Press room

barbican.org.uk/whats-on/cinema 

Curated by the Barbican: 

• Post-Horror Summer Nights
• Senior Community Screening: Barry & Joan + recorded Intro from Director Audrey Rumsby
• Glitter + Presentation
• Outdoor Cinema          

Barbican Cinema begins August with thrills aplenty in Post-Horror Summer Nights, a season that looks at the breed of horror which began to boom in the mid-2010s – partly as a reaction to the huge financial success of bigger budget, mass-appeal horror films.

This month also sees a Senior Community Screening of Barry & Joan with a recorded intro from director Audrey Rumsby; this is a unique and joyful documentary about the creative world of Barry and Joan Grantham, two British eccentrics who have kept British vaudeville alive for over seventy years.

Freelance writer Rōgan Graham introduces a celebratory screening of Glitter with a presentation on the film that nearly derailed Mariah Carey’s career; she discusses the mythology surrounding it and the 2018 #JusticeForGlitter movement.

Following last year’s successful series the late summer Outdoor Cinema screenings bring together all the Barbican art forms – cinema, music, theatre, dance and visual art – set against the spectacular architectural backdrop of the Barbican Sculpture Court. This year’s programme compliments Our Time On Earth – Barbican’s major exhibition celebrating the power of global creativity to reignite respect and inspire awe and wonder for our beautiful planet – with captivating films that celebrate human connection to the natural world.

Post-Horror Summer Nights at Barbican Cinema
Thu 4 Aug – Thu 25 Aug ‘22
Cinema 2

The term ‘post-horror’ (often used interchangeably with ‘elevated horror’ or ‘art-horror’) was coined in 2017 by the film critic Steve Rose, describing titles which emerged in the mid 2010s partly as a reaction to the success of big budget horror films, rejecting well-worn tropes in favour of shocking subversion and existential dread.

Steve Rose will introduce the opening-night screening of Trey Edward Shults’ It Comes at Night, the first in the series of titles and discussions which will explore the highly contentious term ‘post-horror’, including an introduction from academic David Church, author of ‘Post-Horror; Art, Genre and Cultural Elevation ahead of the screening David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows, plus a pre-recorded introduction from the director Robert Eggers’ ahead of the screening of The Witch.

Often produced on comparatively small budgets, the films in this programme demonstrate many of the characteristics prevalent in this brand of horror; embracing a slow pace and droning score in lieu of frequent jump-cuts. Wrapped in the expected horror imagery of old crones (The Witch), supernatural forces (It Follows) and deadly plagues (It Comes at Night), these titles subvert expectations by placing the true source of the horror elsewhere. 

Post-horror titles are also widely considered to be preoccupied with more serious themes, with narratives often fuelled by grief and existential dread, notably Ari Aster’s striking debut feature Hereditary, which also screens in this series.

For further information:
www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2022/series/post-horror-summer-nights
To view the full press release:
www.barbican.org.uk/our-story/press-room/post-horror-summer-nights-at-barbican-cinema 

Senior Community Screening: Barry & Joan + recorded intro from Director Audrey Rumsby
USA 2022, Dir Audrey Rumsby, 87 min
Mon 8 Aug 2022, 11.45am, Cinema 2

This month’s Senior Community Screening of Barry & Joan, includes a recorded introduction from the director Audrey Rumsby. This documentary centres on the creative world of Barry and Joan Grantham. Since becoming stage-struck lovers in 1948, Barry and Joan have taught, danced and acted alongside the greats of British film and theatre. They are the last of the golden generation vaudeville acts, eager to pass on their legacy on to future generations.

This special Senior Community Screening is a free event.

Glitter (PG) + Presentation
USA 2001, Dir Vondie Curtis Hall, 104 min
Sun 14 Aug, 2pm, Cinema 2

Freelance writer Rōgan Graham introduces this celebratory screening of Glitter, in which Mariah Carey stars as singer Billie Frank, in the film that almost tanked her mega-watt career.

In 2001, Mariah Carey’s diamond-encrusted reign threatened to come to an end with the untimely release of Glitter. A loose remake of A Star is Born, the film has a light touch on issues close to Carey’s heart, such as the patriarchy in the music industry, and a young biracial woman reckoning with how she sees herself, versus how she is seen. The making of and failures of Glitter have become more infamous than the film itself, plagued with racism and sabotage from the very beginning. Over two decades on, it’s time to re-evaluate how a sentimental star-vehicle could prove near catastrophic.

Outdoor Cinema Screenings at the Barbican celebrate our connection
to the natural world
Tue 23 Aug – Sun 28 Aug
Barbican Sculpture Court

This year’s late-summer Outdoor Cinema Screenings in the Barbican’s Sculpture Court feature films that make a profound connection to their natural settings. 

The six-day programme includes the amazing power of Mothra, the iconic Japanese giant moth kaiju who must defend her islanders; an immersive short film programme Bodies of Water which includes work by contemporary artists and filmmakers including Susan Schuppli, Anne Duk Hee Jordan and Jean Painlevé, among others; Pink Floyd performing at the famed amphitheatre located among the ruins of Pompeii; the epic war between forest spirits and humans in Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke; the distinctive animation of René Laloux’s extra-terrestrial fantasy La Planète Sauvage, and Julie Dash’s lush, beautiful and influential Southern-set  Daughters of the Dust, shown here in a recent 2K restoration. 

Screenings:

Tue 23 Aug, 8.30pm
Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii (U)
Belgium, West Germany, France, 1972, Dir Adrian Maben, 92 min

Wed 24 Aug, 8.30 pm
Mothra (PG)
Japan 1962, Dir Ishirô Honda, 101mins

Thu 25 Aug, 8.30 pm
Figuring Bodies of Water (PG)
Dirs Various, 95mins

Fri 26 Aug, 8.30 pm
La Planète Sauvage (PG)
France, Czech Republic 1973, Dir René Laloux, 72 min
plus

Les escargots
France, 1965, Dir René Laloux, 11 mins

Sat 27 Aug, 8.30 pm
Princess Mononoke (PG)
Japan 1997, Dir Hayao Miyazaki, 133 min

Sun 28 Aug 2021, 8.30 pm,
Daughters of the Dust (PG)
US 1991, Dir Julie Dash, 112 min

For further information:
www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2022/series/outdoor-cinema-0

To view the full press release:
https://www.barbican.org.uk/our-story/press-room/outdoor-cinema-screenings-at-the-barbican-celebrate-our-connection-to-the