At the beginning of the 1980s, writer Colin Welland famously said “the British are coming” as he picked up his Oscar for Chariots of Fire original screenplay. They never quite arrived in the way they were expected. Instead, the industry and audience went into near terminal decline. However, amidst these turbulent times and against the political and social upheaval of Thatcherism seeds of renewal could be seen dotted across the independent film community; from the arrival of Channel 4 to the rise of maverick distributor/producer Palace Pictures and the emergence of new filmmaking voices. This season presents some of these ambitious and now influential films and filmmakers who redefined British independent cinema and who went against the grain of the decade.
The Gold Diggers (PG) + Pre-recorded intro from So Mayer
Mon Oct 6, 2025 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
The ground-breaking first feature from the director of Orlando and The Tango Lesson, The Gold Diggers is a key film of early ’80s feminist cinema.
“A feminist sci-fi musical extravaganza… Remains consistently fresh and unpredictable”- Sight and Sound
Whilst the season foregrounds Channel 4’s revitalisation of British filmmaking in the 1980s it should not be forgotten that both the Arts Council and the British Film Institute were supporting experimental filmmaking and “new and uncommercial filmmakers”. Sally Potter’s roots in experimental dance and the artists’ filmmaking hub of the London Filmmaker’s Co-op led to support first from the Arts Council for her short films then a partnership with the BFI for her bold and radical debut feature. Starring Julie Christie and shot in rich black & white by Babette Mangold (Chantal Akerman’s cinematographer) The Gold Diggers is in striking cinematic provocation. Made with an all-woman crew, it embraces a radical and experimental narrative structure. Celeste (Colette Laffont) is a computer clerk in a bank who becomes fascinated by the relationship between gold and power. Ruby (Christie) is an enigmatic film star in quest of her childhood, her memories and the truth about her own identity. As their paths cross, they come to sense that there could be a link between the male struggle for economic supremacy and the female ideal of mysterious but impotent beauty.
With thanks to the BFI National Archive.
The Angelic Conversation (PG) + Introduction from film and culture writer Lillian Crawford
Mon Oct 13, 2025 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Structured around fourteen of Shakespeare’s sonnets read by Judi Dench, Derek Jarman’s film is an exploration of love and desire between two men.
Filmmaker, artist, activist Derek Jarman is, along with Peter Greenaway, one the most iconoclastic figures of the 1980s. Following an apprenticeship on Ken Russell’s The Devils Jarman’s filmmaking started in the late 1970s with Sebastiane a passionate celebration of homoeroticism and Jubilee described as “Britain’s only decent Punk film”. His celebratory tone would shift to anger with the ravaging effects of Thatcherism on community and culture through the ‘80s leading to the raging howl of his most well-known film of the decade The Last of England (1987). The parallel tragedy of the AIDS epidemic and the oppressive Clause 28 which banned schools from discussing gay relationships as acceptable, would galvanise Jarman’s activism. That activism found poetic expression in The Angelic Conversation an evocative and radical visualisation of Shakespeare’s love poems. Judi Dench’s rich emotive readings of 14 sonnets are coupled with ethereal visuals: shot on Super-8 before being transferred to 35mm the unique technical approach results in a striking aesthetic, with experimental group Coil’s languorous soundtrack completing the intoxicating effect. The film, which Jarman described as ‘a dream world, a world of magic and ritual’, is a quietly subversive and poetic embrace of Shakespeare as gay icon taking the form of a poetic montage of imagery depicting gay male desire.
With thanks to the BFI National Archive. This screening is co-curated with Charlotte Bendrey and presented as part of Other Ways of Seeing, with support from BFI Awarding Funds from National Lottery in partnership with Queer Vision.
My Beautiful Laundrette (15) + Pre-recorded intro from Gordon Warnecke and Stephen Frears
Wed Oct 22, 2025 7:00 PM – 8:45 PM
40th anniversary of the delightfully transgressive My Beautiful Laundrette.
Who would have thought that this small budget film made for Channel 4 from a script by a then unknown writer about a young Pakistani Londoner (Gordon Warnecke), his ambitions for his uncle’s laundrette and his developing relationship with a skinhead (Daniel Day-Lewis in a breakthrough role) would become one of the most successful and iconic films of the 80s? My Beautiful Laundrette established the career of writer Hanif Kureishi, launched the cinema star that is Daniel Day-Lewis and catapulted director Stephen Frears into the cinema fast lane. This culture-clash controversial comedy captured the tensions of multiculturalism and Thatcherism whilst its central gay inter racial relationship was both praised and criticised. The film is the very definition of intersectionality! Today, the issues it grapples with still feels relevant, and its deliberately awkward politics of new money, entrepreneurial possibility and neoliberalism, coupled with the presence of disenfranchised white working class, and the foregrounding of a gay relationship make the film resonate loudly 40 years
An American Werewolf In London (15) + Intro from Katherine McLaughlin, Features Editor for SciFi Now and Film Critic
Mon Oct 27, 2025 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Finishing our season with a Halloween classic!
David and Jack, two American college students, are backpacking through Britain when a wolf attacks them. David survives with a bite, but Jack is brutally killed. As David heals in the hospital, he’s plagued by nightmares of his mutilated friend, who warns David that he is becoming a werewolf.
It’s a delightfully entertaining horror-comedy which had an enormous influence on many genre films that followed. The ground-breaking special effects continue to impress all these years later.
