BFI Film on Film Festival line-up includes original release print of Star Wars and Twin Peaks pilot episode with special guest Kyle MacLachlan

We’re delighted to announce the programme for the second edition of the BFI Film on Film Festival, taking place at BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX from 12 to 15 June 2025 and opening with Star Wars (1977), screening publicly for the first time in decades in its original 1977 version. 

Today marks the 35th anniversary of Twin Peaks’ (1990) first broadcast on US television and we are thrilled that Kyle MacLachlan will be joining us on stage at the festival to present the pilot episode of Twin Peaks for our closing night. While the majority of contemporary cinema screenings are digital, the festival is a celebration of 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.

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 Day of the Fight (1951) loaned from Kubrick’s own personal print collection.

In 2023 Film on Film offered the first UK public screenings of nitrate 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 (1929) 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.

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 to 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 see 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 5 nitrate; 4 x scope formats) and 3 70mm prints; the combined length of these prints is around 380,000 feet.

“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,” says James Bell, Senior Curator of Fiction, BFI National Archive and Programme Director, BFI Film on Film Festival. “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.”  

The BFI Film on Film Festival is made possible thanks to the generous support of the BFI Patrons Consortium, BFI America, the Adam S Rubinson Charitable Fund*, The Charles Skey Charitable Trust, The Polonsky Foundation and The Thompson Family Charitable Trust. (*Donation made to BFI America.)

An unmissable treat for Star Wars fans. A long time ago, George Lucas’s original space fantasy set in a galaxy far, far away was released in 1977, captivating countless imaginations for generations to come and forever shifting popular culture. Film on Film presents Star Wars exactly as experienced by audiences on its original release, screening from one of the precious handful of dye transfer IB Technicolor prints produced for the first British release, preserved in the BFI National Archive.

On display to coincide with the opening night screening there is also a rare opportunity to view material from the original continuity script for Star Wars, which includes rare on-set Polaroids, annotations and deleted scenes. The script is from the collection of Ann Skinner, script editor on the original film, and is now cared for by the BFI National Archive.

Screening on a 35mm print for the first time ever in the UK, David Lynch’s masterful mystery series begins when the death of Laura Palmer devastates the residents of Twin Peaks. The US pilot episode for Twin Peaks introduces us to David Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost’s beloved characters, along with FBI Agent Dale Cooper’s appreciation for black coffee and Douglas Firs. This closing night presentation is from the very same pristine 35mm print used for the original BBC TV broadcast in October 1990, which was later donated to the BFI National Archive and will be followed by a Q&A with special guest and star of the series Kyle MacLachlan.

An opportunity to watch two early Stanley Kubrick classics – his very first short and breakthrough feature – screen from unique prints loaned from the filmmaker’s own personal collection, introduced by Stanley Kubrick’s long-term executive producer, brother in-law and close friend, Jan Harlan. The Killing (1956) Kubrick’s breakthrough, written by pulp novelist Jim Thompson, thrillingly reinvented the heist film, recounting the robbery of a racetrack by a motley gang of criminals in radical, chronology-splintering fashion, delivering a noir masterpiece. Screening with Day of the Fight (1951), Kubrick’s very first film which displays his masterly control and visual panache, following a boxer preparing for a fight.

A festival highlight from 2023, a rare nitrate programme returns to Film on Film, with BFI Southbank being the only cinema in the country equipped to screen nitrate. The programme of five films includes an unmissable opportunity to see two contrasting classics of European cinema screening from original 35mm nitrate prints, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s Surrealist masterpiece, and the oldest print ever projected to UK audiences, Un chien andalou (1929) (beating 1932’s Service for Ladies which screened in 2023 by three years), and Jean Renoir’s Partie de campagne (1936).

Also screening, a release print of Hitchcock’s original version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), the film that launched Hitchcock’s peerless series of spy thrillers, starring Peter Lorre in his first English-speaking role, Leslie Banks and Edna Best. Plus, Richard Attenborough and Sheila Sima star in John Paddy Carstairs’s exuberant crime drama Dancing with Crime (1947) and Marc Allégret’s stunning Technicolor British melodrama Blanche Fury (1947) starring Valerie Hobson and Stuart Granger screen from original post-war nitrate prints.

