The BFI Announces Its Programme line up At The BFI Southbank And BFI IMAX For February/March

The BFI announce programme highlights for February and early March, including seasons dedicated to filmmakers Andrzej Wajda and Kathryn Bigelow.

It’s a warm welcome to 2026 at the BFI. They have announced their programme for the BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX in February and early March. It begins with ANDRZEJ WAJDA: PORTRAITS OF HISTORY AND HUMANITY, presented in partnership with the 24th KINOTEKA Polish Film Festival. Marking both the centenary of Wajda’s birth and the 10th anniversary of his passing, this season celebrates a visionary filmmaker. His work is inseparable from the fabric of Polish history and society. From the outset of his career, Andrzej Wajda established himself as a singular voice in Polish and world cinema. He used film to reflect how historical upheaval shapes both individuals and nations.

Additionally, he explored the role of art and artists in revealing suppressed truths. Setting many of his films against politically and historically sensitive moments, he forged a powerful visual language. This language remains deeply relevant and influential. A recipient of every significant international film honour, including the Palme d’Or and an Academy Award, Wajda was not only an essential storyteller of Polish culture and history. He was also a profound chronicler of the human condition.

A NUMBER OF RESTORATIONS

Presented with the ICA and Ciné Lumière, the BFI Southbank season, curated by BFI Contextual Events Programmer Aga Baranowska, launches on 1 February. It features a number of restorations spanning six decades of Wajda’s extraordinary career. This includes A GENERATION (1954), KANAL (1957), and ASHES AND DIAMONDS (1958). Other films include INNOCENT SORCERERS (1960), THE WEDDING (1972), and THE PROMISED LAND (1974), which includes a Q&A with lead actor Daniel Olbrychski on 11 March. Additional films are MAN OF MARBLE (1976) and MAN OF IRON (1981), for which Wajda won the Palme d’Or. It also includes KATYN (2007) and Wajda’s final film, AFTERIMAGE (2016). The BFI Southbank season also consists of the Opening Gala of the 24th KINOTEKA Polish Film Festival on 4 February.

During this gala, Wajda’s revered ASHES AND DIAMONDS (1958) will screen from a 35mm print. Meanwhile, selected as Poland’s official Oscar submission, KINTOEKA’s gala screening of Agnieszka Holland’s FRANZ (2025) on 3 March at BFI IMAX will include a Q&A with the director. A bold and dynamic portrait of Franz Kafka, the film follows a creative young man at odds with the world. Idan Weiss excels as the young Kafka, while Tomasz Naumiuk’s cinematography beautifully evokes early 20th-century Prague.

KATHRYN BIGALOW

Also beginning in February, CLOSE TO THE EDGE: THE FILMS OF KATHRYN BIGELOW will present the career of director Kathryn Bigelow as one defined by action, adrenaline and artistry. Initially pursuing fine art, Bigelow turned to cinema after studying under British film theorist and filmmaker Peter Wollen. What emerged was a bold filmmaker with a distinctive style and radical approach to subverting genres. Early features demonstrated Bigelow’s talent for blending mood and action. As her cinematic canvases expanded, the scale of her work soared, albeit underpinned by complex psychology. In recent years, Bigelow’s high style has embraced realism. Yet, the sense of the high-octane remained as she tackled politically charged stories in the US and internationally.

Throughout her work, she explores the expression and representation of violence and identity. She repeatedly examines the human psyche under pressure, particularly through a moral prism.

Bigelow’s is a cinema that demands to be seen on the big screen. The season, curated by BFI Southbank Lead Programmer Kimberley Sheehan, will include screenings of THE LOVELESS (1982), POINT BREAK (1991), STRANGE DAYS (1995), ZERO DARK THIRTY (2012), DETROIT (2017) and A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE (2025).

It also features NEAR DARK (1987), BLUE STEEL (1990), THE WEIGHT OF WATER (2000), K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER (2002) and THE HURT LOCKER (2008) playing from 35mm film prints.

