Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 237: Wed Aug 26

The Devil (Zulawski, 1972): Garden Cinema, 6pm

This is part of the Andrzej Żuławski season at the Garden Cinema. Full details here.

This screening will be introduced by writer Michael Brooke. The screenings on September the 11th and 27th will feature a video introduction by Andrzej Jaroszewicz, camera operator on The Devil and frequent collaborator of Andrzej Żuławski.

Garden Cinema introduction: 
During the Prussian army's invasion of Poland in 1793, a young Polish nobleman, Jakub, is saved from imprisonment by a stranger, who in return wants to obtain a list of his fellow conspirators. Following his mysterious savior across the country, Jakub sees the overall chaos and moral corruption, including his father's death and the betrayal of his friend who stole his fiancee. Becoming apparently demented by what he has seen, he commits a number of seemingly motiveless and gory killings. An allegory for the political crisis in Poland during 1968, when communist leaders created riots to punish student, the film was shelved upon completion by the government. It was accused of excess of violence and erotic scenes, but the political undertones of Żuławski’s film were more objectionable to the government. The film had to wait 16 years for its cinema premiere and was not released to the public until 1988. Before this happened, however, Żuławski was forced to leave Poland, deprived of the chance to make films in his country, he left for France to continue his career there.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 236: Tue Aug 25

The Man Who Left his Will on Film (Oshima, 1970): ICA Cinema, 8.30pm

This film, which is also screened on August 23rd, is part of the Nagisa Oshima season at the ICA Cinema. You can find the full details here. 

Time Out review:
This is Oshima's post-1968 analysis of the failure and disillusionment of the student Left, and it's among his most biting and cautionary films. Like Death by Hanging and other movies, it starts with a riddle (the real or imaginary disappearance of a student militant), and then follows through all the implications with a remorseless logic. Another student sets out to trace the missing boy, fearing that he committed suicide; his only leads are conversations with the militant's estranged girlfriend and a roll of film shot by the boy just before he vanished. But it's less a mystery thriller than a series of provocative questions. What is militancy? Does 'struggle' mean violence? Is it really possible for an individual to identify with the interests of a group? And what part do sexual problems play in determining the feelings and actions of young people?
Tony Rayns 

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 235: Mon Aug 24

Secret Scandal (Vitti, 1989): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.30pm

This 35mm screening, also on August 27th, is part of the Monica Vitti season at BFI Southbank.

BFI Southbank introduction: 
A woman is given a video camera and decides to record everything in her life. However, the ever-present camera reveals the dark secrets of her marriage and triggers an existential crisis. The final big-screen appearance by Vitti – and the only film she wrote and directed – sees her give a vulnerable and heartbreaking portrayal of a woman on the verge.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 235: Sun Aug 23

The Freethinker (Watkins, 1994): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 2.40pm

This film is part of the Peter Watkins season at BFI Southbank. Full details here.

BFI introduction:
Peter Watkins’ vast portrait of August Strindberg examines the Swedish playwright not simply as a literary figure, but as a lens through which to explore class, nationalism and artistic freedom. Produced as part of a video production course for the Swedish Folk High School, the project took Watkins and 24 students two years to complete, and combines dramatised scenes with discussions between performers and crew, continually interrogating its own methods of representation.
James Bell

Here (and above) is an examination of the film.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 234: Sat Aug 22

Boy (Oshima, 1969): ICA Cinema, 4pm

This film, which is also screened on August 12th, is part of the Nagisa Oshima season at the ICA Cinema. You can find the full details here.

Time Out review:
Coming-of-age stories don’t get much bleaker than Nagisa Ôshima’s tale of a preadolescent who assists his itinerant family in moneymaking scams. But it’s the kind of cynicism that invigorates and energizes—a bracing dose of misanthropy that is nonetheless suffused with robust empathy for its hardened juvenile protagonist. Based on an actual incident, the film follows ten-year-old Toshio (Tetsuo Abe), his father (Fumio Watanabe), his stepmother (Akiko Koyama) and his infant brother (Tsuyoshi Kinoshita) as they trek across Japan, stopping in each new location to fake traffic accidents and extort money from stunned drivers. It’s a true nomad’s life, with high highs (a night spent in a luxury hotel with copious food and geisha attendants) and very low lows (Dad beating Mom for refusing to get an abortion). Though filmed in teeming real-world locales in what occasionally seem like clandestine circumstances, the movie has the feel of the science-fiction stories that Toshio tells to his sibling. Ôshima often situates his characters at the edges of a rigorously composed widescreen frame that emphasizes the oppressive architecture of a rapidly modernizing nation. He also employs visual distortions like monochrome tinting and image squeezing to suggest the skewed perspective of his corrupted young lead. Happiness and contentment are not in the cards for Toshio, and Ôshima never sentimentalizes his existence nor lets him off the hook for his crimes. But still we feel, deeply and profoundly, for this lost soul.
Keith Uhlich

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 233: Fri Aug 21

The Trap (Watkins, 1975): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6.20pm

This film, which also screens on August 26th, is part of the Peter Watkins season at BFI Southbank. Full details here.

BFI Southbank introduction:
Taking the personal and the political into bleak environs, Watkins’ futuristic chamber piece sees an enforced family reunion unfurl in an underground shelter next to a nuclear waste station. It’s an unsettling portrait of a near future. The film screens with a short that sees pirates and social outcasts fight property developers in a flooded future East London.

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 232: Thu Aug 20

In The Soup (Rockwell, 1982): Prince Charles Cinema, 3.30pm

This film also has its London premiere at the Prince Charles on August 4th. Details here.

Time Out review:
New Yorker Adolpho Rollo (Steve Buscemi) is your classic head-movie auteur. In his mind he's creating deathless classics of the screen. Back in the real world, he can't pay the rent on the downtown grothole he calls home. He knows he must be getting really desperate when he puts a script 'Unconditional Surrender' - 500 pages of angst-drenched gobbledygook - up for sale and attracts the attentions of one 'Joe' (Seymour Cassel), a warm-hearted minor gangland figure. Director Rockwell's affectionate screenplay pits innocence against experience, artist against philistine, but unexpectedly weighs sympathies towards Cassel's force-of-nature mob mentor, who's soon giving his po-faced protégé a life-lesson masterclass in generosity of spirit, wooing the girl-next-door (Beals), and seat-of-the-pants petty crime. Rockwell's wonderfully unassuming movie throws a big hug around youthful ambition, b/w filmstock, and the glowing screen charisma of Cassel. An unheralded gem.
Trevor Johnston

Here (and above) is the trailer.