Bristol Film Festival unveils Spring 2023 programme

Back for its eighth year (with time off for good behaviour during lockdown), Bristol Film Festival has announced a packed Spring programme of screenings at unusual locations around the city.

Averys wine cellar, beneath the wine merchant’s historic shop on Culver Street, has been a location for the festival since its inception, and they’re back for another bunch of intimate screenings with complementary wine tastings in the Screening Room and Vintage strands. These kick off with pre-Valentines outings for the classic Groundhog Day (Feb 10) and, if you really must, Notting Hill (Feb 11). If that’s not enough romance for you, it’s followed a 30th anniversary screening of Sleepless in Seattle (Feb 15).

March brings modern hits Hunt for the Wilderpeople (March 10) and Jojo Rabbit (March 11), followed by those classics In the Heat of the Night (March 16) and The Ladykillers (March 17). There’s time to sober up before the enjoyable black comedy whodunnit Clue (April 22), Marilyn Monroe/Betty Grable/Lauren Bacall screwball comedy How To Marry a Millionaire (April 25) and the ever-popular Amelie (April 28).

More classics follow in May with the John Huston/Humphrey Bogart adventure The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (May 17), Doris Day musical Calamity Jane (May 19) and Audrey Hepburn’s breakout romcom Roman Holiday (May 20).

A brace of rather more recent classics take us into June. Bruce Robinson’s Withnail and I (June 9) will presumably be accompanied by the finest wines available to humanity, and the series concludes with another film celebrating its 30th anniversary: Joel Schumacher’s controversial yet prescient Falling Down (June 13).

One of Bristol’s newest event spaces, The Mount Without is a more recent addition to the festival’s regular venues. The programme here kicks off with two screenings of Baz Luhrmann’s enduringly popular Romeo + Juliet (Feb 11) followed by two screenings of one of the fest’s most popular films, Sideways, to celebrate World Wine Day (Feb 17) . Next up are a pair of musicals on March 8:  Disney’s 1991 animated version of Beauty and the Beast and the 2004 screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera. Finally at The Mount Without, there’s a couple of very different swashbuckling adventures on March 15: The Muppet Treasure Island and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

Another recent addition to the festival’s venue list is the Goldney Hall Orangery in Clifton. They’re back here on March 9 for two screenings. First up is the feature-length The Sign of Three episode of the BBC’s Sherlock, featuring Dr. Watson’s wedding, which was actually filmed in the Orangery. Later that evening, they’re showing the all-star Sidney Lumet version of Murder on the Orient Express.

The Clifton Observatory programme kicks off, appropriately enough, with that Pixar masterpiece Up (Feb 12). That’s followed by an ’80s hoofing double-bill on the same day: Flashdance and Dirty Dancing. On March 5, they’re showing three films that turn 25 this year: Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, the Farrelly brothers’ There’s Something About Mary and the Coens’ cult fave The Big Lebowski. April 23 brings another three films, this time with a very English flavour for St. George’s Day: Disney’s psychedelic 1951 animated version of Alice in Wonderland followed by costume dramas Pride and Prejudice and Shakespeare In Love.

These days, Concorde lives in a special hangar at Aerospace Bristol and the Bristol Film Festival has often screened aviation classics beneath its wings. Valentines Day sees the return of the big one, Top Gun, followed five weeks later by the hit sequel Top Gun: Maverick (March 21). To mark the 80th anniversary of Operation Chastise, the restored version of The Dam Busters will be shown on May 16. Interestingly the BBFC now sees fit to warn tremulous modern viewers that in addition to the racist dog and ‘mild bad language’ this 1955 film includes several scenes in which characters smoke cigarettes.

The Anglican Chapel at Arnos Vale cemetery is a great location for showing spooky stuff. Bristol Film Fest has half a dozen screenings of films with a fantasy twist in early March. On March 1, you can see the original none-more-1980s The Neverending Story, Henry Selick’s magnificent Coraline and Tim Burton’s superb Edward Scissorhands. On March 2, they’re screening Disney’s Sleeping Beauty reboot Maleficent, the 2008 adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust and Guillermo Del Toro’s Oscar-winning Pan’s Labyrinth.

Traditionally the location for the festival’s hugely popular Horror in the Caves series, Redcliffe Caves hosts a rather more diverse selection of fantasy and adventure flicks this spring, kicking off with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (March 10). The following day brings a Batman Day, kicking off with the original Adam West Batman: the Movie. That’s followed by Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, the Oscar-winning Joker and that most recent iteration The Batman.

March 12’s 1980s programme is somewhat lighter in tone: Flash Gordon, The Goonies, Romancing the Stone, Labyrinth and The Princess Bride.

The Loco Klub beneath Temple Meads station plays host to two screenings on March 19: the evergreen Some Like It Hot and Baz Luhrmann’s stylish, Oscar-winning adaptation of The Great Gatsby.

And that’s not all. The festival also brings the most glamorous prostitution movie ever made, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, to the Royal West of England Academy for a gala screening with drinks and live music on March 4. The original Lon Chaney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame celebrates its centenary this year and the BFF has a special screening at Bristol Cathedral on March 7 with live organ accompaniment by David Bednall.

Tickets for all screenings are on sale now. Visit the festival’s events page for details.

Main picture credit: Paramount