THE BFI today announces a special digital in conversation event with Lennie James.

The online event, which is part of the ongoing BFI at Home programme, will feature Lennie James, the creator, writer and star of the universally acclaimed Save Me Too in conversation with BBC 6 Music film critic and broadcaster Rhianna Dhillon on June 22, 19:00 BST, via BFI YouTube.

The event, which coincides with the home ent release of Save Me Too, will look back at the success of the show, how Lennie is spending lockdown and his varied and esteemed career, including starring in television phenomena Line Of Duty, The Walking Dead and Fear The Walking Dead, as well as roles in blockbuster films including SNATCH and BLADE RUNNER 2049.

Save Me Too, which stars Suranne Jones, Stephen Graham and Jason Flemyng, has James delivering a powerhouse performance as Nelly, on a desperate search for his missing daughter Jody with potentially terrible consequences for him and those around him.

All episodes of Save Me Too are available on Sky Atlantic on demand and NOW TV, and available on DVD from the June 22.

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New on 19 June

RESISTANCE (2020) directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz

Jesse Eisenberg stars in the true story of Jewish Boy Scouts joining the French Resistance to save over 10,000 orphans from the Nazis in World War Two. He plays famous mime artist Marcel Marceau who, together with a group of activists, fights to rescue 123 Jewish orphans from ruthless Nazis led by SS Klaus Barbie, and take them safely across the Swiss border.

New on 26 June

FANNY LYE DELIVR’D (2019) directed by Thomas Clay

BFI Film Funded FANNY LYE DELIVR’Dsees Maxine Peake’s eponymous Fanny Lye living a quiet Puritan life with her husband John (Charles Dance) and young son Arthur (Zak Adams). But her simple world is shaken to its core by the unexpected arrival of a mysterious young couple (Freddie Fox and Tanya Reynolds) in need.

ON THE RECORD (2020) directed by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering.

This Sundance documentary centres allegations of sexual abuse and harassment against hip hop mogul Russell Simmons, co-founder of Def Jam Records, featuring interviews with some of the over 20 women who have accused him, including Drew Dixon, a former A&R executive who decided to break her silence and go public. A significant #MeToo moment for black women working in the US music industry.

New on 29 June

A WHITE, WHITE DAY (2019) directed by Hlynur Pálmason

Iceland’s finest actor Ingvar Sigurðsson gives a heart-breaking and Cannes award-winning performance as widowed cop who becomes increasingly obsessed with his wife’s death. This is no standard police procedural, Hlynur Pálmason’s highly original and emotionally complex drama exploring the ravages of loss screened at the BFI London Film Festival. Hypnotic images highlight the beauty and strangeness of Iceland’s breathtaking landscape, while Sigurðsson’s towering performance reveals the interior devastation of a man consumed by loss.

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New today – 15 June

Part 5, the final part of WOMEN MAKE FILM: A NEW ROAD MOVIE THROUGH CINEMA,includes chapters on love, death and the meaning of life.

New on 22 June

THE LAST TREE (2019) directed by Shola Amoo

Femi, a young British boy of Nigerian heritage, has to adapt to the new environment of inner-city London, in this outstanding, BIFA-winning BFI Film Funded drama from Shola Amoo (Amoo’s feature debut, A MOVING IMAGE is also available to view on BFI Player). Sam Adewunmi stars as the teenage Femi who must decide which path to adulthood he wants to take, and find out what it means to be a young black man in London during the early 00s.

New on 29 June

ARMY OF SHADOWS (1969) /LE DOULOS (1962) /LE CERCLE ROUGE (1970) directed by Jean-Pierre Melville

ARMY OF SHADOWS

Based on the novel by Joseph Kessel this classic French war drama draws on the director’s own experiences in World War II. The film follows a band of resistance fighters in German-controlled France. As the grip of the occupying force tightens, friendships, loyalty and trust give way to suspicion, secrecy and loss.

LE DOULOS

The backstabbing criminals in Melville’s shadowy underworld only have one guiding principle: “Lie or die.” By the end of this brutal, twisting and multilayered policier who will be left to trust? Shot and edited with Melville’s trademark cool with masterfully stylized dialogue and a memorable performance from a stone-faced Jean-Paul Belmondo.

LE CERCLE ROUGE

A masterpiece of crime cinema, Alain Delon plays a master thief, fresh out of prison, who crosses paths with a notorious escapee and an alcoholic ex-cop. The unlikely trio plot a heist, against impossible odds, until a relentless inspector and their own pasts seal their fates.

New from the BFI on 2 July

*** Viewing link available***

LYNN + LUCY (2019) directed by Fyzal Boulifa

A lifelong friendship is tested by tragedy in this atmospheric and intense first feature from acclaimed British shorts director Fyzal Boulifa which premiered at the BFI London Film Festival. Beautifully acted, this taut thriller of bad choices, misunderstandings and escalating social unrest skilfully transcends conventional British film genres and tropes.

