NOW SHOWING: LONDON SCREEN GUIDE w/c 14.07.17 • RADIANT CIRCUS

To help your hunt for adventurous moving pictures, RADIANT CIRCUS hand-picks London’s screen highlights for the week ahead¹.

Our featured film event of the week celebrates 10 years of BFI’s brilliant AFRICAN ODYSSEYS strand. BESOURO + BOY 23 – THE FORGOTTEN BOYS OF BRAZIL (15 JULY, 14:00) projects “a stunning biopic of a legendary capoeira fighter-revolutionary from Brazil, plus a moving historical doc”. See you there.

FRIDAY 14 JULY 2017, 19:30, CLOSE-UP

Werner Herzog is our spirit animal and STROSZEK is one of his most wonderful films. “A lyrical, melancholy, bitterly funny tale of three oddly-assorted Berlin misfits who follow the American Dream to Wisconsin and find a bleak El Dorado of television, football, CB radio, truck stops, and mobile homesteading” (Harvard Film Archive). In case you missed it², Herzog’s road trip gets another screening at Close-Up on 24 JULY, 19:30.

Looking for an alternative? It’s opening everywhere, but we’d explore DAVID LYNCH: THE ART OF LIFE (20:30) at Bertha Dochouse where it runs all week (we particularly like their £5 tickets before 17:00, MON. to THURS.). Try pairing it with BLUE VELVET REVISITED (15 JULY, 20:30) — found fragments from Lynch’s masterpiece — for some serious strangeness.

SATURDAY 15 JULY 2017, 14:00, BFI

After the dramatic fight scenes of BESOURO (aka THE ASSAILANT), documentary BOY 23 – THE FORGOTTEN BOYS OF BRAZIL takes a dramatic shift, telling the story of the forced slavery of 50 Afro-Brazilian orphans by a prominent family of Nazi sympathisers. Pick up a ticket for both films for £10 (general admission).

Looking for an alternative? House of Vans screens Marlon Brando classic THE WILD ONE (16:00 & 18:00) for FREE. Try pairing it with tomorrow’s THE LEATHER BOYS (BFI, 16 JULY, 17:00) for a peculiar DIY double. Alternatively, scare yourself witless with THE THING (20:45) at Prince Charles as one of the finest horrors ever made enjoys its 35th anniversary in the cold.

SUNDAY 16 JULY 2017, 16:00, BARBICAN

LETTERS FROM A DEAD MAN is part of SCI-FI SUNDAYS. Barbican has the words: “Surely inspired by the Chernobyl disaster, this speculative film is as harrowing, despairing and, somehow, strangely beautiful.”

Looking for an alternative? Moth Club — with Deeper Into Movies and Shudder UK — screens Flying Lotus’ debut movie KUSO (19:00) for FREE (book via ticketing app DICE FM). Described as “the grossest movie ever made” (The Verge), this is a full-on contemporary exercise in bad taste.

MONDAY 17 JULY 2017, 19:30, REGENT STREET CINEMA

TITICUT FOLLIES is “a stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts”. See it as part of a new season of films hand-picked by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield (see below).

Looking for an alternative? Try PEPPERMINT SODA + INTRO (BFI, 18:15). Southbank Programme Adviser Helen de Witt introduces this 70s coming-of-age tale.

TUESDAY 18 JULY 2017, 19:00, THE INSTITUTE OF LIGHT

SCIENCE FICTION THEATRE: 2010: THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT + TALK: ICE MOONS Some sequels are forever to be overshadowed by their forefathers, and there can be no tougher gig to follow than Kubrick’s classic 2001. However, 2010 is very much its own star child and is thoroughly deserving of reappraisal. Before the film, Professor Andrew Coates of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory / UCL will talk about icy moons and Mars as potential locations for life beyond Earth.

Looking for an alternative? CITY OF GHOSTS + Q&A with director Matthew Heineman (BFI, 20:40) is another chance to see this powerful doc about journalism and the Syrian resistance.

WEDNESDAY 19 JULY 2017, 18:30, JW3

UKJF FILMCLUB: EVA HESSE tells the pioneering Jewish American artist’s life story, fleeing Nazi Germany, enduring her parents’ separation and mother’s suicide, surviving a turbulent relationship and falling ill in her early 30s. Share your thoughts about the film with some wine and nibbles afterwards.

Looking for an alternative? QUEERAMA (20:50) at Picturehouse Central (other dates and times available) uses footage from the BFI archive to tell “the story of an extraordinary century of gay experiences”.

prep17 — PrEP17 screens at Bernie Grant Arts Centre (20 JULY, 19:30).

THURSDAY 20 JULY 2017, 19:30, BERNIE GRANT ARTS CENTRE

Access to drugs has always been at the forefront of the fight against HIV & AIDS. In 2015, filmmaker Nicholas Feustel made a documentary film about the England PROUD PrEP trial. Two years on, PrEP17 + PANEL DISCUSSION updates the original by revisiting the stories of PrEP activists, users, clinicians and policy-makers. The screening is followed by a discussion of where PrEP stands today (FREE but booking required).

Looking for an alternative? Cult Classic Collective’s presentation of PHANTASM (19:10) at Genesis Cinema is introduced by Nick Walker and followed by a (head-scratching) discussion. If you haven’t seen this weirdo sci-fi classic, the IMDb plot summary doesn’t even get close: “A teenage boy and his friends face off against a mysterious grave robber known only as the Tall Man, who keeps a lethal arsenal of terrible weapons with him”.

ryans_daughter — RYAN’S DAUGHTER screens at BFI as part of CHRISTOPHER NOLAN PRESENTS… (various).

FESTIVALS / SEASONS / TALKS

BFI seasons are abundant. Pick from: GROSS INDECENCY, CHRISTOPHER NOLAN PRESENTS…, DUSTIN HOFFMAN (Part 2) and INDIA ON FILM.

the_hitch-hiker — THE HITCH-HIKER screens at Close-Up (15 JULY, 19:30).

Close-Up continues their ON THE ROAD season. We’d recommend Ida Lupino’s classic film noir, THE HITCH-HICKER (15 JULY, 19:30).

hatsune_miku — MIKU EXPO 2016 screens at Hyper Japan (various times).

Hyper Japan runs at Tobacco Dock until 16 JULY. Surprisingly, for a festival of Japanese culture, there’s no film (that we could see…), but you can catch HATSUNE MIKU IN CONCERT, if you have some glow sticks handy…

And finally…

Regent Street Cinema hosts new short season NICK BROOMFIELD PRESENTS. The acclaimed documentary filmmaker has picked 6 of his favourite films to screen over the summer including THE GOLD RUSH (24 JULY, 19:30), SUNSET BOULEVARD (7 AUGUST, 19:30) and MY LIFE AS A DOG (21 AUGUST, 19:30).

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

¹As accurate as we could make it. Apologies for any mistakes.

²We’re a bit late to deadline this week as life rather got in the way… sorry about that.

Featured image: BESOURO (2009).