apital Celluloid 2027 — Day 90: Tue Mar 31

Platform (Zhangke, 2000): Garden Cinema, 8pm

The Garden Cinema presents the UK’s first-ever comprehensive retrospective dedicated to one of the best and most important auteurs in the world – Jia Zhangke. This film also screens on March 15th.

Chicago Reader review:
Jia Zhang-ke’s second feature (2002) is his best work to date and one of the greatest of all Chinese films. Its subject is the great theme of Chinese cinema, the discovery of history, which links such otherwise disparate masterpieces as The Blue Kite, Blush, Actress, The Puppet Master, and A Brighter Summer Day. The story charts the course of the Cultural Revolution’s aftermath for about a decade, noting shifts in values and lifestyles, culture and economy, as China moves inexorably from Maoism to capitalism, as witnessed by five actors in a provincial traveling theater troupe. Many episodes unfold in single long takes, with offscreen sound playing an important role, and the beautifully choreographed mise en scene recalls the fluid Hungarian pageants of Miklos Jancso in the 60s and 70s. Originally 192 minutes long, the film was recut by Jia to its current 155 minutes and improved in the process.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 89: Mon Mar 30

Mulholland Dr (Lynch, 2001): Prince Charles Cinema, 2.30pm

Mulholland Drive is the cinematic re-release of the decade so far. There was a terrific piece on the movie written to coincide with the re-release you can find here by Robert Bright in The Quietus. This presentation (also screening till May) is on 35mm.

"Like Billy Wilder’s film named after another iconic Hollywood street, Mulholland Drive tells a sordid tale of the industry of illusion and its boulevards of broken dreams – but for David Lynch, these dreams fold into dreams within dreams within dreams. Originally intended as a pilot for a television series, Lynch’s möbius riddle was rejected by TV executives. In restructuring it for the silver screen, Lynch crafted one of his finest masterworks. When the perky, wholesome Betty Elms lands in Hollywood for what could be her big break, she meets “Rita,” an ostensible femme fatale who is rendered identity-less because of amnesia from a car accident. Lynch’s (and Hollywood’s) dazzling dream factory sets to work with mysterious objects, startling visions, amusing detours and revelatory alterations in acting styles and character identities. The noir cracks open and gives way to a multi-toned, terrifyingly beautiful hallucination that is as much a complex reflection on Hollywood as it is an endlessly transforming psychological puzzle. Cinematic archetypes – including all versions of the female presented or rejected by Hollywood – double, reflect and regenerate into uncanny metaphors in Lynch’s subconscious minefield where the fluid layers of identity, nostalgia, desire, deception and projection could be in the minds of the characters, the audience, or a complete fabrication by dark, unknown forces behind the scenes … or well beyond."
Harvard Film Archive

Here (and above) is the trailer for the re-release.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 88: Sun Mar 29

sex, lies and videotape (Soderbergh, 1989): ICA Cinema, 8.15pm

This screening is showing from a 35mm print.

ICA introduction: A Palme d’Or winner and indie classic, sex, lies, and videotape (Steven Soderbergh, 1989) examines intimacy, deception and performance within contemporary relationships. The film centres on confession and voyeurism, revealing how desire is mediated through speech, surveillance and withholding. Reworking the logic of the ‘bed trick’ for a modern context, sex, lies, and videotape replaces physical disguise with emotional concealment. Characters seek intimacy through misdirection and revelation, turning acts of confession into forms of erotic performance. In doing so, the film unsettles distinctions between truth and fabrication, consent and manipulation, exposing desire as something staged, deferred and negotiated.

This screening forms part of a wider film programme exploring the 'bed trick' – one of the oldest narrative devices in myth, literature and cinema – in which characters go to bed with one person and wake up with another. Across three films and a book launch, the programme examines how cinema uses disguise, secrecy and revelation to probe desire, fantasy and the entanglement of sex and lies.

Time Out review:
Ann (Andie MacDowell) is not happy: her husband John (Peter Gallagher) is a lawyer who, unbeknownst to her, is having an affair with her virtually estranged sister (San Giacomo). The deception only comes to light with the arrival of John's old friend Graham (James Spader), a shy, impotent eccentric who gets his kicks from watching interviews he has taped with women about their sexual experiences... Steven Soderbergh's first feature is impressively mature, less concerned with actions per se than with the gulf between deed and motivation, between what we feel and what we say we feel. Despite the title, there is almost no explicit nudity or sexual activity; by avoiding sensationalism, Soderbergh leaves himself free to focus unblinkingly on moral and psychological complexities. No character is entirely without dishonesty or hang-ups; all initially shrink from taking full responsibility for their actions. The actors are superb; working from Soderbergh's funny, perceptive, immaculately wrought dialogue, they ensure that the film stimulates both intellectually and emotionally.
Geoff Andrew 

Here (and above) is the trailer. 

