Fresh from Cannes, where Sofia Coppola became the second woman ever to win the Best Director Prize, this sizzling slice of Southern Gothic centres on a group of women at an all-girl boarding school who take in a wounded Union soldier on the brink of death.
This exquisitely textured and reflective documentary focuses on David Lynch - one of our most celebrated and unpredictable filmmakers - as a visual artist.
A middle-aged man diligently and discreetly carries out a job transcribing private telephone calls - until one seems to end in murder - in this stylish thriller that recalls the heyday of 70s paranoid cinema classics.
Oscar®-nominated director Matthew Heineman (Cartel Land) returns with another immersive documentary from the front lines of one of the most dangerous places on earth - Raqqa.
Terrence Malick returns with a luminous cast including Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender and Natalie Portman in this modern love story set against the backdrop of the Austin music scene.
Asif Kapadia announced himself with this sweeping mythical adventure story about a lone Indian warrior who renounces his violent past only to become the prey in a murderous hunt through the Himalayan mountains.
Join us for the triumphant return of IGLAB, a place to test and play games - games that are played in the real world rather than via a console or screen, games that are social, definitely foolish, and possibly a little bit absurd.
The Archive Sessions: Designing Experiences
The Archive Sessions
Event
Thu 27 July 13:00
A practice based afternoon session designed to inspire and inform cinema professionals including case studies on how to approach screen heritage events from the tiny to the epic.
Celebrated French director Bertrand Tavernier, known for films rich in cultural and social commentary (Round Midnight, The Clockmaker), invites us on an insightful and entertaining voyage through his country's cinema.
A beautiful new digital restoration of one of Merchant Ivory's undisputed masterpieces, this Oscar®-winning drama stars Emma Thompson as a woman struggling to maintain her integrity.
Conceived, written and released in America during the Watergate crisis, Network is a meticulously researched, highly articulate attack on the demoralisation and dehumanisation of American life as exemplified by the crude commercialisation of television news.
An extremely rare chance to see Krzysztof Kieślowski's small screen classic - one of the twentieth century’s greatest achievements in visual storytelling - on the big screen, over ten superb hours.
This all-female cast WWII film, co-adapted by Moie Charles from her own story, reveals the positive and courageous role women played in the war effort on home soil.
Sent away from home to work during the war, homesick Celia finds herself surrounded by women from all walks of life, discovering purpose and community in the most unlikely place.
A breakout hit at Sundance, this sensitive, funny and truthful take on modern romance tells the real life story of the relationship between the film's writers (Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani) - a Pakistan-born comedian and his American girlfriend.
Looking back at Bristol’s own cinematic history, join Dr Peter Walsh on a tour around the centre reflecting on our city’s rich film-making and film-going past.
Gus Van Sant's irresistible black comedy stars Nicole Kidman as a weather girl who will stop at nothing for television fame. A pre-internet tabloid classic that has lost none of its dark edge.
A witty and finely tuned WWII charmer from Lone Scherfig (An Education) based on Lissa Evans' novel Their Finest Hour and a Half starring Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy.
Billy Wilder’s fierce satire of the media circus - about a reporter (Kirk Douglas) who sees a chance to manufacture a scoop when a man is trapped by a rockfall - is a no-holds-barred exposé of the American media’s appetite for sensation.
As much as Woodstock is synonymous with the 60s and the summer of love, it was actually the Monterey International Pop festival which captured the mood of the era and helped transform the careers of the likes of Jimi Hendrix, The Who and Janis Joplin.
A Short Film About Dekalog: An Interview with Krzysztof Kieslowski 15
Film
Fri 28 July 20:40
Filmmakers Eileen Anipare and Jason Wood interviewed Krzysztof Kieślowski in January 1995 for their film, an attempt to examine the universal messages - as well as the idiosyncrasies- offered by Dekalog.
Late Night Preview: Blood Simple: Director's Cut 18
Film
Fri 28 July 22:30
Where it all began for the Coen brothers on their career-long darkly comic road trip through misfit America, this razor-sharp, hard-boiled Texan noir sees a sleazy bar owner release a torrent of violence upon himself and those around him with one murderous thought.
Julie Dash’s groundbreaking first feature returns restored and colour graded under the supervision of the film’s cinematographer, Arthur Jafa, a modern masterpiece that must be seen to be felt.
Families can get inspired by catching the original 1923 King Kong on the big screen, and get creative at this free drop-in workshop in which we'll be making King Kong masks in the Café/Bar.
Drop by our very own Film Fair in Waterside area of the Café/Bar where you can dig a little deeper by getting your hands on a whole load of great merchandise connected to the festival programme.
Get insights from musicians and creatives about working with archives to create new work, including guest John Minton and a work in progress presentation of ‘Arcadia’, a really exciting project involving rural archives.
Eight decades on since its original release the mighty monarch of monster movies still deserves its classic status. A beast of stop-motion filmmaking that's still demanding our attention, join us for the one, the only, King Kong.