Lubitsch’s silent classic The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) serves up lantern-lit beer gardens, moonlit apple blossom and young love in old Heidelberg, accompanied by one of Carl Davis’s best orchestral scores. The 35mm print being shown is from the Photoplay restoration and is screening as a tribute to the late Carl Davis, who died in 2023, the score will be live-synched to accompany this very special screening.

Also screening in tribute, Finye (1982) a moving post-colonial drama from Malian director Souleymane Cissé, who died in February. Cissé’s beautifully shot film is a clear-eyed satire of the injustices of postcolonial Mali inside an achingly tender Romeo and Juliet love story. Gene Hackman, who died in February stars in Barry Sonnenfeld’s whip-smart Elmore Leonard adaptation Get Shorty (1995) screening in a pristine original release print. Hackman stars as Harry Zimm, a Hollywood producer of sleazy horror flicks, alongside John Travolta’s mob loan shark Chili Palmer turned film producer and performances from Danny Devito, Rene Russo, Delroy Lindo and James Gandolfini.

2025 marks Elmore Leonard’s centenary, the festival programme also celebrates the centenaries of D.A. Pennebaker and Paul Newman. D.A. Pennebaker’s landmark documentary Dont Look Back, which follows Bob Dylan on his 1965 tour of England (1967), screens in a pristine 35mm print blown up from the film’s original 16mm release.

Paul Newman is unscrupulous, unrepentant and magnetic as the titular character in Hud (1963), Martin Ritt’s story of generational tension and rugged individualism gone sour on a small-town cattle ranch. Hud screens from a 1992 print and is part of a focus on black and white Cinemascope alongside an original release print of Otto Preminger’s Washington set thriller Advise and Consent (1962) and Miklós Jancsó’s searing portrayal of Hungarian political oppression and conflict, The Round-Up (1966), screening in a new print made by the Hungarian National Film Institute for the BFI, from restored negatives.

Big is beautiful at Film on Film as we celebrate the sumptuous scale of 70mm on a pair of excellent original release prints. Donated to the BFI National Archive in 2006 by the Saul Zaentz Company, this is a rare chance to experience Milos Forman and Peter Shaffer’s sumptuous Oscar-winning Amadeus (1984), on an original 70mm blow-up release print. Tom Hulce stars as the young genius in this dramatization of the last decade of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s short life alongside F. Murray Abraham’s Oscar-winning performance as the overshadowed and resentful Antonio Salieri.

Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Empire of the Sun (1987), J.G. Ballard’s autobiographical account of survival under Japanese occupation during the Second World War, sees a young Christian Bale shine in this moving tale of trauma and resilience. Shot on 35mm the film had a limited release blown-up to 70mm.

Screening for the very first time on Britain’s biggest cinema screen at BFI IMAX is a magnificent 15 perf/70mm IMAX print of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), viewers will have a chance to experience Kubrick’s cosmic-scale masterpiece in the highest resolution possible. The film’s warnings about the dangers of unbridled technology, via the sentient HAL 9000, feel particularly resonant with the current debates around AI. The print was created in 2018 in an entirely photochemical process supervised and approved by Christopher Nolan. The ultimate trip indeed.

Film on Film will premiere four 35mm prints newly created by the BFI, Bill Forsyth’s dazzling cinematic gem Local Hero (1983), Jacques Tourneur and Val Lewton’s I Walked with a Zombie (1943), described by filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul as one of the most beautiful black-and-white films ever made, Roberto Rossellini’s classic portrait of loneliness, longing and marital strife, Journey to Italy (1954) and the rediscovery of Vernon Sewell’s highly influential British heist film Strongroom (1962), hailed by the likes of Tarantino, Scorsese and Edgar Wright.

Over 100 35mm prints of classic films have been created by the BFI as part of an ongoing commitment to ensuring audiences can enjoy the rare experience of watching an excellent 35mm film print projected, this flagship programme has been funded by the National Lottery with support of donors to the BFI’s Keep Film on Film campaign, plus additional support from The Polonsky Foundation for the print of Journey to Italy.

Ingeniously revisiting an incident in the director’s own life, Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s A Moment of Innocence (1996) is one of the key Iranian films of the 1990s. Brilliantly traversing past and present, fact and fiction, memory and reality. Resident in London after fleeing Iran along with his family (filmmakers Marziyeh, Samira, Maysam and Hana), who also hold refugee status in Britain, the multi award-winning director recently donated a number of his family’s films to the BFI National Archive including this original 1996 release print in excellent condition, which will be introduced by Mohsen Makhmalbaf at the festival.

