To help your hunt for adventurous moving pictures, RADIANT CIRCUS hand-picks London’s screen highlights for the week ahead*.

There’s a whole bunch of screen art kicking off this week, from a double bill of experimental film at Close-Up to a looped night of shorts at Tate Modern and the nocturnal feeding frenzy that is ART NIGHT 2017.

Our featured film event of the week is Billy Chainsaw’s NOVA NIGHTS: EPISODE #4 – GRAHAM HUMPHREYS’ TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION. Because of that poster for THE EVIL DEAD and the promise of NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR…

“CLIMB ABOARD. YOUR DESTINATION IS HELL!”

im_still_breathing — I’M STILL BREATHING loops at Tate Modern (30 JUNE, 18:30 – 22:00).

FRIDAY 30 JUNE 2017, 20:00, WHIRLED CINEMA

THE BLACK HEN is about two Nepalese boys, Prakash and Kiran who hatch a plan to raise a hen. Their entrepreneurial ambitions are put in peril when Prakash’s dad sells his entire coop, forcing the boys to go hunting through civil war to find their precious fowl. The Guardian had the words: “a gentle, humane and beautifully photographed movie from Nepalese director Min Bahadur Bham”.

Looking for an alternative? Tate Modern loops a series of short films APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL, DARIA MARTIN, JOAN JONAS (18:30 to 22:00) as part of their latest Tate Late. We’ll be popping in to see Weerasethakul’s I’M STILL BREATHING, part of PRIMITIVE 2009 that we reviewed here. Tate Modern also screens gender identity drama STRANGE LOVE later in the week (5 JULY, 18:30).

SATURDAY 1 JULY 2017, VARIOUS, EAST END

FREE adventure ART NIGHT takes place tonight with a number of moving image works scattered across the East End. Try Benedict Drew’s multimedia installation THE TRICKLE-DOWN SYNDROME at Whitechapel, Do Hu Suh’s video installation PASSAGE/S & MY HOME/S at Christ Church Spittlefields, the Chapman Brothers’ THE MISSHAPENESS OF THINGS TO COME at Pennington Street Warehouse or Lindsay Seer’s MENTAL METAL at the Masonic Temple, Andaz London.

Looking for an alternative? Following Friday’s looping of Weerasethakul’s short I AM STILL BREATHING, why not try his sublime feature CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR (18:30) at Deptford Cinema?

SUNDAY 2 JULY 2017, 19:30, CLOSE-UP

Close-Up hosts yearly showcase FESTIVAL OF (IN)APPROPRIATION, an evening of experimental short films best described as “collage, compilation, found footage, détournement, or recycled cinema”. These mashups all try to say something new using existing film footage. We counted work from 15 filmmakers, but there might be more…

Looking for an alternative? Moth Club hosts an evening of KENNETH ANGER FILMS + LIVE SCORE FROM TOMAGA (19:00), “a group transcending the realms of conventional musical modes through instrumentation”². Or you could spend the day catching up with GOJIRA in 35mm (15:35) and ERASERHEAD (20:45) at Prince Charles.

millenium_actress — MILLENNIUM ACTRESS screens at Barbican (3 JULY, 20:45).

MONDAY 3 JULY 2017, 18:10, BFI

ON TRIAL: OSCAR WILDE + DISCUSSION (18:10) opens BFI’s new season GROSS INDECENCY. Granada Television’s “gripping recreation of one of the most infamous trials in British legal and queer history” is accompanied by Richard Kwietniowski’s short film THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL. Discuss Wilde, queer histories and the role of TV and film in shaping public moral attitudes towards homosexuality in the UK.

Looking for an alternative? Barbican screens MILLENNIUM ACTRESS (20:45) as part of their CINEMA MATTERS: BIGGER THAN LIFE strand. This time, they’re looking at the phenonomen of the movie star.

TUESDAY 4 JULY 2017, 19:30, CLOSE-UP

Close-Up hosts NON-LINEAR / DARK CINEMA where Shama Khanna and Warehouse present a programme exploring darkness in the cinema. The evening features experimental works by Charlotte Prodger, Dan Walwin, James Richards and Leslie Thornton, Ulijona Odišarija and Alia Syed.

