BFI releases extensive Powell and Pressburger season

The celebration of the groundbreaking film-making duo takes place from 16th October to 31st December 2023, and includes a major BFI Southbank season, UK-wide cinema re-releases and more

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From Martin Scorsese to Matthew Bourne, Kate Bush to Tilda Swinton, Powell and Pressburger have influenced creatives for decades and this is the largest and most wide-ranging exploration ever undertaken about the work of the legendary writer-producer-director team. The celebration will kick off this autumn with the BFI Distribution re-release of I Know Where Iโ€™m Going! (1945), recently restored by the BFI National Archive and The Film Foundation in association with ITV and Park Circus, and back in cinemas UK-wide from 20 October. โ€˜Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburgerโ€™s bold, original and beautiful films changed cinema,โ€™ says Arike Oke, Executive Director of Knowledge and Collections, โ€˜and the potency of their vision still resonates today across the creative worlds of art, design, theatre and dance brought together so sublimely in their productions. She continues: โ€˜Martin Scorsese, Derek Jarman, Kate Bush, Matthew Bourne, Sally Potter, Wes Anderson, Manolo Blahnik โ€“ just some of the great artists whose work owes a debt to The Archersโ€™ films. Headily romantic, but also daringly political, the partnership that produced such passionate British productions as A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes was rooted in a fusion of the English with the European, of the conservative with the progressive, that demonstrates that the best British film always has diversity at its heart. Theirs was a cinema unbound, which BFI are thrilled to present in as complete a form as possible for audiences across the UK to enjoy today, and to help inspire the next generation of fearless creators.โ€™