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Absolute Beginners

part of Against the Grain: 1980s British Cinema

Opening Film: Absolute Beginners

Set against a backdrop of emerging teen culture and rising racial tension in late 50s London, Colin MacInnes' cult novel is brought to the screen in Julien Temple's exuberant musical adaptation with a who's who cast of music luminaries from Bowie and Ray Davies to Sade.

Wed 23 July

With an introduction by producer Stephen Woolley hosted by season curator and Cinema Rediscovered founder Mark Cosgrove.

The screening is followed by an After-party with DJ Cheeba inspired by the riot of day-glo design and music that is Absolute Beginners. Free entry. Priority entry to Absolute Beginners ticket holders.

Colonial Reels: Histories and Afterlives of Colonial Film Collections Discussion

part of Reframing Film

Colonial Reels: Histories and Afterlives of Colonial Film Collections Discussion

Waterside 3 Event Space, Watershed

Colonial Reels: Histories and Afterlives of Colonial Film Collections is a three-year research project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. This event, organised by the project lead, Jacqueline Maingard, Associate Professor in Film at the University of Bristol, and the project team, puts colonial film collections in conversation with the Pan African cinema archive.

Absolute Beginners (Relaxed Screening)

part of Against the Grain: 1980s British Cinema

Absolute Beginners (Relaxed Screening)

Set against a backdrop of emerging teen culture and rising racial tension in late 50s London, Colin MacInnes' cult novel is brought to the screen in Julien Temple's exuberant musical adaptation. This is a Relaxed Screening.

Thu 24 July

This is a Relaxed Visit

No trailers or adverts are shown and the film will start promptly at its advertised start time.

Our Relaxed Visits are designed to benefit our customers with additional needs (such as people living with dementia, autism, or other neurodivergent people and their personal assistants, friends and family) or anyone who wants to enjoy a film in a more relaxed, spacious environment. Everyone is welcome.

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Los Golfos (The Delinquents) (Subtitled)

part of Restored & Rediscovered

Los Golfos (The Delinquents)

Carlos Saura’s début feature film, presented here in a restored and uncensored version remains one of cinema's most distinctive portraits of those living on the margins in Madrid, shot entirely on location.

Thu 24 July

With an introduction by Andy Willis, Professor of Film Studies at the University of Salford and Senior Visiting Curator: Film at HOME in Manchester.

UK Premiere: Deprisa, Deprisa (Hurry, Hurrry!) (Subtitled)

part of Restored & Rediscovered

UK Premiere: Deprisa, Deprisa (Hurry, Hurrry!)

Winner of the Golden Bear at the 1981 Berlin Film Festival, Carlos Saura’s raw, startlingly naturalistic tale of love outside the law reflects the turmoil of a generation navigating the social upheavals of the post-Franco Spanish society.

Thu 24 July

With an introduction from Andy Willis, Professor of Film Studies at the University of Salford and Senior Visiting Curator: Film at HOME in Manchester.

Slovenian Double-bill: Alpe-Adria Underground! (Subtitled)

part of Reframing Film

Join co-directors Matevž Jerman and Jurij Meden (Austrian Film Museum in Vienna) for a brief and imperfect history of artists' film in the Socialist Republic of Slovenia.

Thu 24 July

With an introduction by curator with Niyaz Saghari and co-directors Matevž Jerman and Jurij Meden (Austrian Film Museum in Vienna)

UK Premiere: Belarmino (Subtitled)

part of Restored & Rediscovered

UK Premiere: Belarmino

One of the iconic films of Portuguese Cinema Novo, a vivid portrait of a former boxing star (and of 1960s Lisbon) with stunning cinematography by Augusto Cabrita and a jazz score by Manuel Jorge Veloso.

Thu 24 July

With an introduction by co-curators Bruno Castro and Carlota Matos.

UK Premiere: The Working Girls

part of Restored & Rediscovered

UK Premiere: The Working Girls

1974 LA, and three self-determined young women look for their place in the world. Female friendship, work and utopian socialism braid the narrative beautifully together. Will the women do anything for money?

