What’s On Today

Join The Pretend Company for this first of two Improv Cinema Club sessions, a unique opportunity to explore some of the films presented at Cinema Rediscovered in a nuanced and in-depth way.

Fri 24 & Sun 26 July

Join Watershed’s Charlotte Bendrey and BFI National Archive Curator Rosie Taylor on a tour of Watershed’s projection booth and discover how the films screening at the festival make it to the screen during a festival like Cinema Rediscovered.

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.

A humorous insider critique of 1950s Parisien cinephile scene by filmmaker, critic, and producer Luc Moullet who began writing for Cahiers du Cinéma at the age of 18 alongside figures like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut.  

Join Professor Shawn Sobers, Simon Bright (Zimbabwe) and fellow filmmaker Martin Mhando (Tanzania) to watch Corridors of Freedom (1987) and reflect on the vibrant collaboration and resistance of the Southern African Transnational Cinema movement that emerged in the 1980s and 90s to counter South Africa’s apartheid propaganda and the media biases of former colonial powers.

Until Sun 13 Sep

Open your animal eyes. An immersive exhibition of groundbreaking video games & virtual reality. A must-do this summer in Bristol's Undershed Gallery.

In this Lunchtime Talk, mechanical sculptor Nik Ramage will present a collection of his useless machines and absurd devices, revealing the stories behind their creation - and the ideas that never made it off the drawing board.

Interested in meeting some of the film curators involved in Cinema Rediscovered and getting insights into how the festival gets programmed? For those of you interested in pitching an event or season for next year’s edition of the festival, this is also a great opportunity to pick up practical tips from those involved in our Other Ways of Seeing commissions supported by BFI awarding funds from National Lottery.

Fri 24 & Sun 26 July

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.

Until Sun 26 Jul

Come and find out how a film archive works in this new exhibition on display in W1 throughout the festival. All welcome including younger guests in this free drop-in space hosted by the BFI National Archive team.

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.

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.

20th Century Flicks Kino

Before the era of YouTube mashups came The Movie Orgy (1968), an immense found footage cultural catalogue curated by legendary director Joe Dante in his debut feature.

A schoolteacher (the late Diane Keaton in one of her most striking performances) living alone spends her evenings frequenting late-night bars and picking up men in this dark complex drama.

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.

The film the British Board of Film Censors didn’t want you to see… until the world changed.

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.

Until Thu 30 Jul

With a star-studded cast including Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong'o, Zendaya and Charlize Theron, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is the most anticipated film on Letterboxd for 2026.

Fri 24 - Sun 26 July

Enjoy this specially curated BFI Replay showreel bringing together the BFI Replay trailer and Bristol archive highlights of the Harbourside selected by South West Silents for you to enjoy.

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.

A conservative Midwestern patriarch has his world shaken when he must search for his missing daughter in the seedy underworld of the California sex industry in this bleak psychological neo-noir from Paul Schrader.

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.

Join us before the screening of Closed Circuit (1978) in Cinema 2, for a murder mystery inspired by the film. This interactive event will be taking place in Waterside 1, and will pull details from the film, but without giving away whodunit!

Fiction becomes reality for an audience quietly watching a matinee of a spaghetti western at their local cinema when suddenly one of the patrons dies…