Cinema Rediscovered 2026 Programme

Join some of the most inspiring voices in the worlds of exhibition, distribution and restoration to reflect on the rise of rep cinema over the past decade; and what that might mean for the future of cinema. Please note: this industry event is primarily aimed at BFI FAN Members and associated freelancers. 

Café & Bar, Watershed

Relationship trouble? Choosing dinner? Look out for our Danger: Diabolik Hotline. Dial for Diabolik: the suave super-villain from the Giussani sisters’ camp 1960’s comic. To join in, find the phone booth in Watershed’s Café & Bar and ask for counsel from our very own agony-aunt. Warning - follow his advice at your own risk!

Based on an iconic Italian comic, Mario Bava’s stylish cult classic has been an inspiration to many from the Beastie Boys to acclaimed British filmmaker Edgar Wright, who will present a pre-recorded introduction to the film.

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 first of three gentle walks.

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.

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.

Waterside 2, Watershed

Join Jake Garriock (Curzon Head of Distribution strategy and group publicity), Mark Cosgrove (Cinema Rediscovered Founder) and guests for a look at the influential UK distributor of indie foreign language and arthouse films, past present and future...

Waterside 1, Watershed

Come and find out how a film archive works in this new exhibition, on display in Waterside 1 throughout the festival.

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.

Get insights into the creation of the Peter Gabriel’s award-winning Sledgehammer music video featuring innovative stop-motion animation by Aardman and the Brothers Quay.

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.

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.

Tsai Ming-Liang's poignant love letter to cinema is an exquisite, wryly funny and tender tribute to the experience of cinemagoing, to cinemas as spaces, and to the people in the audience and behind the scenes. 

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.

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.

Arundhati Roy’s debut screenplay captures 1970s student rebellion in New Delhi, set against a vibrant backdrop of Marxism, parties and Beatles songs.

Waterside 1, Watershed

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.

Projection Rooms, Watershed

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, filmmaker Simon Bright and guests to reflect on the vibrant resistance and collaboration of Southern African Transnational Cinema that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s to counter the propaganda of apartheid and the media biases of former colonial powers.

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.

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 (about 9 min walk from Watershed)

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.

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.

Waterside 1, Watershed

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…

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 three gentle weekend walks.

Waterside 2, Watershed

BFI National Archive Curator Rosie Taylor presents two rare comedies of farcical romance, weddings and tomfoolery from the early period of British Lion and Hammer, now only viewable on 9.5mm film. 

British film noir at its darkest and most deadly.

Bristol Megascreen (about 1 min walk from Watershed)

B-movie director Lawrence Woolsey rolls into a Key West cinema with his new film Mant (half man, half ant - all terror) whilst the Cuban missile crisis cranks up nearby.

Based on one of Chile's most notorious true crimes, this debut feature by Miguel Littín is a cornerstone of the New Chilean Cinema, ushering in an urgent, realist, and political filmmaking movement. 

Join Aardman co-founders David Sproxton and Peter Lord for a deep dive into the world of Morph, one of the first characters created by the Bristol based studio, who would go on to entertain generations with his slapstick antics.

Bristol Megascreen (about 1 min walk from Watershed)

Join in a Chat & Craft drop-in workshop facilitated by Watershed's Cressida Williams.

Waterside 2, Watershed

Join the team behind The Creative Nonfiction Film Weekend (CNFW) for a screening of early internet video and a discussion about what it means to preserve online moving image and to screen it in cinemas.

Back on the big screen on its 50th anniversary, Elaine May’s neglected mid-1970s gem is a dissection of masculinity and male friendship anchored by mesmerising performances from John Cassavetes and Peter Falk.

Bristol Megascreen (about 1 min walk from Watershed)

Beneath the glitter and pop lies a razor-sharp critique of corporate manipulation and manufactured fame, way ahead of its time. Gather your friends, cats and kitties and join Party Girl Productions to celebrate this classic on its 25th anniversary.

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.

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.

Waterside 2, Watershed

A decade before 9.5mm and 16mm film, Pathé launched 28mm, one of the first non-theatrical film gauges. Explore this forgotten format, featuring original prints projected on a 28mm Victor projector.

Break-out roles from Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson, and also starring Steve Buscemi, this cult classic adapted from Daniel Clowes’ graphic novel remains a sharp, funny, and deeply relatable portrait of youth, identity, and not fitting in.

Bristol Megascreen (about 1 min walk from Watershed)

Fifty years after it picked up the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Scorsese’s chilling masterpiece has lost none of its power to shock and disturb in its visceral exploration of alienation and violence in urban America.

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.

Waterside 2, Watershed

Join in a Chat & Craft drop-in workshop, inspired by the films showing as part of Comics Come Alive.

After his success with Point Blank and Deliverance, Warner Brothers offered John Boorman the opportunity of a lifetime... what could go wrong?

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.

Bristol Megascreen (about 1 min walk from Watershed)

A twentysomething aspiring musician’s romantic life takes a dramatic turn when he meets the (literal) girl of his dreams, Ramona. Brace yourself for Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz)’s high energy adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s cult comic book.

From the director of Point Blank and Deliverance comes this vision-like metaphysical thriller that confounded audience expectations by delivering something unique and entirely unexpected.

Controversial at the time of its release, William Friedkin’s nocturnal thriller which sees Al Pacino’s undercover cop descend into New York’s gay leather scene on the hunt for a serial killer is being reappraised by a new generation.

Bristol Megascreen (about 1 min walk from Watershed)

Comic book Japanese style with a Korean twist: the Oldboy manga is brought to screen by maestro Park Chan-wook, a masterpiece of visceral violent vengeance.

External

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 third of three gentle weekend walks.

Waterside 1, Watershed

Join The Pretend Company for this second 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.

To celebrate the centenary of Lotte Reiniger’s beautiful 1926 silhouette animation, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, The Little Film Society bring you an enchanting screening of these magical tales from the Arabian Nights showing alongside some her lesser known, but no less spellbinding, fairytale films.

On the centenary of his birth, BFI National Archive presents a brand new 35mm print of Brian Forbes’ directorial debut, which put the rural North of England on screen and launched the screen career of Alan Bates.

Real comic-book artist Harvey Pekar is brought to cinematic life in this sweet, funny and off-kilter take on his highly idiosyncratic, autobiographical work.

Pervasive Media Studio

Join Dáire Carson (The Little Film Society) for a special shadow puppet making workshop inspired by the work of Lotte Reiniger, the foremost pioneer of silhouette animation.

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?

The Cube Microplex (about 20 min walk from Watershed)

Fresh off box-office comedy smash The Longest Yard (1974), director Robert Aldrich and star sensation Burt Reynolds ditched laughs for a gritty, uncompromising neo-noir set in the seedy underbelly of LA.

Curzon Cinema & Arts (about 45 min bus journey from Watershed)

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.

Joseph Losey’s screen adaptation of the 1960s British comic strip Modesty Blaise is a camp, star-studded pop-art romp that brilliantly satirises the Bond-mania of the time.

A hilarious cautionary tale about the perils of independent filmmaking starring Steve Buscemi as a penniless New York screenwriter with big cinematic ambitions.

Café & Bar, Watershed

It’s time to prove your film knowledge at this year's 10th Anniversary Cinema Rediscovered Film Quiz — a night where deep-cut movie knowledge meets friendly competition.