FREE FILMS TO WATCH

Explore over 10,000 free archive films on BFI Player from the last 120 years at https://player.bfi.org.uk/free

BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE COLLECTION OF THE WEEK:

KEEP FIT https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/collection/keep-fit

To paraphrase Olivia Newton-John, “Let’s get physical”. With over a century of exercise on film, this new collection, digitised thanks to National Lottery funding, offers some high intensity viewing. Drawn from the BFI National Archive and regional film archive partners across the UK the selection of titles proves that Britons advocated exercise and keep fit regimes long before The Body Coach, Joe Wicks’s lockdown workouts.

Victorians might not have known how to Zumba, but few generations have been without a fitness craze. Since its earliest days film has been used to champion a variety of physical pursuits, from calisthenics and running, to cycling, rambling and haggis hurling. Whether it is the spectacle of the form in motion, the pursuit of healthy body and mind, or an excuse to let it all hang out, this collection is testament to the fact that when it comes to exercise it’s not about winning, it’s the taking part that counts.

Three to see for free:

4 and 20 Fit Girls (1940)

These sprightly scenes of women partaking in energetic group exercise at a local community hall add up to something of a wartime curio. The film was part of a wider three-year national fitness campaign organised by the National Fitness Council for England and Wales, which issued grants to local authorities to run fitness classes like the one shown.

Long Distance Runner (1974) (Media Archive for Central England, University of Lincoln)

They breed them hard in Dudley – running non-stop for 24 hours is nothing to ultra-runner Ron Bentley. This local news report announces his next challenge, an 800 mile race across Finland, getting his training miles in running to and from work Ron even pops out for a run during his lunch break.

Stoke Mandeville Sports Stadium for the Disabled (1967) (UEA’s East Anglian Film Archive)

Rare home movie captures sporting action in 1967 at Stoke Mandeville Stadium, birthplace of the Paralympics. Stoke Mandeville hosted a yearly international sporting competition for wheelchair users. This amateur footage shows wheelchair athletes competing in a range of sports including archery and javelin.

BFI RECOMMENDS – A daily series on the BFI website of recommended viewing on BFI Player chosen by our film-loving staff from across the BFI – all BFI Recommends to date can be viewed here:

#BFIRecommends

Mon 15/6: – WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968) directed by Michael Reeves

Available to rent https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-witchfinder-general-1968-online

Senior Archive Projects Curator Mark Duguid is struck by Michael Reeves caustic analysis of the English in his cult 1968 British horror. Inspired by the savage deeds of the real Matthew Hopkins, the self-proclaimed ‘witchfinder general’ who stalked East Anglia during the English Civil War terrorising women, the film boasts a particularly malevolent central performance from Vincent Price. Conceived during the Summer of Love and released in May 68, at the height of the uprising in Paris, Reeves’ film shows how easily breathtaking cruelty and endemic misogyny can be tolerated and even thrive in the thick of revolution.

Tue 16/6: THE GREAT WHITE SILENCE (1924) directed by Herbert Ponting

Available to rent: https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-the-great-white-silence-1924-online  

Conservation Specialist, Angelo Lucatello, revisits the BFI National Archive’s extensive restoration project to bring The Great White Silence, Herbert Ponting’s breathtakingly beautiful record of Captain Scott’s legendary expedition to the South Pole (1910-13), back to life. Angelo lived and breathed this film for almost a year. It felt like a privilege to handle the original negatives that had been shot at the South Pole, but also a responsibility to do them justice, attempting to match hundreds of short rolls of film, even trying to identify individual penguins, to select the best material. The conservation team were even able to return the original colours to the film by following Ponting’s tinting and toning instructions which he had scratched onto the film negative.

Wed 17/6: RED ROAD (2006) directed by Andrea Arnold

Available to subscribers https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-red-road-2006-online 

BFI National Archive Fiction Curator Jo Botting champions Andrea Arnold’s much garlanded debut feature as being distinctly British in style. This intense and intriguing voyeuristic Glaswegian take on Rear Window is a complete antidote to the genteel period drama that is British Cinema’s stock in trade. Though the setting is bleak and squalid, the film’s title refers to the monstrous tower blocks, now demolished, which dominate the skyline, and which had become synonymous with crime and anti-social behaviour, Arnold’s film never revels in or exploits this, just uses it as the backdrop for what is, ultimately, a tale of hope and redemption.

Thu 18/6: DJANGO (1966) directed by Sergio Corbucci

Available to subscribers https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-django-1966-online Press and PR Coordinator Victoria Millington finds herself drawn to the mysterious lone drifter who calls himself Django. From the opening bars of Luis Bacalov’s score and Rocky Robert’s heroic vocal to a lone figure dragging his coffin through a muddy, apocalyptic landscape, this landmark ‘spaghetti western’ set the benchmark for this stylistic, violent, influential, political, fun and often sadistic genre. Discover for yourself what Django stores in his coffin. This is far from a mindless violent western however, covering racism, political and social themes. If you are looking for a spaghetti feast after the films of maestro Sergio Leone and Sergio Sollima then look no further than DJANGO