[21 to 27 FEB]: Our Featured Attraction of the week is always the event we’d most like to be at. Here’s our view of the unmissable indie film events in London this week. Find full event listings in our comprehensive SCREEN GUIDE.

By RADIANT CIRCUS

Twitter @radiantcircus | Instagram @radiantcircus

RADIANT CIRCUS has (finally…) found ‘colour’! Well, a minimal palette, but an innovation nonetheless. We’ve added a splash here and there to help you find original format screenings (8 to 70mm, & the occasional VHS) as well as FREE! film events (because we make ourselves skint going to the pictures as often as we do…). Expect us to discover other very familiar technological marvels in due course (anyone for some sound?).

Looking across this week’s scene, London’s indie promoters spoil us with some more excellent one-off events, starting with Club des Femmes’ 80s retrospective about Feminist Film at Rio Cinema featuring Margarethe von Trotta’s THE SECOND AWAKENING OF CHRISTA KLAGES (22 FEB). If you missed the Japan Foundation’s touring programme at ICA, their screening of PENGUIN HIGHWAY at The Prince Charles should be what you’re looking for (23 FEB). Monday’s can be quiet, but this one is overflowing with delights. We’ve picked Galop LGBT+’s FREE! showing of MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE at Genesis, but we’d have no problem recommending The Celluloid Sorceress’s screening of BIRD ON A WIRE on 35mm at The Prince Charles or Elizabeth Rynecki’s doc CHASING PORTRAITS at JW3 (all 24 FEB). We’ve picked Women & Cocaine’s presentation of RED DUST at The Cinema Museum for our next day (25 FEB) because we still really want to win something in one of their raffles… Heavenly Films’ unique programme of BBC archive material continues with a London Transport Double Bill by Zimena Percival at Regent Street Cinema (26 FEB) and some of Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests with a new score by Leif round off our week at Barbican (27 FEB).

In seasonal news, The Prince Charles was successful in unravelling the film rights for SNOWPIERCER which gets its own weeklong run as part of their JOIN THE #BONGHIVE. Now, we know there’s a lot of love in the room for Bong Joon-ho right now, but we weren’t convinced by this one… But well done The PCC (yay!). For sci-fi offerings we’re totally in love with, try BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS from The Good/Bad Movie Club also at The Prince Charles (22 FEB) or John Sayles’ THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET, part of SCI-FI SUNDAYS at Deptford Cinema (23 FEB).

We swooned on social media last week over the artificial animals in Fellini’s AND THE SHIP SAILS ON (18 FEB). It’s time for another of those kinds of moments with Zoltan Korda’s 1942 version of THE JUNGLE BOOK (21 FEB). Screening as part of BIG SCREEN CLASSICS: MAN VS NATURE, it sports one of our screen heroes, Sabu, and a magical combo of real and crafted critters (Mowgli’s river crossing with Kaa always makes us smile). Whilst we’re milling around the Southbank, we were excited about Barbara Steele’s appearances alongside 8½ (part of BFI’s FELLINI), but the scream legend is no longer travelling to the UK so these events are sadly cancelled (26 & 27 FEB).

As to our featured attraction of the week, it’s also our featured attraction of the month THE CINEMA OF JESSICA HAUSNER also at BFI. We usually focus on one-off events in this slot (given how hard they can be to magic an audience for…), but that reduces the numbers of films by women we can pick from, so let’s forget them rules…. Grab tickets for LITTLE JOE + JESSICA HAUSNER In Conversation while you can (21 FEB – Selling fast!). Our other money is on HOTEL (22 & 24 FEB).

Whilst we have our diversity drum in hand, we’d also make a special mention of Friday’s screening of PEANUT BUTTER FALCON (21 FEB), a fresh collab between Screen25 Cinema and disability charity, Club Soda. Because we don’t get nearly enough disability themed film events to list. Just saying.

See you in darkness…

Richard – Barker-In-Chief, RADIANT CIRCUS

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> FIND EVERYTHING in our weekly screen digest [21 to 27 FEB].

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*THE SMALL PRINT: As accurate as we could make it. Apologies for any errors. Updates & corrections will be made to the online version. Event dates/times are subject to change by the venue/organiser. We try to only list events you can book for at the time of posting: however, some events may still be sold out. Please click quickly! We don’t filter by age/certification: all readers & subscribers should be 18+.