BFI have announced a stellar programme for the second edition of the BFI Film on Film Festival, taking place at BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX from 12-15 June 2025, opening with Star Wars (1977), screening publicly for the first time in decades in its original 1977 version.
Star Wars is only one of the many celluloid treats at this year’s Film on Film Festival. As we mark the 35th anniversary of Twin Peaks (1990), BFI are thrilled to announce that Kyle MacLachlan will be joining the festival on stage to present the pilot episode of Twin Peaks on closing night. While most contemporary cinema screenings are digital, the festival celebrates the medium of ‘film’ itself, where every film, without exception, is projected from a print. The festival provides a unique cinematic experience that enables audiences to enjoy film in all its glory, exploring its aesthetics and celebrating the skills required to work with it.
This year’s festival promises a wealth of both familiar and rare discovery titles, (almost) all of them taken from the vast collections of the BFI National Archive, which celebrates its 90th anniversary this year. The programme spans fiction features, documentaries, artists’ work, and much more in between across the widest range of formats, from 8mm to IMAX and everything in between. There’s even room for Pathé’s forgotten 28mm gauge.
Star Wars (1977)
The prints in this year’s programme have many stories to tell. There’s the original, unfaded dye transfer IB Technicolor British release print of Star Wars (1977), preserved in the BFI National Archive, and ready to transport us to a long time ago, and a galaxy far, far away, back to the moment in 1977 when George Lucas’s vision cast a spell on cinema audiences. There’s also the 35mm print of the US pilot episode of David Lynch’s much loved Twin Peaks, the very same print used for the first UK television broadcast in 1990, presented at Film on Film by special guest and star of the series, Kyle MacLachlan, plus a chance to experience unique prints of The Killing (1956), and Stanley Kubrick’s very first short The Day of the Fight (1951) loaned from Kubrick’s own personal print collection.
The Killing (1956)
In 2023, Film on Film offered the first UK public nitrate screenings in over a decade. The BFI’s commitment to screening nitrate continues with five precious nitrate prints, among them an original 1929 print of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s Surrealist masterpiece Un Chien Andalou (1928), making it the oldest print ever projected to UK audiences. Watching such original release prints carries an unmistakable emotional charge, putting us in touching distance of a film’s first release. We know we are looking upon and experiencing the very same object as its initial audience. Every film print is a unique object with its own life story.
There’s also the opportunity to see prints of comparatively recent films, such as Mary Harron’s I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) which is currently unavailable on home entertainment in the UK, plus pristine release prints of Prince’s Under the Cherry Moon (1986) (ripe for reappraisal) and Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s A Moment of Innocence (1996), one of a number of the Iranian filmmaker’s family films that have been recently donated to the BFI National Archive.
Film on Film will also premiere five 35mm prints newly created by the BFI, part of an ongoing commitment to ensuring audiences can enjoy the rare experience of watching an excellent 35mm film print projected. These 35mm print premieres include Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero (1983) and Vernon Sewell’s gripping thriller Strongroom (1962), a favourite of Scorsese, Tarantino and Edgar Wright, as well as screening original release 70mm prints of Amadeus and Empire of the Sun plus a 2018 15 perf/70mm IMAX print of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), created under the supervision of Christopher Nolan, and screening for the first time on Britain’s biggest cinema screen at the BFI IMAX.
Empire of the Sun (1987)
Our documentary strand features The Grierson Sisters: Today we Live, a programme of BFI-created 35mm prints celebrating the innovative films of Ruby and Marion Grierson, sisters of revered documentarian John Grierson and premiering new BFI National Archive 35mm prints of their films. Deep Cuts on Super 8 and 16mm in the Experimenta programme includes artist Wendy Smith’s There’s Only One United (1974), documenting her beloved Leeds United on Super 8 during the team’s celebrated 1973-74 season. Formed in response to the repressive state of American politics and social relations, the Newsreel Collective made dynamic use of the opportunities afforded by mobile 16mm cameras to report from the frontline on intersectional struggles. The State of the Union: The American Newsreel Collective programme retains a sense of urgency in its exploration of everyday working lives.
The festival weekend will also include workshops, talks and a number of free events, including the chance to hear from expert voices from the BFI’s world-leading conservation, curatorial and projection teams. BFI National Archive’s conservation specialists will be available for drop-in Handling Film sessions, where visitors will have the opportunity to handle, wind, measure, identify, and cut and join film. This year, Film on Film will also bring the 35mm projection booth to the audience, installing a projector and platter system in the main foyer and screening a surprise BFI print with the equipment in full view to show how film was projected in most cinemas from the 1980s to the 2010s. Drawn almost exclusively from films preserved in the BFI National Archive, with screenings introduced by members of the archival team, the festival will include 38 features, 36 shorts, and 1 Television work, screening from 2 8mm, 20 17mm prints, 52 35mm prints (including five nitrate; four x scope formats) and 3 70mm prints; the combined length of these prints is around 380,000 feet.
James Bell, Senior Curator of Fiction, BFI National Archive and Programme Director, BFI Film on Film Festival, said, “The BFI Film on Film Festival is a true showcase for the richness of the BFI National Archive, and the expertise of our curators, archivists and projectionists. Every print in the programme is a unique object with its own life story, and they all bear their scars with pride. They put us at touching distance to the past, and we can’t wait for audiences to experience them all. We’re grateful for the generous support from philanthropic champions who have helped us deliver a rich and exciting programme that keeps Film on Film alive.”
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