Projects in genres: Drama

Synopsis

Cathy and Reg have everything to live for: he has a well-paid job, they have three healthy children and a modern home. But when Reg loses his job, they find their life spinning out of control. Evicted by bailiffs, they face a life of poverty, illegally squatting in empty houses, sleeping in hostels and fighting to keep their family together.
Originally made as a play for television play, Cathy Come Home was shot largely in original locations with a handheld camera, using voice-over narration by the protagonists. Loach's drama, using a single family to train the spotlight on the dire straits of England’s mid-century welfare structure, provoked a huge debate in parliament on first release.

Synopsis

A European prince terrorizes the local peasantry while using his castle as a refuge against the 'Red Death' plague that stalks the land.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Treasures Strand

Synopsis

Bryan Forbes’ bittersweet portrayal of the seamy side of life in 1960s London attracted international acclaim for star Leslie Caron. Ever since Hitchcock’s 'The Lodger', the London boarding house has proved an evocative location through which to explore the underside of British society. Leslie Caron briefly stepped away from musicals to take the role of Jane, a young French woman pregnant with an illegitimate child, and was rewarded with both a Golden Globe® and a BAFTA® for her performance. Arriving at her dingy Notting Hill lodgings to have her child in secret, Jane finds love and friendship among the residents, an assortment of outsiders brought to life by Forbes’ sensitive ear for dialogue. Especially moving is Cicely Courtneidge as a faded music hall star growing old alone and Pat Phoenix’s portrayal of a tart with a heart. (LFF brochure)
Restored in 4K by Sony Pictures Entertainment. In collaboration with the BFI’s Unlocking Film Heritage Programme.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Dare Strand

Synopsis

When a young homosexual, 'Boy' Barrett, commits suicide in his police cell, barrister Melville Farr, motivated by his own guilt, risks his successful career and his marriage to break a sinister blackmail ring.

Synopsis

Mark, a young porn photographer and obsessive amateur filmmaker, prowls Fitzrovia with his 16mm camera in search of women to film.
Now restored by The Film Foundation and BFI National Archive in association with StudioCanal. "63 years on, Powell's dark masterpiece remains audacious, provocative and one of the greatest and most unsettling films about filmmaking ever made." (LFF Brochure)
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Restoration World premiere

Synopsis

A magical tale from the twin geniuses Powell and Pressburger, made up of equal parts true love and metaphysics. "This is the universe," our narrator declares over a darkly twinkling cosmos. "Big isn’t it?" And with that perfect line, so begins one of the most unforgettable experiences in British film, with David Niven’s Second World War pilot Peter Carter falling to earth only to be found by June (Kim Hunter), a young American radio operator. In other hands, what follows could have been a simple wartime romance. Instead, it unfolds into an exquisitely comic celestial courtroom drama, with the guardians of the heavenly ‘next world’ staging a trial to decide if Peter should be summoned into the afterlife. Audaciously gliding between monochrome and Technicolor, this is a strange and lovely masterpiece. (LFF brochure)
Restored in 4K by Sony Pictures Entertainment
Official Selection BFI London FIlm Festival 2017 - Love Strand - 4K Restoration World premiere

Synopsis

After a dispute fuelled by jealousy, knife thrower John is stranded in an Asian port. There, he rescues the young Chinese woman Song from the violent clutches of two libertines. Deciding that she is the ideal partner for his act, they begin performing together at a vaudeville theatre. One day, John’s former mistress, the stylish dancer Gloria, turns up. John needs money to win her back, so he takes part in the robbery of a mail train and ends up losing his eyesight. He attributes all the good things that happen to him from then on to Gloria. But in reality, it is Song who has been devoted to him all along...
Official Selection Berlinale 2018 - Retrospective

Synopsis

Lost for nearly a century, this rediscovery offers a wonderful opportunity to fall under the spell of Betty Balfour, Britain’s ‘Queen of Happiness’. Betty Balfour was Britain’s biggest star of the 1920s, so the discovery of one of her key films was a major event. Identified by archivists at EYE Filmmuseum in the Netherlands, this Dutch-language version is incomplete, with footage missing throughout the film. This version was painstakingly pieced together by the BFI National Archive's restoration team with new English intertitles. It restores a truly vivacious performance from Balfour, and adds to the knowledge of director George Pearson, a key figure in British cinema of whose films a bare handful survive.
Telling the story of a pair of working class youngsters with big dreams – a cheery chorus girl and a serious writer – the film toys with expectations, blurring the boundaries of reverie and reality, tragedy and comedy.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Archive Special Presentation - Restoration World premiere