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 87: Sat Mar 28

Lenny (Fosse, 1974): Prince Charles Cinema, 3pm

This is a 35mm presentation and part of Bob Fosse day at the Prince Charles Cinema. You can find full details here.

Prince Charles Cinema introduction:
Controversial comedian Lenny Bruce (Dustin Hoffman) begins his career telling bad jokes to bored audiences in the 1950s, but can't repress his desire to unleash edgier material. When he does, he begins a one-man campaign to break down social hypocrisy, and his groundbreaking stage act propels him to cult-hero status. When authorities ban Lenny's act for obscenity, he begins a downward spiral of drugs, sex and debt, aided by his bombshell wife, a stripper named Honey (Valerie Perrine).

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 86: Fri Mar 27

The Liberated Film Club: Sophie Sleigh-Johnson: Close-Up Cinema, 8.15pm

The Liberated Film Club is running twice monthly from July 2025 to July 2026. No film titles are announced in advance of the screenings but we feel sure writer Sophie Sleigh-Johnson's choice will not disappoint. For more information on the year-long season click here 

Close-Up Cinema introduction:
Welcoming Sophie Sleigh-Johnson. Sleigh-Johnson’s book Code: Damp - An Esoteric Guide to British Sitcoms (2024, Repeater Books) brings 1970s comic actor Leonard Rossiter into communion with the Hierophantic mystical tradition, extruded through the spagyric material and metaphor of damp. Here, the magnetic field of the television image bids occult artefact and memory to coagulate one to another. “I didn't get where I am today without recognising ‘promising inroads’ when I see them,” she says, pace C.J. Her ongoing work is distributed across spoken word, sonic environments, printmaking, props, and local newspapers, and is written in periodicals including Darkside magazine, Faunus: The Journal of Arthur Machen Society, and The London Drinker. Recent projects include her curation of a special 'Code: Damp' Experimenta Mixtape series at the BFI. She lives in Southend-on-Sea.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 85: Thu Mar 26

Yanks (Schlesinger, 1979): Cinema Museum, 7.30pm

This rare screening of Yanks – presented from a 35mm print held in the Cinema Museum’s own collections – takes place as part of The Consummate Professional: John Schlesinger at 100, a UK-wide celebration of one of Britain’s greatest directors in his centenary year and feels This rare screening of Yanks – presented from a 35mm print held in the Cinema Museum’s own collections – takes place as part of The Consummate Professional: John Schlesinger at 100, a UK-wide celebration of one of Britain’s greatest directors in his centenary year. There will be a special introduction by Yanks aficionado Carole Sharp.

Cinema Museum introduction:
During the Second World War, over a million American soldiers were stationed in cities and towns the length and breadth of Britain.  At the end of the war, some 70,000 ‘GI brides’ would return to America with them. Director John Schlesinger tells how the lives of three women (Vanessa Redgrave, Lisa Eichhorn, Wendy Morgan) were indelibly changed by three such ‘Yanks’ (Richard Gere, William Devane, Chick Vennera) who were all, as the saying went, ‘overpaid, oversexed and over here’. Colin Welland’s story, set in a typical Lancashire town in the years between Pearl Harbour and D-Day, draws on a range of the real-life Anglo-American romances that were all too familiar during the war, yet have rarely been depicted in films before or since. A powerful ensemble drama, it features outstanding performances from, amongst many others, Rachel Roberts in a deservedly BAFTA-winning role.

Here (and above) is the trailer. 

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 84: Wed Mar 25

M Butterfly (Cronenberg, 1993): ICA Cinema, 8.40pm

This screening is showing from a 35mm print.

ICA introduction:
A provocative, lesser-known gem in David Cronenberg’s oeuvre, M. Butterfly entwines love with deception, espionage and fantasy. Based on a real-life affair in 1960s China, the film unfolds as a haunting variation on the 'bed trick': a story of mistaken identity and self-delusion, where desire is sustained through illusion and cultural fantasy. As a lover’s identity is gradually unmasked, the film exposes the fragile boundaries between intimacy, performance and belief, and the limits of what can truly be known about another person.

This screening forms part of a wider film programme exploring the 'bed trick' – one of the oldest narrative devices in myth, literature and cinema – in which characters go to bed with one person and wake up with another. Across three films and a book launch, the programme examines how cinema uses disguise, secrecy and revelation to probe desire, fantasy and the entanglement of sex and lies.

Here (and above) is the trailer.