Barbican Centre announces ‘Step into the Dark’ season of films

The Barbican Centre is celebrating the launch of their two new cinema screens with a season of films titled Step into the Dark. All three of the Barbican Centre’s screens, including their recently refurbished main screen, boast full digital projection and audio equipment alongside 35mm and 16mm film projectors, reflecting their commitment to archive and world cinema. As Managing Director Sir Nicholas Kenyon says, ‘Film has always been a vital element of what we do, as an art form in itself and because of the role it plays within the Barbican as an arts centre. Our film offer allows our audiences to delve further into our programme of exhibitions, music, theatre and dance performances’.

Step into the Dark is a six-week, five-strand season of films exploring dystopia, the sublime and the surreal on screen, connecting to other work across the Barbican. For the headline season, ‘Seven Deadly Sins’, twelve famous names from the arts world were asked to select a film encapsulating one of the titular vices. Each screening will be followed by an ‘in-conversation’ event with the artist who selected the title.

The season includes selections from Sam Taylor-Wood, Nick Broomfield, Richard Ayoade, Kazuo Ishiguro, Mike Leigh, Vivienne Westwood and Andrea Arnold. Stephen Frears has kept it in the family by aligning Arnold’s Fish Tank (2010) with ‘wrath’. Other highlights include the rare chance to see the delectably amoral Barbara Stanwyck classic Baby Face (1933), selected by Leigh to reflect ‘greed’, and Michael Nyman’s choice for ‘lust’ in the recent, lush Mexican film Silent Light (2007).

The other strands making up Step into the Dark are ‘Everyday I Have the Blues’, celebrating jazz and the blues on film to compliment the London Jazz Festival in the Barbican Hall; ‘Dark Heart of Fairy Tales’, coinciding with the bicentenary of the Brothers Grimm stories; ‘Suppression/Expression’, showcasing controversial political films of the 1960s and ‘70s; and ‘Silent Horror and Live Music’, exploring German Expressionist silent films including Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Step into the Dark runs from Friday 2 November to Sunday 9 December. Tickets can be booked from October 1 by calling the box office on 020 7638 8891 or at www.barbican.org.uk/film.