Press room

Seasons, Festivals and Special Events:

• All Kaiju Attack: All Stars! King Kong vs. Godzilla – 1963 US Version – Fri 4 Sep
• Project a Black Planet: Film – Sat 5 Sep + Sun 6 Sep 
• Adrian Wootton Presents… All the President's Men (4K Restoration) – Sun 13 Sep 
• Contemporary 75: Strawberry and Chocolate – Mon 14 Sep 
• Kino Bloc: Eastern Europe, Central Asia & the Balkans on Film – Wed 16 Sep – Wed 30 Sep 
• Pre-School Pics: The Smeds and Smoos + Live Music from Tara Franks – Wed 23 Sep
• Lawrence Abu Hamdan: Repercussions – Wed 23 - Sat 26 Sep
• Hong Kong Film Festival UK: Palimpsest: The Story of a Name (隱蹟之書：重寫自) + ScreenTalk with director Mary Stephen – Fri 25 Sep 

Regular Programmes:

• Family Film Club: 
• Hola Frida + live pre-film drawing demo – Sat 19 Sep
• The Wrong Trousers + A Close Shave – Sat 26 Sep 
• Animation in Love: Olivia and the Clouds – Thu 10 Sep
• Senior Community Screenings: 
• Surviving Earth – Mon 14 Sep
• Rose of Nevada – Mon 28 Sep 

In September the Barbican presents an international programme of bold and thought-provoking cinema which leads with Kino Bloc: Eastern Europe, Central Asia & the Balkans on Film – which was formerly known as New East – a season of highly-anticipated new films from the post-Communist and post-Soviet states of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, including titles from Slovenia, Kosova and Kazakhstan.

This month also sees the third instalment of All Kaiju Attack – All Stars! – a seasoncelebrating some of the greatest Japanese kaiju superstars to emerge from the genre. This month’s screening is King Kong vs. Godzilla – 1963 US Version, which showcases the epic battle between two of cinema’s greatest monsters and remains the most successful Godzilla film of all time in Japan. 

Further highlights include Lawrence Abu Hamdan: Repercussions, in which the Turner Prize-winning artist transforms the Centre into a dynamic, interdisciplinary platform, exploring the urgent and evolving concept of sonic rights. 

Over four days, this brings together an installation, performances, screenings, panel discussions and live music to examine the impact of sound, from the harmful damage of noise pollution to the subversive power of silence.

Contemporary 75 is a London wide programme celebrating the anniversary of this trailblazing film distributor and this month presents the Havana-based comedy Strawberry and Chocolate, which deftly portrays the budding relationship between a gay man and a communist student against the backdrop of a pivotal moment in Cuban history. This is the first (and, to date, only) Cuban film to be nominated in the best foreign language film Oscar category. 

Hong Kong Film Festival UK also comes to the Barbican for the first time and presents Palimpsest: The Story of a Name (隱蹟之書：重寫自我), in which veteran filmmaker Mary Stephen digs into her own family past to uncover the long-hidden origins of her Western surname, revealing a story of culture shock, colonialism, and contested remembrance.

Further highlights include the culmination of the season Project a Black Planet: Film and the third Pre-School Pics, with a fun line-up including live music from the renowned Tara Franks and a screening of the British animation The Smeds and Smoos. 
 
Festivals, Seasons and Special Events

All Kaiju Attack – All Stars!

Fri 4 Sep – Mon 2 Nov 2026

King Kong vs. Godzilla – 1963 US Version + Introduction (PG)
Japan 1962, Dir Ishirō Honda and Thomas Montgomery, 90min
Fri 4 Sep, 6.20pm + Sat 17 Oct, 2pm 
Cinema 1  

The Americanised version of the film features new scenes with US actors, with a greater focus on the monster battles. The final showdown, with a backdrop of Mount Fuji, is one of the most beloved of the franchise. The film’s playful tone would continue throughout the Godzilla films of the 1960s and 70s. 

