Projects in genres: Drama

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