Restored & Rediscovered
Cinema Rediscovered 2026
Please note : this season finished in
We bring together a selection of the latest new restorations and rediscoveries presented on the big screen, many premiering at the festival and many with special guests.
We’re delighted to present French New Wave director Claude Chabrol’s masterful thriller Le Boucher (1970) which has been unavailable to see in UK cinemas for years and will be a centre piece of a retrospective at the BFI Southbank in the autumn before touring UK cinemas.
If you had to pick an actor who embodied independent American cinema, Steve Buscemi would come top of any discerning viewer’s list. The restorations of Alexandre Rockwell’s 1992 In The Soup and Buscemi’s own Trees Lounge (1996, marking its 30th anniversary) take us to the heart of the formation of this iconic independent actor and talented director.
Critic and Film Historian Pamela Hutchinson presents the most infamous unfinished film in cinema history Erich von Stroheim’s 1929 Queen Kelly fresh off the back of writing The Curse of Queen Kelly.
From further afield, there’s poet and screenwriter Ahmed Bouanani’s masterpiece Mirage (1980) which draws from Morocco’s rich oral traditions, and the ever-present spectre of colonialism; and Arundhati Roy’s debut screenplay In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones (1989) which captures 1970s student rebellion in New Delhi. Cinema Rediscovered favourite Charles Burnett is also back with My Brother’s Wedding (1983/2007), his deeply humanist follow-up to Killer of Sheep.
And closer to home, there’s the world premiere of the 4K restoration of Billy Liar (1963) John Schlesinger’s evocative portrait of 1960s Britain starring Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie presented by actress, writer, director, and comedian Alice Lowe.
Previous screenings & events in this season
UK Premiere: In The Soup
classified 15 Restored & Rediscovered
A hilarious cautionary tale about the perils of independent filmmaking starring Steve Buscemi as a penniless New York screenwriter with big cinematic ambitions.
Queen Kelly @ Curzon Clevedon
classified 15 Restored & Rediscovered
Take a trip out to the stunning Curzon Cinema in Clevedon (and a peek at their Christie organ) followed by a special screening of this lavish late silent masterpiece introduced by critic and film historian Pamela Hutchinson.
World Premiere: Billy Liar
classified PG Restored & Rediscovered
Few films tell a heartbreaking story as hilariously as this must-see 1960s British New Wave classic in which Tom Courtenay stars in this tale of a young clerk lost to daydreams in his Yorkshire hometown. But will they ever come true?
UK Premiere: Trees Lounge
classified 15 Restored & Rediscovered
Now newly restored for its 30th anniversary, Steve Buscemi’s debut feature is a still-largely unsung indie masterpiece capturing the chaos of hopeless loser Tommy (Buscemi) as he stumbles through life.
The Arch (董夫人)
classified 15Subtitled screening
Set in 17th-century China, T’ang Shushuen’s groundbreaking debut feature - one of the first independent films made in Hong Kong - traces the plight of a widow torn between passion and moral obligations.
La Paga
classified 18Subtitled screening
This important rediscovery banned in 1963 by the Venezuelan government provides a striking snapshot of social disparity which draws on the director’s own childhood experiences.
UK Premiere: Queen Kelly
classified 15 Restored & Rediscovered
With a production almost as dramatic as its plot, this lavish late silent masterpiece by Erich von Stroheim can be fully experienced thanks to a vital new reconstruction by Milestones.
Powerhouse at 10: Obsession
classified 15 Restored & Rediscovered
British film noir at its darkest and most deadly.
UK Premiere: Nadja
classified 15 Restored & Rediscovered
Set against the gritty backdrop of 1990s New York City, this postmodern reimagining of the Dracula myth, executive produced by David Lynch, follows estranged vampire twins as they reunite after their father’s death.
UK Premiere: The System 行規
classified 18Subtitled screening
A gritty crime drama focusing on the intense, cat-and-mouse relationship between Inspector Chan and a drug informant, exploring corruption and the "rules of the game" in 1970s Hong Kong.
