Press room

Barbican Cinema
July 2021
barbican.org.uk/whats-on/cinema

Curated by the Barbican:

• SAFAR Film Festival: Generational Encounters in Arab Cinema
• Forbidden Colours: Memories of My Body + Pre-recorded Intro by Eric Sasono
• Splash, Scratch, Dunk! Films Made by Hand: a season of rare experimental films, made entirely by hand, without a camera
• Family Film Club
• Architecture on Film: City Hall
• O Sport, You are Peace!
• Hidden Figures: Jacqueline Audry – the rarely screened work of this pioneering French director
• The Sparks Brothers + Live Satellite Broadcast Q&A with Edgar Wright
• New Release: Black Widow

Event Cinema:

• Encore: Uncle Vanya
• The Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company: Romeo & Juliet

    Barbican Cinema On Demand

• Return to the City: the season re-discovering cities across the world continues on Cinema on Demand.
• The Filmmaker's House
• New East: Walls Remember - Shorts Compilation + pre-recorded ScreenTalk
• Hidden Figures: Jacqueline Audry’s Olivia

The Barbican Cinema programme has a myriad of delights for audiences to enjoy in July. This month sees the opening of the Splash, Scratch, Dunk! Films Made by Hand season, a celebration of artists who’ve gone against convention - and made experimental films entirely by hand; and the return of Hidden Figures, which revives the work of the pioneering French director Jacqueline Audry. Cinema goers can also enjoy highlights from SAFAR Film Festival, the only UK festival dedicated to showcasing films from the Arab world, which this year focuses on exploring familial and generational relationships.

In this Olympic month there’s also a rare screening of the Soviet film O Sport, You are Peace! a documentary showing the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1980 Moscow Olympics; an Architecture on Film screening of City Hall, made by the great documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman; and a Forbidden Colours screening of Memories of My Body + Pre-recorded Intro by Eric Sasono, which upon release caused considerable controversy in its native Indonesia.

Barbican Cinema is also delighted to welcome back its Event Cinema strand and celebrate live performance with screenings of The Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company production of Romeo & Juliet and an Encore screening of the critically acclaimed Chekov play Uncle Vanya.

Other highlights include Marvel Studios’ action-packed spy thriller Black Widow and the music documentary The Sparks Brothers + Live Satellite Q&A with Edgar Wright, about this highly influential, but underrated band.

Barbican Cinema On Demand continues to host thought-provoking and entertaining content, and in July offers the opportunity to catch-up with the Barbican’s Return to the City season (which screened in venue in June); with screenings of: Lima Screams, Queen of Diamonds and Long Day’s Journey into Night. To complement the Hidden Figures strand, there’s also the chance to see Jacqueline Audry’s ground-breaking film Olivia, which was made in 1951 and dealt with female sexuality way ahead of its time.

Further offerings also include New East Cinema’s Walls Remember, a shorts compilation of films from East Europe and Central Asia with a pre-recorded ScreenTalk; and Marc Isaacs’s The Filmmaker’s House, a blend of documentary and fiction about the director’s own home and its surrounding environment.

Curated by the Barbican:

SAFAR Film Festival: Generational Encounters in Arab Cinema
Thu 1 Jul – Tue 6 Jul, Barbican Cinema 1

SAFAR Film Festival offers a unique space for audiences to connect explore, and celebrate the diversity of Arab cinema, past, present, and future.

The 2021 edition of SAFAR is curated by Rabih El-Khoury around the theme of Generational Encounters in Arab Cinema, showcasing contemporary and classic films with emergent youth, familial disparities and societal tensions at their centre.

Ten years ago, popular revolts took over the Arab region and thousands headed to the streets to instigate change in their respective societies. Generational Encounters reflects on the legacy of these protests by focusing on stories of personal revolution, the kind that unfolds daily in households across the region and beyond: ordinary people pushing back against patriarchy, challenging social inequality, and dreaming of change. 