Project a Black Planet: Film

Sat 5 Sep – Sun 6 Sep 

The programme in the final weekend of Project a Black Planet: Film focusses on the intercontinental festivals held in honour of Pan-Africanism. Programmed by Abiba Coulibaly and subtitled Ambiguous Encounters: Pan-Africanism in the Post-Colonial City, the programme marks 60 years since the Tricontinental Conference and The First World Festival of Negro Arts events, unprecedented for their exploration and enactment of solidarity between and beyond the African diaspora.

BASTA -– a performance lecture by Léa Morin
Sat 5 Sep, 2pm 
Cinema 1

Léa Morin will perform a lecture to reimagine BASTA, a film that exiled Moroccan opposition leader Mehdi Ben Barka had intended to produce and screen at the Tricontinental Conference in 1966, but never completed. 
 

DAKAR: The First World Festival of Negro Arts 1966 (15*)

The First World Festival of Negro Arts 

USA 1966, Dir William Greaves, 41min
+ Reou Takh 

Senegal 1972, Dir Mahama Johnson Traoré, 45min
Sat 5 Sep, 4pm

Cinema 1

The First World Festival of Negro Arts brought together artists on an unprecedented global scale under the banner of Black culture. Held in Dakar in 1966, Documentarian William Greaves captured the festival in official footage and the film features notable figures including Haile Selassie, Alvin Ailey and Aimé Césaire.
 

Shot in the following decade, Reou-Takh follows an African American man arriving in Dakar. His search for authenticity proves elusive, unfolding through encounters that reflect shifting forms of cultural alienation and the film traces a journey marked by irony, disillusionment and uneasy self-reckoning.
 

ALGIERS: The Pan-African Festival of Algiers 1969 (15*) + introduction from Nabil Djedouani
Sun 6 Sept, 2pm
Cinema 1

Vues d'Alger 
France 1986, Dir Alexandre Promio, 5min

Festival Pan-Africain newsreel
France 1969,10min

Afric Hotel 
France 2011, Dir Nabil Djedouani and Hassen Ferhani, 54min

Of all the Pan-African festivals, the Pan-African Festival of Algiers is perhaps the best known and documented via cinema, thanks to William Klein’s eponymous film. This programme surveys Algiers before, during and after the festival.

LAGOS: FESTAC 77 (15*) + Conversation with researcher and curator Pelumi Odubanjo

Nigeria/Brazil 1978, Dir Ola Balogun, 95min

Sun 6 Sep, 4pm

Cinema 1

FESTAC 77 in Lagos was the second edition of the First World Festival of Negro Arts and the largest Pan-African gathering to take place. Shortly after the festival, Nigeria's first international co-productions were underway, the resultant film, Black Goddess, is a mystical time-travelling epic of fracture, romance, reconciliation, and the preservation and marginalisation of indigenous and Afro-Brazilian spiritual practices. 

Adrian Wootton Presents... All the President's Men (4K Restoration) (15)
USA 1976, Dir Alan J Pakula, 138min

Sun 13 Sep, 2pm 
Cinema 1 

Commemorating the 50th birthday of this thrilling masterpiece and the passing of its great co-star Robert Redford, Film London CEO Adrian Wootton will tell the extraordinary story of its making.

Following the unbelievable true story of the criminal political deception that brought about the downfall of US President Richard Nixon, this dramatisation is enthralling filmmaking.
Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford star as Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the Washington Post journalists that eventually revealed the truth of one of the twentieth century's biggest political scandals. 
 

Contemporary 75

Strawberry and Chocolate (Fresa y chocolate) (15*) + intro by curator Alex Davidson

Cuba 1993, Dir Tomás Gutiérrez Alea & Juan Carlos Tabío, 108min 
Mon 14 Sep, 6.15pm 
Cinema 1 

Strawberry and Chocolate starts out like a cute gay romcom before developing into something far more provocative. Havana, 1979. Flamboyant artist Diego (Jorge Perugorría) tries to pick up lovelorn straight student David (Vladimir Cruz) at the Coppelia ice cream parlour. David isn’t interested in romance, but is simultaneously repelled and fascinated by Diego’s love of forbidden art, and spurred on by his friend, decides to spy on him, fearing he may be subverting the communist cause.
 