Thu 24 July

With an introduction by film curator Selina Robertson and a Q&A with director Stephanie Rothman joining us remotely.

Slovenian Double-bill: Short Film Programme (Subtitled)

part of Reframing Film

Slovenian Double-bill: Short Film Programme

Co-director of Alpe-Adria Underground! Matevž Jerman has selected some recently restored experimental/avant-garde shorts from the Socialist Republic of Slovenia (1945-1991).

Thu 24 July

With an introduction and post-screening Q&A with co-directors Matevž Jerman (Slovenian Cinematheque) and Jurij Meden (Austrian Film Museum in Vienna) hosted by curator Niyaz Saghari.

Defence of the Realm

part of Against the Grain: 1980s British Cinema

Defence of the Realm

Secrets, lies, communism and loyalty all loom large in this criminally underseen British political thriller shot by a young Roger Deakins starring Gabriel Byrne in one of his early leading roles.

Thu 24 July

With an introduction by producer Lynda Myles and a pre-recorded conversation with Gabriel Byrne hosted by season curator and Cinema Rediscovered founder Mark Cosgrove.

Badnam Basti (Neighbourhood of Ill Repute) (Subtitled)

part of Restored & Rediscovered

Badnam Basti (Neighbourhood of Ill Repute)

This daring and progressive account of a complex love triangle broke all manner of taboos to emerge as India’s first queer film and an icon of Parallel Cinema.

With an intro by Dr Omar Ahmed (Freelance Film Scholar & International Curator of South Asian Cinema and Founder of The Cloud Door).

In Fading Light

part of Against the Grain: 1980s British Cinema

In Fading Light

Set in the declining North Shields fishing industry, this drama came out of the Channel 4 supported workshop movement and clearly prefigures the localised work of contemporary filmmakers such as Mark Jenkin, with its focus on the realities of marginalised communities.

Fri 25 July

With an introduction by producer and researcher Andy Robson.

Ping Pong

part of Against the Grain: 1980s British Cinema

Ping Pong

This stylish and inventive comedy thriller stars Lucy Sheen as Elaine, a young law clerk, tasked with executing the will of Chinatown businessman Sam Wong who has died in mysterious circumstances.

Fri 25 July

With an introduction by actor Lucy Sheen hosted by film curator Andy Willis.

UK Premiere: My Beautiful Laundrette

part of Against the Grain: 1980s British Cinema

Join director Stephen Frears, writer Hanif Kureishi and actor Gordon Warnecke for this 40th anniversary showing of the delightfully transgressive My Beautiful Laundrette, the story of two lovers attempting to open a glamorous laundromat amid the turbulence of life in Thatcher’s Britain.

Fri 25 July

With an in-person introduction and discussion with film director Stephen Frears, actor Gordon Warnecke and a remote contribution from writer Hanif Kureishi hosted by Cinema Rediscovered’s Mark Cosgrove.

The Velvet Vampire

part of Restored & Rediscovered

The Velvet Vampire

A young Los Angeles couple is invited by the mysterious Diane to her secluded desert home. Unbeknownst to them, she is a centuries-old vampire, and it’s not long before they become the objects of her desires.

Fri 25 July

With an introduction by film curator Isabel Moir and Selina Robertson.

Irezumi (The Spider Tattoo) (Subtitled)

part of Masumura x Wakao

Irezumi (The Spider Tattoo)

Yasuzō Masumura adapts Junichiro Tanizaki’s story as a visually arresting story of sexually charged vengeance.

Fri 25 July

With an intro by Rayna Denison, Professor of Film and Digital Arts and Head of Department for Film and Television at the University of Bristol.

Cinema Walking Tour 1

part of Reframing Film

Cinema Walking Tour 1

Across Bristol

Bristol has been an UNESCO City Of Film since 2017, but Bristol and cinema have been entwined since – some would say before – the beginning of moving pictures. Join local enthusiast and historian Mark Fuller for one of two gentle walks.

Henry Fonda For President (Subtitled)

part of Reframing Film

Henry Fonda For President

Fact and fiction are intertwined to dazzling effect as the legacy of screen actor Henry Fonda becomes a metaphor for America’s ever-changing landscape.