SAFAR opens at the Barbican with the UK premiere of Souad (Egypt/Tunisia/Germany 2021), Egyptian director Ayten Amin’s second feature which questions the impact of social media on today’s Egyptian youth; and continues with Adam, (Morocco/France 2019), written and directed by the Moroccan actor and filmmaker Maryam Touzani, and tells the story of two lonely souls, trapped by destiny, who seek refuge in flight and denial.

Further festival highlights include the UK premiere of We Are From There (Lebanon/France 2020), Wissam Tanios documents the experiences of his Syrian cousins as they embark on journeys to Europe in search of new lives, leaving everything behind except their hope for a better future.

The film explores the human ability to cope with change as radical as it may be, and won Best Arab Film and Best Non-Fiction Film at the 2020 Cairo International Film Festival.

Mohamed Malas’ The Dream (Syria 1987) will also screen, followed by a discussion with the director and the producer. Filmed forty years ago in 1980-81, this is composed of interviews with different Palestinian refugees including children, women, elderly people, and militants from refugee camps in Lebanon, including Sabra and Shatila.

The 6th edition of the SAFAR Film Festival is presented in partnership with the Shubbak Festival and runs from 1–17 July across partner venues in London and online.

For further information please contact:
Becky Harrison, Communications and Events Manager: [email protected]
tel: (0)20 7832 1310

www.safarfilmfestival.co.uk

Forbidden Colours: Memories of My Body (15*) + Pre-recorded Intro
by Eric Sasono
In partnership with Queer East Film Festival
Indonesia 2018, Dir Garin Nugroho, 106 min
Tue 6 Jul, 6pm, Barbican Cinema 1

Juno, a sensitive boy living in a Javanese village, is abandoned by his father, but finds solidarity in a traditional Lengger dance troupe. The nature of the dance involves men assuming female forms, which sparks a new sense of identity in Juno, to the horror of traditional members of the community.

Beautiful dance sequences merge with a powerful journey towards acceptance of self and the beauty of the body in Nugroho’s film. The release of the film sparked controversy in Indonesia, where the director received death threats when a petition to ban the film was signed by 93,000 people.

Splash, Scratch, Dunk! Films Made by Hand
Thu 8 Jul – Thu 5 Aug 2021
Barbican Cinema 1

There is an alternative history of cinema, one quite apart from the commercial mainstream, but also a distinct subset of experimental cinema: films made entirely by hand, without a camera. The Barbican Cinema season Splash, Scratch, Dunk! Films Made by Hand, celebrates the work of these maverick artists and filmmakers.

Filmmakers have worked in this tradition since the 1930s, drawing, painting or scratching directly onto film; fixing materials to the filmstrip; purposefully decaying the film stock by bleaching or salting it, or leaving it buried in soil for months at a time.

Screening in July and early August, over four events, this international series of pioneering shorts spanning from 1935 to 2014, includes enduring classics by artists such as Maurice Lemaître, Len Lye, and Margaret Tait alongside works by contemporary directors including Naomi Uman, Peggy Ahwesh, Louise Bourque and Josh Lewis.

In true DIY spirit, these artists have developed their own processes, welcomed chance outcomes, and experimented with an array of everyday tools and materials: brushes and felt-tip pens...but also household bleach, glitter nail polish, even bodily fluids!

The filmmakers in this series have different aims, or aspirations, for their work, using the craft to articulate issues related to feminism, identity politics or to represent an attack on film itself.

This season is presented in the context of the public programme complementing Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty, a Barbican exhibition celebrating French artist Jean Dubuffet.
Mon 17 May—Sun 22 Aug 2021

For further information:
www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2021/series/splash-scratch-dunk-films-made-by-hand
To view the full press release:
www.barbican.org.uk/our-story/press-room/splash-scratch-dunk-films-made-by-hand

Family Film Club
Every Saturday 11am & 12pm/, Barbican Cinemas 2&3

Family Film Club continues in July with an array of contemporary and classic titles to keep families entertained over the summer.

This month includes the Oscar nominated Secret of the Kells (Ireland/France/Belgium 2010, Dirs Tomm Moore & Nora Twomey), an animated fantasy film about the making of the Book of Kells; Howl’s Moving Castle (Japan 2004, Dir. Hayao Miyazaki), an animation full of complex magic, about a young girl who is transformed into an old woman by an evil witch; and the classic children’s film E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (US1982, Dir. Steven Spielberg), in which a troubled child summons the courage to help a friendly alien escape Earth and return to his home world.