Powerhouse at 10: Pastor Hall
classified 12A Restored & Rediscovered
The film the British Board of Film Censors didn’t want you to see… until the world changed.
Cinelogue Presents: The Widow (Mimangin)
classified 18Subtitled screening
This first and only feature film directed (and edited) by Park Nam-ok, South Korea's first female filmmaker, provides an intimate look at the female experience in post-war Seoul.
UK Premiere: Mirage (Assarab)
classified 15Subtitled screening
Crafted by renowned poet and screenwriter Ahmed Bouanani, this experimental masterpiece draws from Morocco’s rich oral traditions, and the ever-present spectre of colonialism.
UK Premiere: Accident
classified 12A Restored & Rediscovered
Dirk Bogarde and Stanley Baker star in a study of masculine malaise among the academic elite told through the elliptical rhythms of Harold Pinter's’ script and cool and penetratingly detached direction of Joseph Losey.
UK Premiere: The Butcher (Le Boucher)
classified 15Subtitled screening
Claude Chabrol’s masterful thriller hinges on the unlikely bond between a schoolmistress and a butcher and the unsettling possibility that all might not be what it seems as a wave of murders grip their small idyllic French village.
Days and Nights in the Forest (Aranyer Din Ratri)
classified 15Subtitled screening
Four city boys embark on a countryside holiday that will transform them in this quietly incisive gem from Satyajit Ray, presented in a stunning new 4K restoration spearheaded by Wes Anderson, and Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation.
In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones
classified 15 Restored & Rediscovered
Arundhati Roy’s debut screenplay captures 1970s student rebellion in New Delhi, set against a vibrant backdrop of Marxism, parties and Beatles songs.
Leaving Las Vegas
classified 18 Restored & Rediscovered
Mike Figgis’ beautifully lurid descent into Las Vegas oblivion is anchored by two career defining - and award winning - performances from Nicolas Cage and Elizabeth Shue.
Sounds of Dead Mountaineer's Hotel
Restored & Rediscovered
Experience the visionary sounds of Estonian pioneer of electronic music, Sven Grünberg, the first composer in the Soviet Union to create an album entirely made of electronic music.
Dead Mountaineer's Hotel ('Hukkunud Alpinisti' hotell)
classified 15Subtitled screening
An anonymous tip starts a traditional whodunnit which quickly segues into a surrealistic farce and moves from film noir to science fiction in the mysterious and enigmatic Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel.
UK Premiere: The Party – Nature Morte
classified 15Subtitled screening
Berlin-based director Cynthia Beatt’s first feature shot shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall centres on Queenie (a spellbinding performance by a young Tilda Swinton), a woman navigating a personal crisis.
UK Premiere: The Sacrifice (Offret)
classified 12ASubtitled screening
Set in the final hours before a nuclear war threatens to wipe out humanity, Andrei Tarkovsky’s visionary final film is a visually breathtaking meditation on existential terror and a melancholic swan song from one of cinema’s true auteurs.
UK Premiere: African Jim (Jim Comes to Jo'burg)
classified USubtitled screening
An important milestone of Black South African cinematic history that lives on in cultural memory, African Jim introduced the singular jazz singer and activist Dolly Rathebe to the big screen.
UK Premiere: My Brother's Wedding
classified 12A Restored & Rediscovered
Charles Burnett’s deeply humanist follow-up to Killer of Sheep centres on Pierce Mundy caught between family expectations and loyalty to a friend, providing an intimate window into early ’80s South Central LA.
UK Premiere: La Femme Infidèle (The Unfaithful Wife)
classified 15Subtitled screening
Chabrol’s ice cold tale of infidelity, passion and violence – an unmissable Hitchcockian thriller set against a backdrop of bourgeois respectability in late 1960’s Versailles which inspired Andrey Zvyagintsev's Cannes 2026 Grand Prix winner Minotaur.
UK Premiere: Nostalgia
classified 12ASubtitled screening
Deeply personal, beautifully realised, and symbolically obscure, Andrei Tarkovsky’s first film directed outside of his home country stands as a testament to his own conflicting thoughts regarding Russia as he considered a self-proclaimed exile.