This sharp, irresistible comedy, spiced with a love of camp that breathes like Pedro Almodóvar, is surprisingly critical of the Castro regime and sympathetic to its gay protagonist. It has semi-legendary status in Cuba - tourists still seek out the locations.

Kino Bloc

Eastern Europe, Central Asia & the Balkans on Film
Wed 16 Sep – Wed 30 Sep

Three feature films in this season are directed by women, from Slovenia, Kosova and Kazakhstan which tell, each in their own way, stories of memory, displacement, belonging, and youth. This Kino Bloc season concludes with a selection of four short films from the Balkans which explore the camera’s role in documentation and bearing witness.

Fantasy (15*)
Slovenia, North Macedonia 2025, Dir Kukla, 98min 

Wed 16 Sep, 6.10pm 
Cinema 3 

Mihrije, Sina and Jasna are three friends in their early 20s living in Slovenia. Refusing to conform to the conservative system they live in, their world changes when they meet a transgender woman named Fantasy, whose disruptive, yet welcome arrival creates a space for self-exploration, joy, and desire.

The Beauty of the Donkey (12)

Switzerland, Kosova, France & USA 2026, Dir Dea Gjinovci, 87min 
Thu 17 Sep, 6.15pm 
Cinema 3 

Documentary filmmaker Dea Gjinovci captures her father’s return to Kosova and the memories the journey evokes after sixty years of exile.

Becoming (15*) + ScreenTalk with Zhannat Alshanova (15*)

France, Netherlands, Lithuania, Kazakhstan & Sweden 2025, Dir Zhannat Alshanova, 93min Tue 29 Sep, 6.10pm 
Cinema 3

Set in contemporary Kazakhstan, Becoming follows Mila as she searches for stability amid her chaotic family life. Mila is soon drawn into Vlad’s (Valentin Novopolskij) swimming team, but the idyllic dream is soon revealed to be something different. 

Short Stories from the Balkans (18*)

Dir various 
Wed 30 Sep, 6.20pm 
Cinema 1 

Some of the best recent films from the Balkans, by emerging and established filmmakers, that explore sexuality, climate change, recent history and death. The themes and approaches vary, but in all four shorts the camera is present, becoming a witness, an archivist or an accomplice.

Preschool Pictures
The Smeds and the Smoos (U) + Music with Tara Franks 

UK 2024, Dirs Samantha Cutler & Daniel Snaddon, 26min

Wed 23 Sep, 10.30 am 

Cinema 2

Approx event runtime: 55min

The renowned cellist and musical extraordinaire, Tara Franks, of Tots Tunes is back at Preschool pics in September to get audiences dancing and shaking to the beat! This will be followed by a screening of the classic British animation The Smeds and the Smoos. 

Lawrence Abu Hamdan: Repercussions

Wed 23—Sat 26 Sep

450 XL: A silent movie

Wed 23 Sep, 6pm & 8pm 
Cinema 1 
A new performance brings together image, text and sound drawn from Earshot's 'earwitness' investigation of a reported sonic attack during a silent vigil in Belgrade in March 2025. 

The Last Responders + Blow Out (18) with an introduction by Caline Matar
The Last Responders   USA, 2026, Dir Earshot & Forensic Architecture, 50min
Blow Out    USA,1981, Dir Brian De Palma, 107min
Thu 24 Sep, 7pm 
Cinema 1 

The Last Responders is a documentary by Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed A. Gawad that follows an investigation into an attack by the Israeli military, drawing on testimony, audio analysis and spatial reconstruction.

Brian De Palma's cult thriller Blow Out approaches sonic inquiry through fiction, following a sound recordist who becomes entangled in a political conspiracy after inadvertently capturing evidence of what he believes to be a murder.