Other family highlights this month include Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds (France / Spain 2021 Dir Toni Garcia), a cheery animated swashbuckler sure to please young audiences and adults who remember the original 1980s television show; and Raya and the Last Dragon (US 2021, Dir Don Hall, Paul Briggs & John Ripa), Disney’s latest visually ravishing thrill-ride – in a re-imagined Earth inhabited by an ancient civilization, a warrior named Raya is determined to find the last dragon.

For further information:
www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/series/family-film-club

Architecture on Film: City Hall (PG*)
USA 2020, Dir Frederick Wiseman, 275 min
Sat 10 Jul, 1 pm, Barbican Cinema 1

The latest film by Frederick Wiseman – one of cinema’s greatest documentarians – reveals the labour involved in making, maintaining and improving a city for its citizens.

By turning a lens upon the workings of Boston’s city government and mayor, Wiseman’s panoramic opus bears deep, insightful and nuanced witness to the complexities, textures and efforts of urban governance and democracy in action.

Shot during the Trump administration, the film highlights Boston’s fights for social justice, racial equity, and structural change.

Over the course of an afternoon with Wiseman’s film, a city’s potential to be an engine of social progress – within and beyond its geographical limits – is made clear, through an urban portrait exploring how people can help people to live together.

Curated by The Architecture Foundation

O Sport, You are Peace! (U*)
USSR 1981, Dir Yuri Ozerov 149 min - Digital presentation
Sun 11 Jul 2021, 5 pm, Barbican Cinema 1

One of the greatest Olympic films, O Sport, You are Peace! is a celebration of extraordinary sport achievement and Soviet grandeur.

As the early scenes establish, dozens of nations took part in a boycott initiated by the United States in view of the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan. As well as the sport events, veteran filmmaker Yuri Ozerov also focuses on the majesty of Moscow, the host city, and the spectacle of the opening ceremony.

Sporting triumphs, and a couple of memorable disappointments, are expertly filmed. The footage of the women’s gymnastics, Sebastian Coe’s 1500 gold medal win and the marathon through the streets of Moscow are particularly gripping.

Hidden Figures – Jacqueline Audry
Wed 14 Jul – Sun 25 Jul, Barbican Cinema 1

Barbican Cinema welcomes back Hidden Figures in July with a celebration of the rarely screened work of pioneering French director Jacqueline Audry, whose film adaptations brought playfulness, mischief and a feminist eye to classic literary texts.

Jacqueline Audry was by far the most prolific female director working in France in the 1940s and 50s, and was one of the most daring French filmmakers of the time, creating a series of female-focused dramas that commented on women’s role in society, which put female, and often queer, sexuality at the centre of the story.

The programmes, curated by Barbican Cinema’s Alex Davidson, features two of Audry’s most successful literary adaptations: Olivia (1951) – including a BAFTA nominated performance from Edwige Feuillère and adapted from the Dorothy Bussy novel –  is set in a girls’ finishing school and dared to embrace queer female sexuality (heavily cut when originally screened in the UK); and Huis Clos (1954), her adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s play, featuring the famous line ‘Hell is other people,’ is a marvellous, bitter interpretation with a tremendous performance from Arletty as a fiery lesbian spending eternity with two people with dark secrets.

For further information:
www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2021/series/splash-scratch-dunk-films-made-by-hand   
To view the full press release:
www.barbican.org.uk/our-story/press-room/splash-scratch-dunk-films-made-by-hand

The Sparks Brothers + Live Satellite Q&A with Edgar Wright
USA/ UK 2020, Dir Edgar Wright, 135 min + 30 min Q&A
Thu 29 Jul, 6.30 pm, Barbican Cinema 1

How can one rock band be successful, underrated, hugely influential, and criminally overlooked all at the same time? This is a musical odyssey through five weird and wonderful decades with brothers Ron & Russell Mael, celebrating the inspiring legacy of Sparks: your favourite band's favourite band. This screening will be followed by a live Q+A with Edgar Wright and special guests, broadcast from Sundance Film Festival: London 2021.

