virtual ScreenTalk with Frances Rings, Associate Artistic Director, Bangarra Dance Theatre and musician Jessie Lloyd in person.

The Bangarra Dance Theatre, now over 30 years old, revolutionised the Australian dance scene, and was taken to even greater heights through the success of three First Nations brothers – Stephen (the current artistic director), David and Russell Page.

In the 1990s two female Australian First Nations filmmakers, Rachel Perkins and artist Tracey Moffatt each created ground-breaking feature film directorial debuts.

Sparks fly when three sisters reunite after the death of their mother in Rachel Perkins’ beautifully acted directorial debut Radiance (Australia 1998, 83 min) + ScreenTalk with the Director, presented at the Barbican in a newly restored print.

Artist Tracey Moffatt created one of the great feature debuts in Australian cinema history with beDevil (Australia 1993, 90 min), a visually stunning imagining of a trio of ghost stories she was told as a child by her extruded families.

Homeland: The Films of Australian First Nations directors also includes two powerful documentaries: We Don’t Need a Map (Australia 2017, Dir Warwick Thornton, 87 min); and After the Apology (Australia 2017, Dir Larissa Behrendt, 82 min) + pre-recorded introduction by the Director.

To view the full press release:
www.barbican.org.uk/our-story/press-room/homeland-films-by-australian-first-nations-directors

Family Film Club
5 Feb – 26 Feb
Every Saturday, 11am, Cinema 2

In February Family Film Club celebrates the best musicals made for film with a mixture of new and classic toe-tapping titles, including:

On Sat 5 Feb, Vivo (U) (USA, Dir Kirk DeMicco, 95 min), a colourful new animation with show stopping songs by Lin Manuel Miranda (writer of Hamilton and In the Heights), complemented with a Show and Tell Intro and Performance by Jose Zalba-Smith of the Tradicional Cubano and The Mañana Collective;

On Sat 12 Feb, Alan Parker’s directorial debut Bugsy Malone (U) (UK 1976, 93 min) is set in the world of prohibition New York gangsters with an all-child cast including a youthful Scott Baio and Jodie Foster;

On Sat 19 Feb, Encanto (PG), (USA 2021, Dirs Jared Bush & Byron Howard, 88 min),  is the latest Disney animation about a young Colombian girl and her magical family;

And on Sat 26 Feb the inimitable Singin’ in the Rain (U) (USA 1952, Dirs Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen, 103 min) is the story of silent film star falling for a chorus girl with some of the best dance sequences ever committed to celluloid.

Bill Murray's New Worlds (#)
USA/ Greece 2021, Dir  Andrew Muscato, 102 min
Wed 9 Feb 2022, 6.20pm, Cinema 2

On a glorious Greek evening at the Acropolis screen legend Bill Murray and world-renowned cellist Jan Vogler, Mira Wang (violin) and dynamic Vanessa Perez (piano) enchant an Athenian audience with a timeless mix of music, literature and poetry.

Spanning from Bach to Van Morrison, Whitman to West Side Story, the humourous and deeply touching programme, captured on film by director Andrew Muscato, is infused with the one-of-a-kind charm of Bill Murray.

My Twisted Valentine: Interview with the Vampire (18) 35mm
USA 1994, Dir Neil Jordan, 122 min
Sat 12 Feb 2022, 6.30pm, Cinema 2

Neil Jordan’s block-busting adaptation of the Anne Rice novel serves up romance, rat-drinking, vampire-fighting and gothic thrills aplenty.

In contemporary San Francisco, a glum 200-year-old vampire, Louis (Brad Pitt), shares his life story with a reporter (Christian Slater). Louis’ tale begins in 18th-century New Orleans, where he first encounters the decadent Eurotrash vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise).

In one of the movie’s steamiest scenes, Lestat introduces Louis to blood-sucking and immortality with an ecstatic bite to the neck. But Louis does not take eagerly to the diet and lifestyle and is tormented with guilt over his new nature.

At over 25 years’ distance, Interview with the Vampire looks more than ever a wondrous time capsule: the leads at the height of their smouldering good looks, a supporting cast including Antonio Banderas and (a very young) Kirsten Dunst, and some magnificent 90s hair.

Event Cinema

The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage (12A)
National Theatre Live
Thu 17 Feb, 7pm, Cinema 1

Set twelve years before the epic His Dark Materials trilogy, this gripping adaptation revisits Philip Pullman’s fantastical world in which waters are rising and storms are brewing.

Two young people and their dæmons, with everything at stake, find themselves at the centre of a terrifying manhunt. In their care is a tiny child called Lyra Belacqua, and in that child lies the fate of the future. And as the waters rise around them, powerful adversaries conspire for mastery of Dust: salvation to some, the source of infinite corruption to others.

Eighteen years after his ground breaking production of His Dark Materials at the National Theatre, director Nicholas Hytner returns to Pullman’s parallel universe.
Broadcast live from London’s Bridge Theatre.

Romeo and Juliet (12A)
The Royal Ballet
Sun 20 Feb, 2pm, Cinema 3

Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers experience passion and tragedy in this 20th-century ballet masterpiece.

Romeo and Juliet has become a great modern ballet classic of the ballet repertory since its creation by Royal Ballet Director Kenneth MacMillan and its premiere in 1965.

The doomed lovers attempt to find their way through the colour and action of Renaissance Verona, where a busy market all too quickly bursts into sword fighting and a family feud leads to tragedy for both the Montagues and the Capulets.
Starring Marcelino Sambé as Romeo and Anna-Rose O’Sullivan as Juliet. 

New Releases  
 
For the latest information on new release screenings in the Barbican Cinemas and Cinema On Demand please visit the Barbican website.  
 
The Barbican believes in creating space for people and ideas to connect though its international arts programme, community events and learning activity.

To keep its programme accessible to everyone, and to keep investing in the artists it works with, the Barbican needs to raise more than 60% of its income through ticket sales, commercial activities and fundraising every year.  

Donations can be made here: barbican.org.uk/donate