FEATURED ATTRACTION: Our view of this week’s unmissable screen events
[06 to 12 MAR]: Looking for movies beyond the mainstream? Here’s our RADIANT CIRCUS view about what to see in London this week. Our Featured Attraction is always the event we’d most like to be at. Find full event listings in our comprehensive SCREEN GUIDE.
By RADIANT CIRCUS
Twitter @radiantcircus | Instagram @radiantcircus
Start your weekend with a double-bill of irresponsible werewolf flicks as the venerable Gothique Film Society closes their 54th film season with I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF + THE NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF at The Cinema Museum (06 MAR). If you haven’t read Harry M. Benshoff’s seminal Monsters In The Closet, then you should:
“In I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF (1957), teenager Michael Landon falls under the hypnotic sway of scientist Whit Bissell. True to generic imperatives, Bissel and his male assistant comprise a queer mad scientist couple, and together they work out their nefarious deeds through the body of the young protagonist.”
You’ll never watch LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE in the same way again… Heading into the weekend, we’d recommend the Prelude Screenings (06 & 07 MAR) for one of our favourite events of the screen year, the Essay Film Festival from Birkbeck and partners. This Friday’s screening looks sold out (although given it’s FREE!, you might get in on the door…) but bookings are still being taken for Saturday’s double bill starting with THE LAW OF THE LAND. If you want fascinating, un-familiar, non-fiction filmmaking, this is the place.
WOMEN’S DAY at Regent Street Cinema (08 MAR – which also gets a regular run at DocHouse 08 to 12 MAR) is our highlight of a packed International Women’s Day, filling London’s alternative screens with some great F-Rated film choices. After that, Monday gives you a chance to hear from Nick Rowland about his new feature, CALM WITH HORSES (09 MAR at BFI). For Tuesday, we’ve opted for the member’s choice screening of a Czech New Wave film CLOSELY OBSERVED TRAINS (10 MAR) with our friends at Wimbledon Film Club. We always love an exhibition gimmick, but 3D attains a genuine visceral power when projecting dance (previous case in point, Wim Wenders’ PINA). Barbican’s special screening of Alla Kovgan’s new doc, CUNNINGHAM (11 MAR), is therefore a natural choice for our Wednesday at Barbican, but the Charlotte Prodger: Triple Bill at Tate Modern would be another wonderfully F-Rated way to spend your evening.
Elsewhere, No Bollox Film Club returns to The Castle Cinema with THE COLOUR OF POMEGRANATES (11 MAR). Sergei Parajanov’s “celebrated masterpiece” sells out pretty much every time its shown (both Close-Up and Deeper Into Movies are fans…), so grab a ticket while you can. Whilst we’re in the former Soviet Union, we should make special mention of Kennington Bioscope’s 35mm presentation of TATJANA (11 MAR) and Pushkin House’s epic 15 hour 10th anniversary screening of PODSTROCHNIK (07 & 08 MAR – see Seasons for full details). We have an ambition to get more into long film events like this one… if you’ve got the glutes, give it a try and let us know how you got along!
In Seasons, our featured attraction of the month, HER LENS, HIS STORY, concludes at Barbican with GONE TOO FAR! (09 MAR) and THE ORPHANAGE (10 MAR), and there’s an exciting weekender of works by Taiwanese filmmaker CHEN CHIEH-JEN at Tate Modern (06 to 07 MAR). Film Festivals get busy with various mountain tours, feminist shorts and the annual ticketing frenzy of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival (12 to 20 MAR). Our pick of the bunch Cinema Made In Italy officially wraps on 09 MAR at Ciné Lumière but there’s a second chance to see Liliana Cavani’s THE NIGHT PORTER the day after (08 & 10 MAR).
Inspired by International Women’s Day, our Featured Attraction Of The Week isn’t so much a film, as a global movement, recognising the need for more films made by, with and about rockstar women. Given that she’s currently setting the Southbank on fire with her self-curated season at BFI (in collab with Isabel Stevens!), we’ve chosen Science Fiction Theatre’s rare screening of a little known Tilda Swinton title, FRIENDSHIP’S DEATH, to illustrate our theme (12 MAR at The Castle Cinema). If that doesn’t float your boat, or you’re the other side of town, we’d have no hesitation in sending you to First Film’s next showing in their unique event series: BHAJI ON THE BEACH + Short: BALCONY invites directors Gurinder Chadha and Toby Fell-Holden to talk about their inaugural works at The Ritzy (12 MAR).
See you in darkness…
Richard – Barker-In-Chief, RADIANT CIRCUS
> FIND EVERYTHING in our weekly screen digest [06 to 12 MAR].
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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+.