Sat 26 July

With an introduction by Cinema Rediscovered founder Mark Cosgrove.

UK Premiere: Fall of Otrar (Subtitled)

part of Restored & Rediscovered

UK Premiere: Fall of Otrar

Bristol Megascreen (about 1 min walk from Watershed)

From state-of-the-art 13th-century warfare to perfumed sex, The Fall of Otrar is a hypnotic epic about one of world history’s crucial battles championed by Martin Scorsese.

With an introduction by Timon Singh (Forbidden Worlds Film Festival Director and BFI FAN Art of Action Producer)

Yeelen (Subtitled)

part of Restored & Rediscovered

Yeleen

The Cube Microplex (about 20 min walk from Watershed)

This seminal African allegory by the late Souleymane Cissé (1940 – 2025) exists outside of time and space to act as a powerful commentary on fathers and sons, light and dark.

With an introduction by film curator, programmer and producer Mosa Mpetha.

Diva (Subtitled)

part of Restored & Rediscovered

Diva

Bristol Megascreen (about 1 min walk from Watershed)

Two tapes, two Parisian mob killers, one corrupt policeman, an opera fan, a teenage thief, and the coolest philosopher ever filmed.

With an introduction by film historian, repertory programmer and video essayist Jonathan Bygraves.

Compensation (Partially Subtitled)

part of Restored & Rediscovered

Compensation

The plight of the African American Deaf community is put under the spotlight in this moving and ambitious landmark of independent cinema.

With a pre-recorded introduction by director Zeinabu irene Davis and an in person introduction by film writer and historian Pamela Hutchinson. With BSL (British Sign Language) interpretation.

Angel

part of Against the Grain: 1980s British Cinema

Angel

Neil Jordan’s strikingly poetic debut feature explores the numbing violence of the Troubles starring actor Stephen Rea as Saxophonist Danny, one of the first films commissioned by Channel 4.

Sat 26 July

With an introduction by Hugh Odling-Smee (Manager of Film Hub NI and FAN Screen Heritage Lead)

My Beautiful Laundrette

part of Against the Grain: 1980s British Cinema

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?

Themroc (Subtitled)

part of Restored & Rediscovered

Themroc

Bristol Megascreen (about 1 min walk from Watershed)

Rebelling against dull conformism, Michel Piccoli is mesmerising as a factory labourer suffering a meltdown and regressing to a caveman in this anarchic assault on bourgeois ideals.

Cinema Walking Tour 2

part of Reframing Film

Cinema Walking Tour 2

Across Bristol

Bristol has been an UNESCO City Of Film since 2017, but Bristol and cinema have been entwined since – some would say before – the beginning of moving pictures. Join local enthusiast and historian Mark Fuller for the second of two gentle walks.

UK Premiere: Schmutziges Geld (Song) (Partially Subtitled)

part of Restored & Rediscovered

UK Premiere: Schmutziges Geld (Song)

In this, her first European film, Anna May Wong (Shanghai Express) plays a dancer drawn into a tragic romantic triangle when she meets a cabaret knife thrower and his capricious sweetheart.

Sun 27 July

With an introduction by film writer and historian Pamela Hutchinson and live music accompaniment by Stephen Horne.

UK Premiere: Großstadtschmetterling (Pavement Butterfly) (Partially Subtitled)

part of Restored & Rediscovered

UK Premiere: Großstadtschmetterling (Pavement Butterfly)

In her final silent film set in in Paris and the French Riviera, Anna May Wong (Shanghai Express) stars as a Chinese variety dancer who models for a young artist and ends up falling in love.

Sun 27 July

With an intro by film writer and historian Pamela Hutchinson and live music accompaniment by Stephen Horne.

Code Unknown (Subtitled)

part of Reframing Film

Code Unknown

Austrian auteur Michael Haneke places social tensions and cultural neuroses under the microscope with characteristic precision.

Sun 27 July

With an introduction by Cinema Rediscovered Founder Mark Cosgrove.