Presented by our partner Shanghai Art Film Federation, a new British film masters retrospective kicks off in Shanghai at the Grand Theatre cinema from 19 August with 12 films (a record high!).
Shanghai is a city that has been hosting the most British cinema season to date (funded by Shanghai). However, as we have commented regularly, that they mainly show classics rather than new contemporary titles. We have been encouraging British filmmakers and stakeholders to pay attention to this organisation since 2019, when we hosted their delegation for a week.
During their time in the UK, together we visited the UK Cinema Association, Curzon Bloomsbury, Everyman Broadgate, VISTA’s UK office and many other organisations. Our Shanghai friends had a fantastic time and were impressed by the UK’s cinema-going culture.
Foreign films continue to prove to have a good appetite in the city of Shanghai. Shanghai Art Film Federation hosts different foreign film season almost monthly, working with different international partners. We, however, do not have a direct collaboration in this forthcoming British film masters retrospective season. The Shanghai curators are too enthusiastic about their choices of film and indeed, they are also cinema history experts.
We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate our partner for their success and good luck to the 2023 British film masters retrospective. The season is very likely to be sold out and funded by the Shanghai municipal government.
British Film Masters Retrospective 2023 (Shanghai) Programme
The Fallen Idol (1948)
Dir. Carol Reed
A butler working in a foreign embassy in London falls under suspicion when his wife accidentally falls to her death, the only witness being an impressionable young boy.
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Dir. Robert Hamer
A distant poor relative of the Duke D’Ascoyne plots to inherit the title by murdering the eight other heirs who stand ahead of him in the line of succession.
Summertime (1955)
Dir. David Lean
An American spinster’s dream of romance finally becomes a bittersweet reality when she meets a handsome–but married–Italian man while vacationing in Venice.
Lord of the Flies (1963)
Dir. Peter Brook
Schoolboys marooned on a Pacific island create their own savage civilization.
Accident (1967)
Dir. Joseph Losey
At Oxford, Austrian student Anna von Graz (Jacqueline Sassard) is dating fellow student William (Michael York), whom she plans to marry, but she ends up involved with two unhappily married Oxford professors instead.
Darling (1965)
Dir. John Schlesinger
Beautiful but amoral model Diana Scott sleeps her way to the top of the London fashion scene at the height of the Swinging Sixties.
Watership Down (1978)
Dir. Martin Rosen, John Hubley
Hoping to escape destruction by human developers and save their community, a colony of rabbits, led by Hazel and Fiver, seek out a safe place to set up a new warren
Friendship’s Death (1987)
In the 1970s, aliens send a female android diplomat to Earth on a mission of peace. She lands in war-torn Palestine instead of MIT by mistake and meets a friendly UK journalist there. They begin a series of insightful conversations.
War Requiem (1989)
Dir. Peter Wollen
A movie with no spoken dialogue, it is set against the music and lyrics of Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem” which includes poetry by World War I soldier Wilfred Owen reflecting the horrors of war. There is no linear story or dialogue.
Orlando (1992)
Dir. Sally Potter
After Queen Elizabeth I commands him not to grow old, a young nobleman struggles with love and his place in the world.
Spellbound (1945)
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
A psychiatrist protects the identity of an amnesia patient accused of murder while attempting to recover his memory.
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
A psychopathic man tries to forcibly persuade a tennis star to agree to his theory that two strangers can get away with murder by submitting to his plan to kill the other’s most-hated person.
Tickets on sale now.