New Release: Black Widow
USA 2021, Dir Cate Shortland, 133 min
Fri 9 Jul – Mon 19 Jul, Barbican Cinemas 1&3

In this Marvel Studios’ action-packed spy thriller, Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

Event Cinema

Encore: Uncle Vanya (12A)
UK 2020, Dir Ross MacGibbon, 155 min
Sun 4 Jul, 2pm, Barbican Cinema 3

Marrying the intimacy of the screen with the electricity of live performance, an impressive ensemble cast stars in this Sonia Friedman production of this classic Anton Chekov play which was nominated for four Olivier Awards.

Sonya (Aimee Lou Wood) and her Uncle Vanya (Toby Jones) while away their time on an isolated estate, visited occasionally only by the local doctor Astrov (Richard Armitage). However, when Sonya’s father Professor Serebryakov, suddenly returns with his restless, alluring, new wife Yelena, polite facades crumble and long repressed feelings start to emerge.

The Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company: Romeo & Juliet (12A)
UK 2016, Dir Kenneth Branagh and Rob Ashford, 157 min
Wed 7 Jul, 7pm, Barbican Cinema 3

The Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company’s modern and passionate staging of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy returns to the big screen this summer.

Starring Richard Madden as Romeo and Lily James as Juliet, with Sir Derek Jacobi as Mercutio and Meera Syal as The Nurse, this is a heart-breaking tale of forbidden love where the longstanding feud between Verona’s Montague and Capulet families brings about devastating consequences for two young lovers caught in the conflict. 

Barbican Cinema On Demand

After many months of worldwide lockdown leaving normally bustling city streets deserted, the Barbican Cinema’s programme Return to the City – which screened in Cinema 1 throughout June – hails the return of these vital spaces and communities.

A selection of season highlights will be available in July on Barbican Cinema on Demand. With a diversity of storytellers as our big-screen guide, the films in this programme re-discover some of our great international cities including Lima, Las Vegas and Kaili in South East China – some celebrate the majesty and excitement of the metropolis, while others consider the prejudices faced by marginalised communities within the city.

Nina Menkes’ Queen of Diamonds (US 1991) offers a glimpse of Las Vegas as seen through the eyes of a casino croupier, a place of garish, windowless interiors, but also huge blue skies, dotted with burned-out mobile homes, cheaply-furnished apartments, and dried-up lakes.

The sounds of punk, psychedelia and experimental electronica are the backdrop in Ximena Valdivia and Dana Bonilla’s Lima Screams (Peru 2018), an ecstatic and visually thrilling journey through Lima, where marginalised communities make beautiful music, and political protests are backed by fierce electronic sounds.

Mystery, passion and fear permeate in Bi Gan’s sensual drama  Long Day’s Journey into Night (China/France 2018), set in the city of Kaili - this is a labyrinthine cityscape captured in a single, hour-long, gravity-defying take - about a man’s mission to reconnect with his former lover.

Walls Remember: Shorts Compilation is a collection short films - from Latvia, the Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Kazakhstan - that consider the relationship between memory and space.

These five diverse, often very beautiful shorts, explore the relationship between memories, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes traumatic, and personal spaces from the past, in a post-communist and post-Soviet context. This screening will be followed by a pre-recorded ScreenTalk.

Other cinematic highlights on Cinema on Demand this month include The Filmmaker’s House (UK 2020, Dir Marc Isaacs), a blend of documentary and fiction about the director’s own home and its surrounding environment; and the Jacqueline Audry film Olivia (1951), which complements this month’s Hidden Figures strand; this ground-breaking film - set in a girls’ finishing school - dared to embrace queer female sexuality and was heavily cut when it was originally released in the UK.