Rififi (12) with an introduction by Caline Matar

France 1955, Dir Jules Dassin, 117min
Sat 26 Sep, 2pm 
Cinema 1 

The first modern heist movie that has inspired countless others, Rififi follows four men planning a technically perfect crime. The film's meticulous attention to sonic detail reveals how sound – and its absence – can shape narrative, suspense and our understanding of what unfolds on screen.

Hong Kong Film Festival UK 
Palimpsest: The Story of a Name (隱蹟之書：重寫自我) + ScreenTalk with 

Mary Stephen
France, Hong Kong &Taiwan 2025, Dir Mary Stephen 雪美蓮
Fri 25 Sept, 6.30pm 
Cinema 1

The latest from veteran editor and director Mary Stephen (Ombres de soie) is a deeply personal, real-life detective story about the complicated and long-hidden history of her family and their Western surname.

Here Stephen conducts detective work on the mystery behind her own name. She digs into her father's archives, excavating reels of home movies and stacks of biography, where multiple layers of narratives, often conflicting, emerge. As the film unravels the roots of her name, we see threads of a personal story interwoven into the vast socio-political fabric of class and race, inseparable from the convoluted colonial history of her hometown.

Palimpsest: The Story of a Name is an essayistic archival collage of an intimate family portrait amid the Hong Kong diaspora, winner of Best Film Editing and Best Documentary Feature at the Taipei Golden Horse Awards.

Regular Programme Strands

Family Film Club 
 

Hola Frida + live pre-film drawing demo with Erika Meza (U*)
Canada/ France 2025, Dirs Karine Vézina & André Kadi, 82min
Sat 19 Sept, 11am 

Cinema 2

The Family Film Club fun returns in the autumn with Hola Frida (Canada/ France 2025), a beautiful animation about the legendary artist Frida Kahlo, and her childhood growing up in Mexico. Having screened at festivals around the world, this delightful film is a joyful introduction to the world of this renowned creative and feminist icon.
 

On stage before the film, we’re delighted to welcome artist Erika Mezu to give the audience a drawing demo from the stage, showing them some top tips and techniques to help them create their own portraits.

Age suggestion: 5+

The Wrong Trousers + A Close Shave (U)
The Wrong Trousers, Dir Nick Park, UK, 1993, 30min

A Close Shave, Dir Nick Park, UK, 1995, 29min

Sat 26 Sept, 11am 
Cinema 2

Discover the origin story of Shaun the Sheep with two, classically caper-filled Wallace and Gromit films. In The Wrong Trousers, Wallace’s inventions attract the attention of the dastardly Feathers McGraw, and it’s up to Wallace and Gromit to save the day.

And in A Close Shave, the dynamic duo are drawn into a sheep rustling plot and cross paths with the cheeky and uncontrollably force known as Shaun the Sheep.
Age suggestion: 5+

Animation In Love
Olivia & the Clouds + Introduction (15)

Dominican Republic 2024, Dir Tomás Pichardo Espaillat, 99min
Thu 10 Sep, 6.30pm 
Cinema 2  

A surreal exploration of the complexities of love, told in a dizzying array of animation styles.

The stories of two couples intertwine in this wildly creative and visually dazzling marvel from the Dominican Republic. 

 

Using a kaleidoscopic variety of animation styles and techniques – from painting to stop-motion to photomontage – director Tomás Pichardo Espaillat offers up a romantic Rashomon, fragmenting the very form of the film itself in its emotionally-charged exploration of the very personal experiences of love, loss and memory.

Senior Community Cinema
Welcoming 60+ cinema goers to watch the latest new releases every other Monday morning:

Surviving Earth (15)
UK 2025, Dir Thea Gajić, 100min

Mon 14 Sep, 11am 
Cinema 2 

In Thea Gajić's powerful debut based on a true story, a Yugoslav refugee and gifted musician rebuilds his life in Bristol, balancing fatherhood with the shadows of his past that refuse to fade.

Rose of Nevada (15)

UK 2026, Dir Mark Jenkin, 114min

Mon 28 Sep, 11am

Cinema 2 

Thirty years after it was lost, a fishing boat reappears in its old harbour. Arthouse Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin creates an eerie coastal world lost in time.