Friendship
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Listings

Until Wed 23 July

The Ballad of Wallis Island

Eccentric lottery winner Charles (Tim Key) dreams of getting his favourite musicians, McGwyer Mortimer (Tom Basden and Carey Mulligan), back together.

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The Other Way Around

Rated 12A

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Until Wed 23 July

The Other Way Around

After 15 years together, Ale and Alex have come up with the crazy idea of throwing a party to celebrate their break-up - like a wedding but the other way around.

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Hot Milk

Rated 15

Until Wed 23 July

Hot Milk

Based on Deborah Levy’s acclaimed novel and set on the sun-soaked Spanish coast, tensions simmer as a mother and daughter’s bond is tested by the arrival of a mysterious stranger.

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Harvest

Rated 18

Until Wed 23 July

Harvest

Harvest is a spellbinding and thrillingly distinctive period piece like no other, telling a folk horror-inflected story about the trauma of modernity and the looming threat of the outsider.

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Friendship

Rated 15

Until Wed 23 July

Friendship

Suburban dad Craig falls hard for his charismatic new neighbour, as Craig’s attempts to make an adult male friend threaten to ruin both of their lives.

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Barry Lyndon

Rated 12A

Until Sun 20 July

Barry Lyndon

Stanley Kubrick's breathtaking exploration of Wiliam Makepeace Thackeray's novel sees his 18th century Irish adventurer meet his share of women, take part in the Seven Years' War, get recruited as a spy and marry into the English aristocracy, inventing new stories about himself at every turn of the road.

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Until Tue 22 July

The Phoenician Scheme

Wes Anderson's latest film is the story of a family and a family business. Starring: Benicio del Toro as Zsa-zsa Korda, one of the richest men in Europe; Mia Threapleton as Liesl, his daughter/a nun; Michael Cera as Bjorn, their tutor.

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Wed 23 - Sun 27 July

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.

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Thu 24 July 11:00

Colonial Reels: Histories and Afterlives of Colonial Film Collections Discussion

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.

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Los Golfos (The Delinquents)

Rated 18 (CTBA)

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part of Restored & Rediscovered

Thu 24 July 11:20

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.

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UK Premiere: Belarmino

Rated 15

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part of Restored & Rediscovered

Thu 24 July 16:20

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.

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Thu 24 - Fri 25 July

Desert Hearts

Forty years after its release, Donna Dietch’s 1950s set romance remains one of the most influential and beautifully shot lesbian films of all time.

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Fri 25 July 11:00

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.

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Fri 25 July 11:10

The Swimmer

She wrote, he directed: The Swimmer, adapted by husband-wife duo Frank and Eleanor Perry, is a surreal odyssey through the suburbs starring Burt Lancaster.

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Fri 25 July 13:00

Immersive Arts - Round One Learnings

In this Lunchtime Talk, Ruth McCullough, Executive Producer, and Michelle Rumney, Producer for England, share some key learnings from the first Immersive Arts funding round and offer practical advice for artists thinking about applying in the final round of funding.

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Fri 25 July 18:30, 18:40

The Evil Dead

Uproarious and hugely influential, Sam Raimi’s cabin-in-the-woods horror comedy was the very first title acquired by Stephen Woolley’s Palace Pictures.

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Fri 25 July 21:10

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.

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Sat 26 July 09:00

Cinema Walking Tour 1

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.

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Sat 26 - Sun 27 July

Projection Tour

Join 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.

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Henry Fonda For President

Rated 15

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part of Reframing Film

Sat 26 July 10:00

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.

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Yeelen

Rated PG

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part of Restored & Rediscovered

Sat 26 July 13:00

Yeelen

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.

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Sat 26 July 13:30

100 Years of the Film Society

This is part of a series of events which look at the UK-wide impact of London’s The Film Society in its centenary year. Co-curated by Bryony Dixon (BFI National Archive) and film historian Henry K. Miller.

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Sat 26 July 14:00, 14:10

Time Bandits

An extraordinarily inventive fantasy from Terry Gilliam in which schoolboy Warnock is rescued from a dull suburban existence by a band of time travellers.

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Compensation

Rated 15

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)

part of Restored & Rediscovered

Sat 26 July 16:00

Compensation

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

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Sat 26 July 18:20

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.

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Sat 26 - Sun 27 July

My Beautiful Laundrette

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?

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Themroc

Rated 15

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part of Restored & Rediscovered

Sat 26 July 20:40

Themroc

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.

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Sun 27 July 09:00

Cinema Walking Tour 2

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.

Book tickets

Code Unknown

Rated 15

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)

part of A Michael Haneke Season

Sun 27 July 18:20

Code Unknown

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

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Amadeus

Rated PG

Mon 28 - Thu 31 July

Amadeus

Gloriously restored in 4K, Miloš Forman’s triumphant drama examines the rivalry between classical masters Salieri and Mozart through a uniquely inquisitive lens.

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The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire

Rated PG

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)

Mon 28 - Thu 31 July

The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire

An actress 3-months post-partum attempts to find meaning in the writings of Martinique’s lost literary figure, Suzanne Césaire.

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Dying

Rated 12A

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)

Mon 28 July - Sun 3 Aug

Dying

An epic and darkly funny symphony of family dysfunction, Dying follows the estranged members of the Lunies family as they wrestle with chaotic private lives.

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What Does That Nature Say to You

Rated 18 (CTBA)

(
)

Mon 28 - Thu 31 July

What Does That Nature Say to You

A young poet drops his girlfriend off at her parents’ house and is amazed by its size. He bumps into her father, meets her mother and sister, and they all end up spending a long day together; fueled by conversation, food and drink.

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Wed 30 July 12:00-17:30

Darn It! Clothes Mending Workshop

Gather your well-loved clothes - the ones you had worn so much that they’ve now seen better days - and bring them to the Café & Bar for a free all-day drop-in mending workshop.

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