CONSTRUCTED, TOLD, SPOKEN: A COUNTER-HISTORY OF BRITAIN ON TV

The season title, CONSTRUCTED, TOLD, SPOKEN: A COUNTER-HISTORY OF BRITAIN ON TV, is drawn directly from a quote by Stuart Hall. It examines the creation of identity. It explores how a narrative, a story, a history is something constructed, told, spoken, not simply found. In the postwar era, Afro-Caribbean and South Asian Britons began to build a new identity, a distinct form of hybrid British life, using television as a medium to advocate for their political and social representation. As British society changed, a multicultural perspective emerged. Out of political advocacy, multicultural television grew in parallel. A radical television movement that institutionalised a multicultural counter-positioning in Britain.

This movement reached its height in the media with the advent of multicultural programming units in the 1970s and 1980s. These were collectives of Black and Asian media workers. They were formalised in broadcasting institutions, creating distinct programming across BBC including: Open Door, Ebony, Network East (East), Black Britain, ITV (as ATV and LWT): Here and Now, Skin and with a new channel, the emergence of a new era with Channel 4: Eastern Eye, Black on Black, Bandung File and Black Bag.

These units underwent constant transformation and reinvention, often addressing similar issues and themes across the decades. Shifts in tone and context have created a distinctive archive of programming. This leaves behind an alternative televisual counter-history of Britain. The programming considers the nation through a politically Black (Black and South Asian) and multicultural perspective. These shows embodied anti-racist resistance. They protected the sociopolitical position of minorities in Britain. At the same time, it developed an outward view reporting on global liberation through the lens of non-aligned politics. The programming also captured the emergence of a worldwide diasporic culture that fostered connections back to the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.

A UNIQUE MOMENT IN BRITISH TELEVISION HISTORY

Multicultural programming marks a unique moment in British television history. It created a global programming style that traced so many stories. These stories told a story of Britain as it really was – a cultural terrain where multiculturalism was won. This season, curated by BFI Television Programmer Xavier Alexandre Pillai, examines the legacy and reappraises the impact of this underexamined aspect of British Television history.

Multicultural TV underwent many shifts from early multicultural television created to help new British migrants integrate in the country, to open access programming of the 1970s, to the emergence of the multicultural programming units of the 1980s, and programmes designed to address specific concerns of each ethnic group, through to the impact of an increasingly commercial media landscape of the 1990s and early 2000s.

Through the season’s introductions and collaborative events, the BFI activate this archive in the present. The event Reflecting on Stuart Hall’s Impact in association with the Stuart Hall Foundation, on 18 February, will discuss how Hall’s pioneering work on media remains essential for analysing the political and cultural dynamics of multiculturalism, plus author and journalist Jason Okundaye revisits his Guardian article on accessing Black Bag, an entry point into exploring Black, queer-focusing media of the Multicultural TV era in the event Black Queer Lives in the Archive on 16 February, reflecting on the afterlives of this heritage.

SPECIAL EVENTS

Special events taking place in February and early March will include the return of CINEMA MADE IN ITALY from 4 – 8 March, programmed by Artistic Director Adrian Wootton. Representing the best and brightest selection of new films from some of the most vital and creative contemporary filmmakers working in Italy, the festival encompasses biopics, period dramas, historical epics, autobiographical memoirs, noir thrillers, documentaries, and a special archive screening. Created by established talent and first-time feature directors, many of whom will be in attendance at BFI Southbank to present and discuss their work, films receiving their UK premiere at the festival will include the Opening Night presentation PRIMAVERA (Damiano Michieletto, 2025) on 4 March and the Closing Night film THREE GOODBYES (Isabel Coixet, 2025) on 8 March.

Meanwhile, THE WORLD OF BLACK FILM WEEKEND will see writer, broadcaster and film programmer Ashley Clark present an eclectic selection of films featured in his new book The World of Black Film: A Journey Through Cinematic Blackness in 100 Films. Clark will introduce screenings of MALCOLM X (Spike Lee, 1992) from a new 35mm print created by the BFI as part of an ongoing commitment to screening film on film, on 20 February, BLACK GIRL (Ousmane Sembène, 1966) and JEMIMA + JOHNNY (Lionel Ngakane, 1966) on 21 February, and WEST INDIES: THE FUGITIVE SLAVES OF LIBERTY (Med Hondo, 1979) on 22 February.

