MGM Musicals, Aleksandr Sokurov, onedotzero

Featured Events

Highlights from our events calendar include:

•  Alice Cooper presents Nightmare Movies Alice will make his entrance with a black carpet arrival for this Halloween special when the rock legend introduces clips from films that have inspired him
•  Sonic Cinema a preview of the new documentary Anyone Can Play Guitar (2011), with special guests from Radiohead and Supergrass
•  Cagney & Lacey – 30th Anniversary: Sharon Gless, Tyne Daly & executive producer Barney Rosenzweig in conversation
• Leslie Caron talks about her first screen role in our Extended Run: An American in Paris (1951)
• This year’s Golden Lion winner, Aleksandr Sokurov, gives a rare on-stage interview as part of the major BFI retrospective of his work
• Rita Tushingham and Murray Melvin recall making A Taste of Honey (1961) on its 50th anniversary
• Plus The Colin Young Lecture with Terence Davies, previews of The Thing (2011) and jazz legend Michel Petrucciani + Q&A with Michael Radford, Molly Dineen discusses her career with Mark Lawson, the BBC Four World Cinema Awards return to the Southbank and Sir Alan Parker and Dexter Fletcher remember Bugsy Malone (1976) in a special Family Funday

Major Seasons

Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! The MGM Musical, Part One

The MGM studio is synonymous with the golden age of Hollywood musicals and will be celebrated with some of the best song and dance ever seen on the big screen and special guests in conversation, including Leslie Caron and John Wilson

Extended Run: An American in Paris (Dir, Vincente Minnelli, 1951) 28 Oct – 17 Nov

A new digital restoration is released for the 60th anniversary of this timeless MGM musical; starring Gene Kelly, introducing Leslie Caron and with music by George Gershwin

Extended Run: Les Enfants du paradis (Dir, Marcel Carné, 1945) 11 – 30 Nov

Marcel Carné and Jacques Prévert’s masterpiece often ranks highly in ‘best-ever’ lists. BFI Distribution have restored this romantic epic set in the theatrical district of Paris of the early 19th century

Sokurov: A Spiritual Voice, Part One

The KINO season concludes with features and documentaries by Aleksandr Sokurov winner of this year’s Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, for his new feature Faust. Sokurov will appear in conversation to launch this in-depth retrospective on 29th October, concluding the major BFI programme KINO

Spiritual Voices Dukhovnyye golosa, Aleksandr Sokurov FREE screenings in the Project Space

Subtitled ‘From the war diaries’, this is both a report of conflict from the frontline and a mediation on Russian identity in war; Sokurov’s most detailed and rarely seen film

Onedotzero_adventures in motion festival 2011 Wed 23 – Sun 27 November

This innovative festival returns to its host venue BFI Southbank, to celebrate its 15th anniversary, with a diverse array of the latest cinematic works in audio-visual, animation, design and technology, with live performances and discussions

End of Empire

Until the 1950s the British Empire was portrayed as ‘exotic’ and mysterious, but this changed after the Suez crisis. Through films such as Bhowani Junction (1956), Windom’s Way (1957) and Zulu (1963) the fall of British colonialisation is explored

Disney 50

The big screen treats of Walt Disney Studio’s animated features continues with: Tarzan (1999), Fantasia 2000 (2000), Dinosaur (2000), Hercules (1997) and The Emperors New Clothes (2000)

Featured seasons at BFI Southbank:

MGM Musicals

Throughout November and December Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! The MGM Musical celebrates the studio best recognised for Hollywood musicals. Featuring composers such as Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, choreographers including Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, plus the greatest singing and dancing stars including Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne and Cyd Charisse – they will all be presented in their full glory on the big screen. As a centrepiece of this season, BFI Distribution will release two of the most dazzling titles – An American in Paris (1951) and Meet Me in St Louis (1944) – nationwide and each will screen in an Extended Run at BFI Southbank. This presentation will begin with the dazzling 1930s, with Joan Crawford and Clark Gable in Dancing Lady (1933), Eleanor Powell tapping her way to fascinating rhythms in Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937) and Judy Garland in the seminal The Wizard of Oz (1939). 40s fare includes Charles Walters’s Easter Parade (1948) and The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), the latter reuniting Fred Astaire with Ginger Rogers, and Busby Barkley’s Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949). Famed Proms conductor, John Wilson, will provide insight into his reconstructions of destroyed scores from MGM musicals, Leslie Caron shares memories of her dancing career and a course is offered, covering a range of these titles. Further Technicolor classics follow in December.

KINO

The BFI’s major retrospective of Russian and Soviet film, concludes with the first full UK retrospective of documentary and feature films by Aleksandr Sokurov. His work has most recently been celebrated with the Golden Lion award at this year’s Venice Film Festival – their highest accolade; though he is best known for Russian Ark (2002), his most commercially and critically successful film, a semi-documentary filmed in the Russian State Hermitage Museum and lauded for its arresting images, composed in a single, unbroken ‘shot’. In advance of this retrospective, Sokurov will discuss his career, to date, with Ian Christie, on 29th October. Though most of his early films were banned by Soviet authorities he was supported by Andrei Tarkovsky and admired by Susan Sontag, and he has won a succession of nominations and awards including the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, for Mournful Unconcern (1987), the FIPRESCI Award for Father and Son (2003) – the companion piece to his first internationally acclaimed feature film Mother and Son (1997) – and Palme d’Or nominations for Taurus (2001), Russian Ark and Alexandra (2007). This first part of Sokurov: A Spiritual Voice provides both the opportunity to see work that has previously been unavailable and an installation of Spiritual Voices (Dukhovnyye golosa) in the Project Space – a report of conflict from the frontline and a mediation on Russian identity in war, shot on video along the Tadjik border with Afghanistan, from summer to winter 1994.