Looking for an alternative? Prince Charles screens INDEPENDENCE DAY in 35mm (18:00) for our American cousins. Either file it under guilty pleasure or explain it away as your second favourite film staring Harvey Fierstein³.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET poster by Graham Humphreys.

WEDNESDAY 5 JULY 2017, 19:30, THE HORSE HOSPITAL

The Horse Hospital hosts NOVA NIGHTS: EPISODE #4 – GRAHAM HUMPHREYS’ TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION c/o Billy Chainsaw and acclaimed movie poster artist, Graham Humphreys. The evening includes discussion of Humphrey’s career (legendary poster art for THE EVIL DEAD, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and many others) and influences. Man Ray’s avant-garde movie THE MYSTERIES OF THE CHATEAU de DE and VHS veteran NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR (billed by Humphreys as “cheap, gory, transgressive, and packed with the unexpected”) round off the evening.

Looking for an alternative? Slice of Jewish life A KID FOR TWO FARTHINGS (18:30) screens at JW3. We were sold at the description: “a boy believes his pet goat may be a unicorn”. Elsewhere, THE HEADLESS WOMAN (20:00) screens at Deptford Cinema as part of their Latin American Cinema strand.

THURSDAY 6 JULY 2017, 18:30, PRINCE CHARLES CINEMA

TOM OF FINLAND: DADDY & THE MUSCLE ACADEMY (18:30) includes a Q&A hosted by The Finnish Institute in London. For decades, Touko Valio Laaksonen – aka Tom of Finland – provided the erotic art that became the hardcore iconography for a generation. From dirty pleasure to coffee-table book hero, the power of his images and the resulting global brand are legendary.

Looking for an alternative? BOY (20:45) screens at the same venue c/o Misc Films who are “dedicated to showcasing unreleased, under-screened or under-appreciated film”. BOY is a 2010 New Zealand beauty about childhood, missing fathers and the music of Michael Jackson.

FESTIVALS / SEASONS / TALKS

Barbican continues SCI-FI SUNDAYS with THX 1138 (2 JULY, 16:00), the first feature from phantom menace himself, George Lucas. Supported by a short from Random Acts.

BFI continues the DUSTIN HOFFMAN season (try MIDNIGHT COWBOY on the big screen of NFT1, 30 JUNE, 18:10) and concludes UNBOUND: VISIONS OF THE BLACK FEMININE with SECOND COMING (30 JUNE, 20:40). New season, GROSS INDECENCY opens 3 JULY, looking at 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK.

Paris Texas_3 Subclip 13.tif — PARIS TEXAS screens at Close-Up (30 JUNE, 19:30).

Close-Up continues the ON THE ROAD season with PARIS TEXAS (30 JUNE, 19:30) and PAPER MOON (1 & 5 JULY, 19:30).

East End Film Festival continues until 2 JULY. Try vital new docs about the Syrian resistance movement CITY OF GHOSTS (1 JULY, 16:00) or American capital punishment THE PENALTY (1 JULY, 16:15).

House of Vans continues FREE screenings of recent releases with ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY (2 JULY, 13:00 & 15:30 – no booking required).

Oz Film Festival runs 30 JUNE to 2 JULY at Regent Street Cinema. Try moving AIDS doc REMEMBERING THE MAN (2 JULY, 14:00) or life backwards drama THE DEATH AND LIFE OF OTTO BLOOM (2 JULY, 20:00).

And finally…

Shubbak: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture runs 1 to 16 JULY. There’s a smattering of films at Barbican and Ciné Lumière supported by a strong series of screen talks. Try FAROUK, BESIEGED LIKE ME (3 JULY, 20:30) at Ciné Lumière or the UK premiere of THE LAST OF US + SCREEN TALK with director Ala Eddine Slim (6 JULY, 20:30) at Barbican.

More places to shelter from the storm in next week’s GUIDE.

*As accurate as we could make it. Apologies for any mistakes.

Featured image: THE EVIL DEAD (1981) poster art by Graham Humphreys.

¹ “Expect a night of Tom-themed entertainment and more leather than a herd of cattle.”

² We genuinely have no idea what that means…

³ TORCH SONG TRILOGY should always take that biscuit.