TV PREVIEWS

TV previews this month will include BRIDGERTON (Tom Verica, 2025) on 24 February, including a Q&A with cast and creatives. The story of Benedict and Sophie unfolds with more thrilling Regency-era romance in part two of the Netflix show’s fourth season. Meanwhile, there’s a preview of the new drama from DERRY GIRLS creator Lisa McGree, HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN FROM BELFAST (Michael Lennox, 2026), on 10 February, including a Q&A with cast and creatives. When an email informs a tight-knit group of friends in a quiet town about the death of the estranged fourth member of their childhood gang, they decide to go to her wake. But a series of eerie events unfolds as they travel across Ireland, and a dark childhood secret seems to be revealed.

The BFI special series of Doctor Who events returns with WARRIORS OF THE DEEP (Pennant Roberts, 1984) on 28 February, followed by a Q&A with actors Peter Davison and Janet Fielding. The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough find themselves at an underwater base on Earth in 2084 as the Fifth Doctor’s final season brings together fan-favourite monsters from the era of his third incarnation, revived in the recent Doctor Who spin-off, THE WAR BETWEEN THE LAND AND THE SEA.

VALENTINE’S DAY

Valentine’s Day is marked at the BFI Southbank with three beautiful tales of love and romance on 14 February – THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN (Jean Negulesco, 1954), PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (Céline Sciamma, 2019) and a 35th anniversary screening of MISSISSIPPI MASALA (Mira Nair, 1991), with a Galentine’s Day screening of tongue-in-cheek cult classic BUT I’M A CHEERLEADER (Jamie Babbit, 1999) on 13 February set to include a special introduction. Meanwhile, to mark the Lunar New Year on 17 February, MilkTea presents the UK premiere of LAST DAYS (2025), including a Q&A with director Justin Lin and actor Sky Yang in person.

Lin’s return to independent cinema details the tragic events surrounding modern-day Christian missionary John Allen Chau’s attempt to convert the inhabitants of the remote North Sentinel Island. The film premiered to acclaim at Sundance and stars newcomer Yang, whom Lin discovered at a previous MilkTea event at BFI Southbank.

OTHER PREVIEWS

Other film previews this month include 100 NIGHTS OF HERO (2025) on 2 February, followed by a Q&A with director Julia Jackman. Adapted from Isabel Greenberg’s graphic novel, Jackman’s charming, witty and devilishly mischievous romp closed the 69th BFI London Film Festival last October and is a refreshing take on love, gender, sexuality and the power of storytelling. Also previewed is Bi Gan’s RESURRECTION (2025) on 25 February. In a version of the future where humanity has sacrificed the ability to dream, one lonesome creature secretly retains the power to experience them, until a curious woman uncovers his inner worlds.

SPECIAL UK SCREENINGS

A trilogy of landmark Japanese monster movies is given a special UK screening on 28 February with the restoration premieres of GAMERA (Noriaki Yuasa, 1965), GAMERA VS. BARUGON (Shigeo Tanaka, 1966) and GAMERA VS. GYAOS (Noriaki Yuasa, 1967). Restored by Kadokawa Corporation in 4K at Imagica Entertainment Media Services by scanning the original 35mm negative films, Imagica Entertainment Media Services conducted colour grading with the supervision of Shinji Higuchi, the director known for SHIN GODZILLA, and Shunichi Ogura.

Meanwhile, the second BFI Blu-ray and DVD release from the Associated Rediffusion archive, DANIEL FARSON’S GUIDE TO BRITAIN: VOLUME 1 (BFI 3-disc Blu-ray/DVD Dual Format Edition available from 16 February) features the groundbreaking work of ITV reporter and presenter Daniel Farson. Alongside fellow iconoclast Robin Day at ITN, he brought a new breed of British journalism to television in the 1950s and 60s, interrogating traditional beliefs and challenging figures both inside and outside the establishment, paving the way for later programme-makers in the Louis Theroux mould. A special screening on 9 February, introduced by Matthew Sweet, will show Farson at work, crossing swords with various figures.

Elsewhere, Reece Shearsmith presents PSYCHO II (Richard Franklin, 1983) on 3 February, in which a released Norman Bates returns to the old family home. Though rarely screened since its release, this is an impressive follow-up to Hitchcock’s classic and provided Anthony Perkins with another opportunity to shine in the role.