JULY 2021 CINEMA LISTINGS:

BARBICAN CINEMAS

Encore: Uncle Vanya (12A)
UK 2020, Dir Ross MacGibbon, 155 min
Sun 4 Jul 2021, 2.00 pm, Barbican Cinema 3
Standard ticket price:  £20/ Members: £16/ Young Barbican: £10

The Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company: Romeo & Juliet (12A)
UK 2016, Dir Kenneth Branagh and Rob Ashford, 157 min
7 Jul, 7pm, Barbican Cinema 3
Standard ticket price:  £20/ Members: £16/ Young Barbican: £10

SAFAR Film Festival: Generational Encounters in Arab Cinema
Thu 1 Jul – Tue 6 Jul, Barbican Cinema 1
Standard ticket price:  £12/ Members: £9.60/ Concessions: £11// Young Barbican: £5

Forbidden Colours: Memories of My Body (15*)
 + Pre-recorded Intro  by Eric Sasono
Indonesia 2018, Dir Garin Nugroho, 106 min
6 Jul, 6pm, Barbican Cinema 1
Standard ticket price: £12/ Members: £9.60/ Concessions: £11/ Young Barbican: £5

Splash, Scratch, Dunk! Films Made by Hand
Thu 8 Jul – Thu 5 Aug 2021
Barbican Cinema 1
Standard ticket price: £12/ Members: £9.60/ Concessions: £11/ Young Barbican: £5

Family Film Club
Every Saturday 11am & 12pm/12.30pm
Barbican Cinemas 2&3
Under 18s: £2.50/ Over 18s: £3.50

Architecture on Film: City Hall
USA 2020, Dir Frederick Wiseman, 275 min
10 Jul, 1 pm, Barbican Cinema 1
Standard ticket price:  £12/ Members: £9.60/ Concessions: £11// Young Barbican: £5

O Sport, You are Peace! (U*)
USSR 1981 Dir Yuri Ozerov 149 min - Digital presentation
Sun 11 Jul 2021, 17:00, Barbican Cinema 1
Standard ticket price:  £12/ Members: £9.60/ Concessions: £11// Young Barbican: £5

Hidden Figures – Jacqueline Audry
14 Jul – 25 Jul, Barbican Cinema 1
Standard ticket price:  £12/ Members: £9.60/ Concessions: £11// Young Barbican: £5

The Sparks Brothers (15) + Live Broadcast Q&A with Edgar Wright
USA/ UK 2020, Dir Edgar Wright, 135 min + 30 min Q&A
Thu 29 Jul, 6.30 pm, Barbican Cinema 1
Standard ticket price: £15/ Members: £12/ Concessions: £14/ Young Barbican: £5

New Release: Black Widow
USA 2021, Dir Cate Shortland, 133 min
Fri 9 Jul – Mon 19 Jul, Barbican Cinemas 1&3
Standard ticket price:  £12/ Members: £9.60/ Concessions: £11// Young Barbican: £5

BARBICAN CINEMA ON DEMAND

Return to the City
Barbican Cinema On Demand
Available to stream: Thu 1 Jul – Sat 31 Jul
Pay per view: Full: £3.50 | Young Barbican: £2.80| Barbican Members £2.80

The Filmmaker’s House
Barbican Cinema On Demand
UK 2020, Dir Marc Isaacs
Available to stream: Thu 1 Jul – Fri 23 Jul
Pay per view: Full: £10.00 | Young Barbican: £4.00 | Barbican Members £8.00

New East Cinema: Walls Remember:
Shorts Compilation +  pre-recorded ScreenTalk
Barbican Cinema On Demand
Available to stream: Thu 1 Jul – Sat 31 Jul
Pay per view: Full: £10.00 | Young Barbican: £4.00 | Barbican Members £8.00

Olivia (15*)
Barbican Cinema On Demand
France 1951 Dir Jacqueline Audry 88 min
Available to stream: Mon 19 Jul - Sun1 Aug.
Pay per view: Full: £3.50 | Young Barbican: £2.80| Barbican Members £2.80

Barbican Cinema has been supported by the Culture Recovery Fund for Independent Cinemas in England which is administered by the BFI, as part of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund supporting arts and cultural organisations in England affected by the impact of COVID-19. #HereForCulture.

Box office: 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