Press room

Barbican Cinema
April 2022 - plus Oscar Week
barbican.org.uk/whats-on/cinema 
 

Curated by the Barbican: 

• Oscar® Week 2022
• The Fall of the House of Usher + Live musical accompaniment
• Visual Viscera: Embodied Subjectivities
• DJ Spoony Presents Babylon + DJ Set & ScreenTalk
  with the cast
• Family Film Club

Event Cinema:

• Royal Opera House Encore: La traviata
• National Theatre Live: Henry V

Barbican Cinema On Demand:

• Drive My Car + Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

The Barbican continues to show the best in contemporary and classic cinema in its venues and on Cinema On Demand throughout March and April. This begins with Oscar Week ® 2022 (25-31 Mar), when the red carpet gets rolled out and films fans will have the chance to re-visit the nominees in the Best Picture and International Feature Film categories, as well as the Animated and Live Action shorts categories – on the big screen – at this year’s 94th Academy Awards.

London’s Black cultural history is celebrated in DJ Spoony Presents Babylon + DJ Set & ScreenTalk; a screening of this 1980 cult classic, which captures the changing sounds and youth culture of South London, told through the experience of second generation of Caribbean migrants. Accompanying the screening will be a set by celebrated DJ and radio presenter DJ Spoony and special guests, in addition to a panel discussion featuring members of the cast.

Silent film fans will be able to enjoy a rare screening of The Fall of the House of Usher, a 1928 French gothic horror, based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe; with live musical accompaniment from Stephen Horne (piano, flute and accordion) and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry (harp).

Further highlights include Visual Viscera: Embodied Subjectivities, a selection of thought-provoking experimental films, curated by Associate Artist Abbas Zahedi, as part of the public programme in the Postwar Modern - New Art in Britain 1945-1965 exhibition in the Barbican Art Gallery. This programme features work by Ufuoma Essi, Bassam Al-Sabah, Rouzbeh Akhbari and Doireann O'Malley.

Event Cinema includes a Royal Opera House Encore screening of Richard Eyre’s celebrated production of La traviata and National Theatre Live: Henry V, Max Webster’s modern production, live from the Donmar Warehouse.

Fans of the up and coming director and screenwriter Ryusuke Hamaguchi can enjoy a double bill of his latest two films – Drive My Car and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy – on Barbican Cinema On Demand in April. The much acclaimed Drive My Car has received four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best International Film.

Curated by the Barbican:

Oscar® Week 2022

Fri 25—Thu 31 Mar, Cinemas 2+3
Dir various

A slice of Hollywood glamour returns to the Barbican with Oscar® Week 2022; which offers cinema lovers the chance to catch up with this year’s main contenders at the Academy Awards.

Taking place to coincide with the award ceremony on Mon 28 Mar, programme highlights include: Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog (New Zealand/Australia 2021), Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (USA 2021) screening on 35mm, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car (Japan 2021), Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God (Italy 2021), Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast (UK 2021), Jonas Poher Ramussento’s Flee (USA/Denmark) and Jared Bush & Byron Howard’s Encanto (USA 2021); to name a few.

Barbican Cinema is also pleased to present the films competing in the Animated Shorts and the Live Action shorts categories.

For full programme information please go to:
www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2022/series/oscarr-week-2022  

The Fall of the House of Usher (PG*)

Silent Film and Live Music
France 1928, Dir Jean Epstein, 65 min
Sun 10 Apr 3pm, Cinema 1

An impressionistic adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s Gothic tale of obsession and madness. Jean Epstein’s French horror crafts haunting images, laying out the story of Roderick Usher who is consumed with fear that his beloved wife Madeline will die. Madeline fades as his portrait of her nears completion.  

With live performance from Stephen Horne (piano, flute, accordion) and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry (harp).

Presented in partnership with the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival www.hippfest.co.uk
Courtesy of the Cinémathèque Française

Visual Viscera: Embodied Subjectivities
Thu 28 Apr, 8.15 pm, Cinema 2
Dir various

A selection of experimental films, curated by Associate Artist Abbas Zahedi, which is screened as part of the Age of Many Posts, an expanded public programme taking place as part of the Postwar Modern - New Art in Britain 1945-1965 exhibition in the Art Gallery. This programme features work by Ufuoma Essi, Bassam Al-Sabah, Rouzbeh Akhbari and Doireann O'Malley.

The included films - albeit very different - all play with the language of film to reflect on how our engagement with digital media shapes both our sense of the present and future.

