A Zed and Two Noughts + Short: Ghost of The Past

Name: A Zed and Two Noughts + Short: Ghost of The Past
Start: 2025-07-26T15:40
End: 2025-07-26T17:50
Location: Watershed

part of Against the Grain: 1980s British Cinema

Film

Sat 26 July 15:40

Director: Peter Greenaway
Cast: Andréa Ferréol, Brian Deacon, Eric Deacon
Details: 117 mins, 1985, UK
Primary language: English

Additional booking info below

Book Tickets

Like his contemporaries Derek Jarman and Sally Potter, Peter Greenway came to feature filmmaking from a multi-disciplinary arts background. Supported by Channel 4 and BFI, his breakthrough feature The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982) announced to the wider public a (very un-British) ideas-driven, visually experimental approach to cinema.

Viewed today his films’ cerebral provocative nature is very much a precursor to the work of Yorgos Lanthimos. A Zed and Two Noughts, his second film for Channel 4 is a striking meditation on death, decay, and duality unfolding through the twin obsession of twin zoologists with a double amputee and documenting animal decomposition, all this following the death of their wives in a swan-related car crash.

Greenaway’s interest in symmetry and Michael Nyman's insistently hypnotic score create a coldly beautiful cinematic universe where grief and scientific fascination merge. Striking time-lapse photography of rotting animals punctuate the increasingly surreal story, while Vermeer-inspired compositions from legendary cinematographer Sacha Vierny turn the grotesque into visually absorbing meditations on science and art.

Full of surprises and magnificent conundrums, A Zed and Two Noughts is as perversely comic as it is shocking and thought provoking.

The event will start with the UK Premiere of Bill Morrison’s latest short Ghost of the Past (7mins, 2025), with music by Bill Frisell.

With thanks to the BFI National Archive.

With an introduction by season curator and Cinema Rediscovered founder Mark Cosgrove.

Special offers:
Booking for more than 10 events/screenings? 
Buy a Cinema Rediscovered Festival Pass (£120 full / £100 concessions / £80 24 and under) and select your tickets for as many of the 80+ screenings and events during the festival as you want.
Booking for between 4 to 10 events/screenings? 
Multi-Ticket Package Offer: get 20% off the regular ticket price when you book 4-10 Cinema Rediscovered screenings and/or events. The discount will automatically apply when you add the tickets to your basket.
Club Shed members get 20% off all individual Cinema Rediscovered tickets.

Choose screening time for: A Zed and Two Noughts + Short: Ghost of The Past

Sat 26 July

15:40 (ends 17:50) in Cinema 1

Pricing

Ticket price:

£11.50 full (plus 12% booking fee*)

£9.00 concessions / Refugees and Asylum Seekers (plus 12% booking fee*)

£6.00 24 or under (plus 12% booking fee*)

Concessions apply to Full Time Students, Job Seekers Allowance and Employment Support Allowance, 66+ who have retired, Equity and BECTU members and disabled people. Where applicable please produce proof of eligibility when collecting a ticket.

*Booking fee applies to online and phone booking only.

Complimentary tickets are available for Personal Assistants accompanying customers who are Deaf / Disabled and can be booked through the Box Office, or online after joining our Access Register.

Cinema Rediscovered Festival Pass

The Cinema Rediscovered Pass allows you to select from 80+ Cinema Rediscovered screenings and events between Wed 23 - Sun 27 July. Subject to availability, terms and conditions apply. Buy your Pass here. Pass holders get a free three-month trial from curated online film streaming platform MUBI.

Pass prices: £120 full / £100 concessions / £80 24 and under.

Multi-Ticket Package Offer

Get 20% off the regular ticket price when you book 4-10 Cinema Rediscovered screenings and/or events. The discount will automatically apply when you add the tickets to your basket.

Club Shed members get 20% off all individual Cinema Rediscovered tickets.

All Cinema Rediscovered Pass and ticket holders can get 20% off any 6 O'Clock Gin & Tonic (including Watershed’s very own) at the Café & Bar and Undershed Bar during the Festival. Pass and ticket holders can also enjoy Spritz time - get any drink from our Spritz menu for the reduced price of £8 between 17:00 - 20:00 at the Café & Bar and Undershed Bar during the Festival.

Please note: the Cinema Walks, Projection Tours, 16mm Projection Taster Sessions and the Film Quiz are excluded from the Pass and Package.

Access

Cinema seat widths
Our cinema seats are 46cm wide, with wooden armrests on either side of each seat that can’t be moved.

We can provide seats without armrests or bean bags as alternatives at the front of the cinema if that is more comfortable for you. Please just call our Box Office on (0117) 927 5100 or book in-person to arrange.

Access Register
Join our Access Register to help us deliver the best possible experience for you. You can sign up to our Access Register online, or in person at Box Office or by calling (0117) 927 5100.

Concessions

Concessions apply to Full Time Students, Job Seekers Allowance and Employment Support Allowance, 66+ who have retired, Equity and BECTU members and disabled people.

Where applicable please produce proof of eligibility when collecting a ticket.

Sat 26 July

Pricing

Access

Concessions

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