An Asian family who become homeless are placed in a bed and breakfast hotel by the local authority. There they come into contact with other people from different backgrounds who are waiting to be housed. Their plight is depicted with sensitivity and humour. Jonathan Pryce plays a single Irishman who drifts around London sleeping rough.
HOTEL LONDON was originally produced in 1987. The film was remastered in 4K in 2025 by the BFI National Archive.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2025 - World premiere (Remastered version)
Young Cambridge graduate Maurice Hall is trapped by the oppressiveness of puritanical Edwardian society as he tries to come to terms with his sexuality. He must strive to realise his dreams.
The restoration, by the Cohen Media Group, used a 4K scan of the original camera negative. Director James Ivory gave the nod to the digitally restored version of his film, and cinematographer Pierre Lhomme supervised the colour correction.
Official Selection Berlinale 2017 - Berlinale Classics - World premiere (Digital Restoration)
The life and work of the painter whose death in 1610 followed years on the run as a murderer. The film links the characters in Caravaggio's art with the violent events of his career. On its initial release, Caravaggio won a Silver Bear for outstanding single achievement in visual composition at the 1986 Berlinale. To coincide with the 20th anniversary of Derek Jarman's death, the film has now been digitally restored.
In their seminal, intersectional first feature, directors Maureen Blackwood and Isaac Julien incisively interrogate Black British experience, fusing dramatic scenes of family life with documentary and mystical elements, to give richly imaginative witness to a ‘post-colonial’ identity that encompasses generational, class, sexual and gender differences. Vividly manipulated footage of urban unrest, police brutality, gay rights marches and the miners’ strike, alongside chopped-up sequences showing a buzzing London night life, are intertwined, creating a penetrating example of Sankofa’s disruptive critique of 1980s Britain. And it looks fantastic. The film screens in a simultaneous transatlantic premiere with the New York Film Festival.
(London Film Festival)
An epicene angel flutters its wings and smokes a cigarette in this ejaculatory study of frustration, torment, stupidity and insolence. With Cerith Wyn Evans as the angel and music by Michael Nyman. Made at the Royal College of Art in 1985.
New York. Desperate for work, Christine takes a job selling tickets at the Variety, a sex cinema. This somewhat alienates her boyfriend Mark, who is investigating a story about union links with the Mob at the wholesale fish market. Christine finds herself drawn towards events on-screen, and also follows one of the customers, Louie, when he enters a sex shop, apparently on business. Louie, who is clearly both wealthy and powerful as a result of his shady activities, takes her to a ball game at Yankee Stadium. When he is suddenly called away, she again follows him and observes him at work.
Variety inverts the traditional narrative structure of cinema – whereby a man watches and a woman is watched – without showing, and thus flaunting, the object of female desire. Creating a counter-narrative to Hollywood, Bette Gordon asks the same question formulated by Teresa de Lauretis in “Oedipus Interruptus”: “How did Medusa feel upon seeing herself in Perseus' mirror just before being slain?”
Official Selection Berlinale 2019 - Forum Archival Constellations
A vicarious night out lived through an animated sketchbook, laid down to a hypnotic post-punk beat performed by the filmmaker himself.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Create Strand - Restoration World premiere
Two British track athletes compete in the 1924 Olympics. Harold Abrahams, a Jew, spurred by prejudice, and Eric Liddell, a devout Christian, spurred by his love of God. Fired by their own purpose and inspired by their own dreams, both won gold.
Official Selection Cannes Film Festival 2017 - Cinéma de la Plage
A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man who is mistreated while scraping a living as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of kindness, intelligence and sophistication.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Treasures Strand - Restoration World premiere
George Purse is the gamekeeper for the duke's estate, a role he takes seriously. His position gives him a certain status, but he has an uneasy relationship with some of the locals, not least those who turn to poaching.
A film to restore your faith in the world, with a tale of quiet charm and astonishing depth from industry veteran Alison De Vere.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Create Strand - Restoration World premiere
Roman Polanski’s gorgeous, sweeping version of Thomas Hardy’s classic novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles returns in a glorious new digital restoration.
A rural clergyman in 19th Century England tells Durbeyfield, a simple farmer, that he is descended from the illustrious d'Urberville family - now extinct. Or maybe not. Durbeyfield sends his daughter,Tess, to check on a family named d'Urberville living in a manor house less than a day's carriage ride away. Alec d'Urberville is delighted to meet his beautiful 'cousin' and seduces her with strawberries and roses. Actually Alec has gotten his illustrious name and coat of arms by purchasing them. Tess too takes up the game of illusion when she finds, loses and finds again her true love, Angel.