One of Satyajit Ray's most exquisite films, The Music Room brilliantly evokes the crumbling opulence of the world of a fallen aristocrat (the beloved actor Chhabi Biswas) desperately clinging to a fading way of life.
Independent filmmaker, artist and critic Lizzie Borden made her feature debut with this bold and brilliant fusion of sci fi and feminist politics, a comic fantasy of female rebellion that we welcome to Bristol for this extremely rare screening.
Join us on a tour of Watershed’s projection booth and discover how the films screening at the festival make it to the screen at festival's like Cinema Rediscovered.
UK Premiere: The Front Page PG
Manipulating The Message
Film
Sat 29 July 14:30
With its fast-paced dialogue, hardboiled characters and rampant cynicism, this restored classic, which would be remade nine years later as the better known His Girl Friday, is the grandfather of Hollywood newspaper movies.
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner U
Come The Revolution
Film
Sat 29 July 15:30
This classic comedy/drama sees a rich couple's liberal principles tested by the proposed marriage of their daughter to a black doctor (the wonderful Sidney Poitier).
Victoria Forrest (VIKA Books) talks about In The Shadow, a gorgeous app that brings the photobook firmly into the digital age, and discussion how its template can be applied to a variety of other archives.
Cinema Innovations: from the Kinetoscope to Virtual Reality
The Archive Sessions
Talk
Sat 29 July 16:45
Mark Cosgrove, Watershed’s Cinema Curator, outlines the fascinating history of film and the moving image from the early days of experiments with making still images move in machines like the kinetoscope, to our current exploration of virtual reality.
Sweet Smell of Success PG
Manipulating The Message
Film
Sat 29 July 17:50
Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis star as tabloid baron J.J. Hunsecker and scheming press agent Sidney Falco in Alexander Mackendrick’s classic New York noir and sharp satire on the grasping world of newspaper’s gossip columns.
Celluloid Man is a tribute to film archivist and obsessive cinephile P.K. Nair, a man whose childhood fascination with cinema finally led to the creation of the National Film Archive of India.
Director Stephen Frears' film (blazingly scripted by Alan Bennett) is a brilliant and painfully raw portrait of the troubled, tragic relationship between the ill-fated playwright Joe Orton and his troubled partner.
Regularly cited as the greatest American film ever made, Orson Welles’ story of newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane’s meteoric rise and fall is a fascinating portrait of America's love of power, materialism and the corruption it fosters.
The Final Girls Present: The Entity + Outer Space 18
Film
Sat 29 July 21:00
Based on a enigmatic true story, Sidney J. Furie’s cult classic interrogates repressed memories, assault and rape culture and stars horror icon Barbara Hershey.
When a young African-American man visits his white girlfriend’s family their superficially warm welcome masks an unthinkably dark secret in Jordan Peele's brilliant new horror-satire that combines genuine thrills with a no-holds-barred critique of black-white relations.
Trip to Clevedon’s Curzon Cinema and Arts
Manipulating The Message
Event
Sun 30 July 10:30
Discover the magic of cinema at one of the oldest running cinema venues in the UK. Visit Curzon Cinema & Arts in Clevedon for a special screening, guided tour, Christie organ demonstration and refreshments. Travel from Bristol to Clevedon included, spaces limited.
Panorama of India: A Journey Through the Archive 12A
India on Film
Film
Sun 30 July 11:00
In this specially curated programme selected from the BFI National Archive, South West Silents presents an unparalleled collection of rare films of pre-Independence India, from the earliest days of Indian cinema.
Duncan Jones’ mesmerising tale of intergalactic loneliness, self-inquiry, and man’s innate hunger for life recalled the very best of the sci-fi genre's 70s heyday whilst at the same time being wholly original.
In Search of Color 12A (S)
Direct From Il Cinema Ritrovato
Film
Sun 30 July 13:00
Travel back in time with a selection of Kinemacolor shorts straight from this year’s II Cinema Ritrovato festival, including some brand new restorations from L'Immagine Ritrovata labs.
Jean-Luc Godard's critique of radical student politics pre May 1968 focuses on five university students who spend their summer holed up in an apartment before deciding to achieve revolution through violent means.
Preview: Dawson City - Frozen Time 12A
Direct From Il Cinema Ritrovato
Film
Sun 30 July 15:20
Lovingly pieced together with rare footage of American movies, Bill Morrison uncovers the amazing history of an unwitting repository for hundreds of reels of once lost nitrate film.
Rarely seen since its initial 1940 theatrical release, Herbert Kline’s pulse-pounding documentary traces the final months of an un-easy peace in 1939 and records a Europe on the brink of total war.
Fresh from its premiere at Cannes, this new documentary from Mark Kidel presents a radically new perspective on Cary Grant, examining his journey from Bristol boy Archibald Leach to one of Hollywood’s greatest ever actors.
This black comedy from Douglas Hickox based on the 1964 play of the same title by Joe Orton (whose life is the subject of Prick Up Your Ears, also screening as part of the Festival) sees a woman and her closeted brother both fall for the enigmatic Mr. Sloane.
