BFI Southbank

I did a...

This is going back about... 2000, 2001, I got to do a presentation at the National Film Theatre on the use of the long take.

And my main central focus for that was because we were able to get two 35mm prints, one of the standard release version of Touch of Evil with the credits and the Henry Mancini music and the new version that instead had the Walter Murch soundscape re-edit and removed all the credits so that it's just a sequence.

And it was brilliant.

Yes, this is a very long story, which I'm going to have to cut down dramatically.

But I went to London's National Film Theatre because Peter Jerome had been invited to London for the first time to show his hardcore performance.

porn films for the first time.

They'd never been seen in this country before.

Welcome back to We Needed Roads.

I'm Neil and joining me today is Claire from the WRA podcast who is fresh from this year's BFI London Film Festival and ready to share her picks from one of the biggest events in the UK film calendar.

We're talking standout films, impressive performances, hidden gems and a film that garnered only one star from Claire.

There's just one slight problem.

They're going to sell out quick.

And if they are the only thing you want to see, you might be disappointed.

A lot of people get a BFI membership specifically to get LFF tickets because a lot of those really big films sell out early.

before they sell out to members only.

And I talk to Carol Morley about her new feature, Seven Miles Out.

The MK3D show happens live every month at the BFI Southbank.

If you'd like to join us in person, tickets are available on the BFI website.

For more conversation about film from me and Simon Mayo, head over to Kermode and Mayo's Take wherever you get your podcasts.

So I had this one guy.

I was in the, in the BFI Southbank, right? This guy came up to me.

I have no idea who he is, right? And he said, "You're Mark Kermode." And I went, "Yeah." And he went, "I'm blah," and he said a name which I didn't recognize and I can't remember.

And he said, "I want you to say to my face what you said about my film." And I went, "Okay.

Here it is.

And in that article, he mentions that the film had premiered at the National Film Institute, or sorry, the National Film Theater in London, which is sort of the precursor of the BFI South Bank.

So I got in touch with the program notes editor at the BFI, and I was like, Look, I know I had to figure out what day the screening happened, which I think was like July 22nd, 1969.

And I sent him an email and I was like, hey, can you find the program notes for this? And he did.

I mean, we're, we're so lucky.

We get to work outside of, you know, we work at the BFI Southbank, so every day we get to see people who are going to the movies, who are going, you know, about to wait, you know, waiting to see a movie, coming out of a movie, and it's always busy, you know? And, and the range of work that people are, are watching from, as you say, like very, you know, I mean, The Odyssey, you know, obviously [laughs] the BFI IMAX has been jam-packed to capacity with that.

But then you will also see, you know, audiences...

I mean, I went and saw a re-release of a Claude Chabrol film on Saturday at the, at the NFT, and it was so wonderful.