The BFI Player is one of the best streaming services not enough people notice, notes Alasdair Stuart. It’s carefully curated, frequently updated and has a range of movies, incredible short films and a huge library of newsreel. Every time I go in there I find something new and interesting and I especially love how it’s become a component of the BFI’s seasons.

That’s true of Art of Action, a season running across the last two months of this year at multiple locations across the UK. BFI Southbank in London is a big part of that but it’s incredibly refreshing, and inspiring, to see a body like the British Film Institute work so hard to ensure that places outside the capital city are well served too. Here’s some of the UK-wide events tying in:

  • Broadway Cinema’s action mini season designed for Under-25s and marginalised audiences, which will include a day of Robin Hood screenings to mark Nottingham’s Robin Hood Marathon.
  • Call to Action, a programme curated by Reclaim the Frame that centres women of colour working in front of and behind the camera in the action genre, from the 90s to the present day. Comprising special events with guests including stunt performer Ayesha Hussian, panel conversations, demos and screenings, Call to Action will tour venues including Hackney Picturehouse, Dukes at Komedia Picturehouse (Brighton), Glasgow Film Theatre and Midlands Art Centre (Birmingham).
  • Cromarty Kicks Ass, a tightly packed season of films run by Cromarty Community Cinema in the Highlands, Scotland, will address themes of justice, revenge, honour and the global desire to have the cinema shake with action, alongside parkour and capoeira demonstrations and workshops, and a free outdoor screening of a Jackie Chan classic accompanied by a live musician and torchlight lion dance.
  • Exeter Phoenix: Smash The Glass, which will celebrate the women who have advanced action cinema both on and off-screen, delivered in partnership with Girls on Film critic and broadcaster Anna Smith, with collaborations from Plymouth Art Cinema.
  • Fabrica in Brighton will deliver Creative Action, a weekend-long festival empowering young people aged 16-25, women and people of marginalized genders by repositioning the cultural significance of action films for audiences. The festival will engage these groups through partnerships with women, non-binary and queer-friendly martial arts clubs, a programme of shorts from local and international animators and a collaboration with their young film programmers’ group, Fresh Perspectives.
  • The ninth edition of Fighting Spirit Film Festival, with martial arts shorts and features presented alongside martial arts and weapons demonstrations, a martial arts workshop and seminars on choreographing a short action sequence.
  • Hyde Park Picture House Leeds’s programme exploring the history of car races and chases in global cinema, featuring talks and Q&As with academics, car enthusiasts and stuntwomen, plus a day-long educational session as part of Hyde Park Picture House’s Film School strand.
  • The Magic Lantern screening Point Break alongside the local surf community in Tywyn with entertainment including a live band and a party; The General with live musical accompaniment and trips on the Talyllyn steam railway; martial arts demos, a free sword fighting workshop and Welsh filmmaker Garth Evans’ RAID II.
  • MilkTea’s ESEA In Action, at Brixton Ritzy in London and City Screen in York, which will showcase a program of East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) cinema with their programme theme, Black x Asian cultural crossover, in partnership with Dark Matter.
  • Mitchell Arts Centre’s celebration of the ‘original Hollywood action hero’, Buster Keaton, with enhanced screenings featuring live musical accompaniment from musician Meg Morley and an introduction from local film historian Ray Johnson.
  • Queen’s Film Theatre Belfast’s programme spanning the breadth of the genre with special events including a celebration of women in action with film journalist Helen O’Hara, a stage combat demonstration by fight director Philip Rafferty, and an action all-nighter curated by QFT’s LUMI programmers.

Of particular interest to SFB readers should be Polity Society, last year’s self described ‘joyful kung fu Bollywood epic’ and a long over due re-release for Kathryn Bigelow’s surf-noir action classic, Point Break. If you’ve never seen it, you’re in for a treat. Also, your theories about what John Wick did before becoming the baba yaga are about to change radically.

More details can be found at

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news/bfi-unveils-major-uk-wide-new-season-art-action

and even more will be announced soon. The season runs October-December 2024.

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