Press room

Barbican Cinema:
Feb 2021 Cinema on Demand

In February Cinema On Demand brings together a worldwide programme of bold, independent films from Bulgaria, Afghanistan, Romania, the US, Australia and the UK – and a collection of shorts for families – for audiences to enjoy at home, while the venues remain closed.

A cat, stuck in a wall, changes the lives of a Bulgarian family living on a south London council estate in Cat in the Wall (Dirs Mina Mileva & Vesela Kazakova). Actor Irina Atanasova gives a superb, fiery performance as Irina, a Bulgarian architect who has moved to London with her brother, in pursuit of a better life for her young son.

Set in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, it’s a striking and provocative drama that examines social and economic divisions with great passion and wit. Screening as part of the New East cinema programme, the film is followed by a recorded ScreenTalk with directors Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova.

The Capote Tapes (Dir Ebs Burnough) explore the social rise and fall of Truman Capote, the infamous American writer. Using never before heard audio-archive and interviews with his friends and enemies, the film examines the impact of Capote’s explosive unfinished novel Answered Prayers, which contributed to his eventual downfall.

In Several Conversations about a Very Tall Girl (Dir Bogdan Theodor Olteanu) two young women – one out and proud, the other less confident – begin a tentative affair in a sensitive Romanian romance.

This screens as part of Forbidden Colours, a Barbican Cinema strand celebrating queer films from places where LGBTQ+ people continue to face oppression. While gay rights in Romania have improved in recent years, it remains a conservative society. Bogdan Theodor Olteanu’s debut feature is a quietly powerful depiction of the challenges of being yourself in a hostile climate.

Following on from its sold out screening in Cinema 1 in December, as part of Barbican Cinema’s Emerging Film Curator’s programme, Reframing the Fat Body (Dirs various) makes its online debut. In this programme of shorts, writer and curator Grace Barber-Plentie celebrates the bigger body & plus-size pride; here fat bodies are freed from the restraints put upon them by modern society and allowed to be fluid, free, sexy and radical.

Featuring films about Australian synchronised swimmers and pole dancers, radical collectives and escapes from fat camps, Reframing the Fat Body offers a vision of a fat utopia where larger bodies are accepted and revered.

This programme features a recorded ScreenTalk with film curator Tara Brown and co-founder of The Fat Zine, Chloe Sheppard, hosted by Grace Barber-Plentie.

Other titles available on Barbican Cinema on Demand this month include Shahrbanoo Sadat’s tender film The Orphanage, about a young boy in 1980s Afghanistan, who is sent to a Soviet orphanage and finds himself in a complex social hierarchy. Sadat expertly conveys the solidarity and camaraderie of the orphaned boys in this moving and coming of age tale.

For families and younger audiences there’s Creepy Crawly Films for Families (Dirs various), a compilation of shorts celebrating all that’s creepy and crawly, including stories of veg patch caterpillars, fun-loving ants, musical earthworms and every gardener’s nightmare, slimy slugs.

Cinema on Demand is available to audiences across the UK with a rolling four-week programme of titles and events that reflect the Barbican’s international cinema programme.

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

FEBRUARY 2021 LISTINGS 

Creepy Crawly Films for Families (U*)
Dirs. various, approx 60 min, Age recommendation: 4+

Barbican Cinema on Demand
Available to stream: from Sat 28 Jan – Sun 28 Feb
Standard pay per view: £2.50

The Capote Tapes (15)
(USA/ UK 2020, Dir Ebs Burnough, 91 min)
Barbican Cinema on Demand
Available to stream: from Fri 29 Jan – Sun 28 Feb
Pay per view: Full: £10.00 | Young Barbican: £4.00 | Barbican Members £8

New East Cinema: Cat in the Wall + recorded ScreenTalk with directors Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova (15*)
(Bulgaria/UK 2018, Dirs Mina Mileva & Vesela Kazakova, 92 min).
Barbican Cinema on Demand
Available to stream: from Mon 1 Feb – Sun 28 Feb
Pay per view: Full: £5.00 | Young Barbican: £4.00 | Barbican Members £4.00

Forbidden Colours: Several Conversations about a Very Tall Girl (15*)
(Romania 2018, Dir Bogdan Theodor Olteanu, 70 min)
Barbican Cinema on Demand
Available to stream: from Mon 1 Feb – Sun 28 Feb
Pay per view: Full: £3.50 | Young Barbican: £3.50 | Barbican Members £2.80

Reframing the Fat Body (15*) + ScreenTalk with Tara Brown and Chloe Sheppard
Barbican Cinema on Demand
Available to stream: from Mon 1 Feb – Sun 28 Feb
Pay per view: Full: £3.50 | Young Barbican: £3.50 | Barbican Members £2.80

The Orphanage (12A*)
(2019 Denmark/ Germany/ France/ Afghanistan, 90 min)
Barbican Cinema on Demand
Available to stream: from Mon 1 Feb – Sun 28 Feb
Pay per view: Full: £3.50 | Young Barbican: £3.50 | Barbican Members £2.80