In doing so these films attempt to discover and promote a renewed sense of trust in visual media, one defined by physical bonds of connection and care. It is Zahedi’s belief that this collection of works from a wide-ranging group of lens-based practitioners, explores both intimate and personalised ways of engaging with the idea: what next, with what came before?  
 

DJ Spoony Presents Babylon + DJ Set & ScreenTalk with the cast (15)
UK 1980, Dir Franco Rosso, 95 min

Sat 30 Apr 7pm, Cinema 1

Babylon is both celebratory and cautionary, reflecting the excitement and vigour of the vibrant Soundsystem scene, whilst depicting the constant threat faced by Black youths from police and racist thugs.

Featuring a stellar central performance from Brinsley Forde (noted for being the frontman of reggae group Aswad), Italian director Franco Rosso intimately captures the fabric of 1980s Deptford and Elephant & Castle, offering a priceless opportunity to take in the burgeoning Sound System subculture, capturing the fashion, characters and mannerisms of those embedded in the local scene.

Before the screening, DJ Spoony and special guests will be spinning classic reggae, before introducing the film, while a panel discussion featuring members of the cast takes place after the film.
 

Family Film Club
Every Saturday 11am, Cinema 2

Family Film Club continues to screen the very best in international cinema, for young people and their families, every Saturday in Barbican Cinema 2. Please check www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/series/family-film-club for programme details.
 

Event Cinema

Royal Opera House Encore: La traviata (12A)

Sun 17 Apr 2pm, Cinema 3

In a glamorous and superficial society, a courtesan sacrifices all for love.

19th-century Paris is a place of contrasts; glamour and superficiality, love and lust, life and death. Courtesan Violetta sings some of Verdi’s most acclaimed arias including the joyous ‘Sempre libera’, in her poignant and passionate encounters with Alfredo and Germont.
 

Richard Eyre’s production for The Royal Opera recently celebrated 25 years on the Royal Opera House stage and this year returns with acclaimed opera star Pretty Yende as Violetta.
 

National Theatre Live: Henry V (15)

Thu 21 Apr 7pm, Cinema 1

Kit Harington (Game of Thrones) plays the title role in Shakespeare’s thrilling study of nationalism, war and the psychology of power. 

Fresh to the throne, King Henry V launches England into a bloody war with France. When his campaign encounters resistance, this inexperienced new ruler must prove he is fit to guide a country into war. 

Captured live from the Donmar Warehouse in London, this exciting modern production directed by Max Webster (Life of Pi) explores what it means to be English and the nation’s relationship to Europe.

Barbican Cinema On Demand

In April Cinema On Demand offers the chance to see two films from the director of the moment, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, whose film Drive My Car (Japan 2021), won Best Screenplay at Cannes last year and is also nominated for multiple Oscars later this month.

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (15)
2021 Japan, Dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 121 min
Barbican Cinema on Demand

Available to stream: Mon 14 Mar – Mon 2 May
Pay per view: Full: £10.00 | Young Barbican: £4.00 | Barbican Members: £4.00

Winner of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at Berlinale, Oscar Nominated Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) tells the story of an unexpected love triangle, a failed seduction and a chance encounter.

Meiko is startled when she realises that the man who her best friend has feelings for is her ex; Sasaki plots to trick his college professor out of revenge, using his classmate-with-benefits Nao, while Natsuko encounters a woman who seems to be someone from her past, leading the two to confess the feelings they have harboured in their hearts. Stories about the complexities of relationships, told through coincidences that happen in the lives of women in love.

Drive My Car (15) (AD)
Japan 2021, Dir Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 179 min
Barbican Cinema on Demand

Available to stream: Mon 28 Mar – Mon 2 May
Pay per view: Full: £5.00| Young Barbican: £4.00 | Barbican Members: £4.00

Nominated for four Academy Awards, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s film is a haunting road movie travelling a path of love, loss and acceptance.

Two years after his wife’s unexpected death, Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a renowned stage actor and director, receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya at a theatre festival in Hiroshima. There, he meets Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a taciturn young woman assigned by the festival to chauffeur him in his beloved red Saab 900.

As the production’s premiere approaches, tensions mount amongst the cast and crew, not least between Yusuke and Koji Takatsuki, a handsome TV star who shares an unwelcome connection to Yusuke’s late wife. Forced to confront painful truths raised from his past, Yusuke begins, with the help of his driver, to face the haunting mysteries his wife left behind.

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