UK Premiere: The Party – Nature Morte

Shot in just 15 days, on a tiny budget, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Cynthia Beatt’s first feature centres on Queenie (a spellbinding performance by a young Tilda Swinton), a woman navigating a personal crisis by throwing a party for her friends. 

Queenie’s all-night party serves as the backdrop for her rapidly fraying relationship with her long-term lover Burrs (Lutz Weidlich). Amidst an intriguing array of guests, Irm Hermann (a key member of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "Anti-Theatre" troupe) and actor-composer Simon Fisher Turner offer witty cameos.

Shot in luminous black and white by renowned German cinematographer (and director) Elfi Mikesch, the film’s expressionistic lighting and sinuous camera movements evoke the menace of Weimar cinema.

But far from bleak, Cynthia Beatt’s debut is compassionate and poetic, which you can now experience newly restored.

The film was digitally restored in 2025 based on the 16mm original camera negative and a 16mm magnetic and optical soundtrack from the archives of the Deutsche Kinemathek. The restoration (2K) was undertaken by Arsenal Filminstitut in close collaboration with the director Cynthia Beatt. 

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