OTHER SCREENINGS

A Family Funday preview of STITCH HEAD (2025) on 8 February will include a Q&A with director Steve Hudson and author of the original book series Guy Bass, which sees the first of a mad scientist’s abandoned experiments decide to join a circus, unaware of its untrustworthy ringmaster. Meanwhile, for International Women’s Day, a 40th anniversary screening of Lizzie Borden’s WORKING GIRLS (1986), which sees Yale graduate Molly attempt to bankroll her photography business by working at a high-end brothel. Borden’s portrayal of sex work is a radical exploration of life under capitalism, a piercing study of sexual politics and an astute overview of the complexity of women’s lives.

Finally, MARK KERMODE LIVE IN 3D returns on 9 February at BFI Southbank and 9 March at BFI IMAX, with surprise guests and discussion of upcoming releases, cinematic treasures, industry news and even some guilty pleasures.

BFI SOUTHBANK SEASONS AND FESTIVALS 

ANDRZEJ WAJDA: PORTRAITS OF HISTORY AND HUMANITY 

From the beginning of his career, with his revered war trilogy, director Andrzej Wajda established himself as a singular voice in Polish and world cinema. 

CLOSE TO THE EDGE: THE FILMS OF KATHRYN BIGELOW 

Kathryn Bigelow’s work is one defined by action, adrenaline and artistry.

CONSTRUCTED, TOLD, SPOKEN: A COUNTER-HISTORY OF BRITAIN ON TV 

In the postwar era, Afro-Caribbean and South Asian Britons began to construct a new identity – a distinct form of hybrid British life – using television as a medium to advocate for their political and social representation. 

CINEMA MADE IN ITALY 

A celebration and exploration of the best new Italian Cinema and the filmmakers creating it. 

NEW AND RE-RELEASES 

Films playing on extended run throughout the month at BFI Southbank will include the BFI Distribution release of THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER (Kristen Stewart, 2025), new releases MY FATHER’S SHADOW (Akinola Davies Jr, 2025), A PALE VIEW OF HILLS (Kei ishikawa, 2025), THE SECRET AGENT(Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2025) and SIRÂT (Óliver Laxe, 2025), plus the continued run of NOUVELLE VAGUE (Richard Linklater, 2025), the rerelease of STRONGROOM (Vernon Sewell, 1962), screening on a new 35mm print and as a digital remaster ahead of a BFI Blu-ray release on 23 February, and a 4K rerelease of John Woo’s newly restored HARD BOILED (1992).

BFI IMAX 

New releases playing at BFI IMAX throughout February and March will include THE BRIDE! (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2026) from 6 March and PROJECT HAIL MARY (Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, 2026) from 20 March. 

REGULAR BFI SOUTHBANK PROGRAMME STRANDS 

BFI Southbank’s regular programme strands have something for everyone – whether audiences are looking for silent treasures, restorations, experimental works, archive rarities, family previews or Relaxed screenings for neurodivergent audiences. 

BIG SCREEN CLASSICS 

Whether it’s Disney’s animated anthropomorphic animals, creatures of the night or animal frenemies, cinema has always relied on the allure of other species for so many of its stories. This month’s BFI Southbank daily screenings of classic movies for just £9, Creature Features, is a selection of films in which an animal might be attached to a tiny plot point or the focus of the entire movie, but throughout are moments that will delight, scare and entertain.

 Films playing throughout February and March, selected by the BFI’s Head of Cinema Programme Justin Johnson, will include BRINGING UP BABY (Howard Hawks, 1938), LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE (Jean Cocteau, 1946), THE BIRDS (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963), KES (Ken Loach, 1969), THE COW (Dariush Mehrjui, 1969), JAWS (Steven Spielberg, 1975), KILLER OF SHEEP (Charles Burnett, 1978), A FISH CALLED WANDA (Charles Crichton, 1988), BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise, 1991), AMORES PERROS (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2000), BEST IN SHOW (Christopher Guest, 2000), GRIZZLY MAN (Werner Herzog, 2005), CANDYMAN (Nia DaCosta, 2021) and more.

 In addition to the £9 ticket offer for BIG SCREEN CLASSICS, audience members aged 25 and Under can buy tickets for BFI Southbank screenings (in advance or on the day) and special events and previews (on the day only) for just £4, through the ongoing ticket scheme for young audiences.

Tickets for BFI Southbank screenings are on sale to BFI Patrons on 12 January, BFI Members on 13 January, and to the general public on 15 January. 

 

 

 

 

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