Park Circus Presents: 20th Century Flicks Film Quiz
Event
Sun 30 July 20:00
Wind down and rediscover the movie trivia hidden in the recesses of your brain with the help of your neighbourhood video shop hosts Dave "Herzog" Taylor and Mr Bags as they present a very special edition of the infamous 20th Century Flicks Film Quiz in the Café/Bar.
For those of you wanting to take things at a bit more of a snail’s pace, throughout August why not wing your way over to our bug themed book den - a relaxed reading space in our Café/Bar.
Bugs Unplugged: A Making Workshop in Physical and Digital Storytelling
Bugs on Film
Workshop
Fri 4 Aug 10:00
Join Pervasive Media resident Becca Rose and illustrator Liv Bargman in the Café/Bar for a morning of drawing and story creation, exploring the tiny creatures that live underground with a mixture of crafty activities and super cool technology.
Pixar’s epic animation of miniature proportions is a vivid retelling of Aesop’s fable The Ant and The Grasshopper, which follows an enthusiastic inventor ant as he travels to the city in search of help in order to protect his colony.
This hugely tense and very moving drama (based on fact and Denmark's Best Foreign Film Oscar® contender) investigates what happened to the thousands of German POWs put to work defusing explosives on the coast of Denmark in the immediate aftermath of World War II.
An evocative (and surprisingly funny) portrait of (Steven Patrick) Morrissey, frontman of iconic band The Smiths, focused on his time in 70s Manchester as an alienated teenager desperately trying to find his place in the world.
A beautiful new digital restoration of one of Merchant Ivory's undisputed masterpieces, this Oscar®-winning drama stars Emma Thompson as a woman struggling to maintain her integrity.
A haunting psychological thriller, executive produced by Ben Wheatley, about a detective who goes undercover as a patient to investigate a psychotherapist he believes is linked to a strange murder.
Sissy Spacek won a much-deserved Oscar for her vivid, thoroughly natural performance as music legend Loretta Lynn in Michael Apted’s thoughtful and endearing film charting her life from the depths of poverty in rural Kentucky to her evolution into the first lady of country music.
Join chef and visual artist Jasmine Creusson in this immersive dining event which combines installation, projection, live performance and storytelling.
Meet the Maison – Champagne Tasting Sold OutFood & Drink Week
Event
Wed 9 Aug 19:30
Join Simon Stockton, UK Brand Ambassador for Piper-Heidsieck, for a relaxed and informal evening of fun and memories and try five of Piper-Heidsieck’s finest Champagnes and witness the daring Sabrage.
Join us for a wild evening of tastings, laughter and a special screening of Hori Smoku – Sailor Jerry - a documentary about tattoo artist Norman Collins, the inspiration behind this ever popular tipple.
We invite you to join Fred McVittie from Cornish Edible Insects for a free insect tasting workshop in our Café/Bar – you never know you ‘mite’ just be in for a tasty treat.
What would it be like to be the size of insects? Find out in this 80s classic fantasy adventure about a scientist father who accidentally shrinks his and two other neighbourhood teens down to minuscule size!
This dazzlingly intricate tale of deadly suspicion and betrayal is one of Jean-Pierre Melville's finest explorations into the Parisian underworld, starring a stone-faced Jean-Paul Belmondo as an enigmatic gangster.
A haunted tale like no other, Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara reunite with writer-director David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) in this hypnotic and highly original drama, wildly acclaimed at Sundance earlier this year.
Join The Matatu Kitchen for an evening of East African feasting and four courses of delicious modern Swahili and Somali food in an evening full of fresh flavours and great atmosphere.
Preview: An Inconvenient Sequel + Al Gore Satellite Q&A PG
Film
Fri 11 Aug 19:15
A decade after the original became an unprecedented box-office hit, won an Oscar® and brought the climate crisis into the heart of popular culture, this riveting follow-up shows just how close we are to a real energy revolution.
A captivating biopic of Finnish artist Touko Laaksonen (aka Tom of Finland) one of the most influential and celebrated figures of twentieth century gay culture whose iconic homoerotic drawings became the emblem of a generation of men and fanned the flames of a gay revolution.
Experience an East-meets-West cultural culinary adventure as we take you on a journey from the Indian sub-continent to the Caribbean with explosive, mouth-watering results.
Mexican ant egg meatballs anyone? Danish pastries topped with crispy Japanese ants? This documentary explores the case that a plate full of maggots or thumb-sized grubs might one day make our mouths water.
As a finale to our week of celebrations of all things food and drink joins as we ‘tear up the menu’ and turn it over for an evening of dishes designed to be paired with the humble apple in celebration of that staple of West Country life – Cider.
This unconventional portrait of Brian Wilson, the mercurial singer-songwriter and leader of The Beach Boys, intimately examines the personal voyage and ultimate salvation of a music icon whose success came at extraordinary personal cost.