The festival programme also offers a wealth of discoveries, rare prints, cult classics and exciting surprises for audiences, that are difficult to see in cinemas and in some cases currently unavailable on home entertainment/streaming formats. Highlights of rarities and discoveries on offer include a pristine 16mm print of Mary Harron’s long unavailable superb feature debut, I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), tackling the troubled life of Valerie Solanas (a fabulous performance by Lili Taylor), radical feminist, playwright, sex worker and attempted murderer of Andy Warhol (here played by Jared Harris).

Following the screening of the Perrys’ The Swimmer in 2023, we’re offering an ultra-rare opportunity to see Last Summer (1969), Frank and Eleanor Perry’s exploration of the power plays and casual cruelties that surface between a group of teenagers over one summer, presented in association with Lost Reels, an independent organisation dedicated to showing lost, unavailable and out-of-circulation films.

One of the great African films of the 1970s, Haile Gerima’s urgent critique Harvest: 3000 Years (1976) is a magnificent account of the inequities of neo-colonial Ethiopia, combining a neo-realist approach with experimental techniques. Haile Gerima returned to Ethiopia to shoot the film in the immediate aftermath of the overthrow of Haile Selassie, against the backdrop of civil war and a military dictatorship on its way.  

Robert Duvall avenges his brother’s murder by the mob in The Outfit (1973), John Flynn’s unsparingly tough inheritor of classic 1940s noir. A favourite of Tarantino, who once planned to remake it, Flynn’s film ranks among the most overlooked US films of its era.  

Ripe for reappraisal is Prince’s monochrome follow up to Purple Rain, Under the Cherry Moon (1986), striking in a pristine original release print. Opening to hostile reception, Prince’s second feature now offers audiences a fascinating insight into his mindset in his most creative era. An anachronistic fantasy of the 1940s French Riviera, Prince plays a pianist and gigolo-on-the make who falls (for real) for a rich girl, Kristin Scott Thomas, in her feature debut.

After the sell-out screening of Ash Wednesday at the 2023 festival, Liz Taylor returns to Film on Film with Night Watch (1973), another lost star-vehicle from Taylor’s most underappreciated era. Taylor ventures into Grand Guignol territory, in this London-set chiller about an unstable woman who may have witnessed a murder. A lot of fun and a must see for ‘late Liz’ fans.

Cult-film master Larry Cohen disrupts New York’s densely packed streets with Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) his monstrous, trashy tale of a giant flying lizard terrorising the city from its nest high above in the Chrysler Building starring Michael Moriarty, Candy Clark, David Carradine and Richard Rowntree.

In On Approval (1944) two courting couples cohabit with farcical results in this brilliantly conceived romp, the only feature that star Clive Brook ever directed. With costumes by Cecil Beaton, music by William Alwyn and photography by Claude Friese-Greene, The BFI National Archive preserves the original negatives of the film and this 35mm print made in 1996 has only been screened publicly once since its creation.

Also screening, James Cagney is a ball of energy as a hustler-on-the make in Mervyn LeRoy’s pre-Code comedy Hard to Handle (1933). A real rediscovery, Laila Mikkelsen’s heartrending drama, Little Ida (1981) follows seven-year-old Ida, who faces ostracism from her schoolmates in occupied northern Norway towards the end of the Second World War. Dimensions of Švankmajer (1964 to 1989) is a selection of surreal shorts from the extraordinary career of Czech filmmaker and animator Jan Švankmajer is enriched by the unique colour palette of the Orwo colour film stock, widely used in Eastern Europe. The mythical life of the great Georgian primitivist artist Niko Pirosmani is revealed in Giorgi Shengelaia’s beautifully shot and sensitive film portrait Pirosmani (1969).

Film noir is bathed in the opulent and lurid look of 1950s melodrama in Allan Dwan’s James M. Cain adaptation, Slightly Scarlet (1956), shot in vivid SuperScope Technicolor by John Alton. Irene Dunne has lessons in love in Gregory La Cava’s Unfinished Business (1941), a uniquely bittersweet spin on the classic Hollywood screwball. William A Wellman’s unflinching western, Westward the Women (1951) turns the genre’s traditionally genteel women into tough, trailblazing ladies ready to outride and outlive any cowboy, hinting at the revisionist Westerns to come. Drama and documentary are woven around each other in Dušan Makavejev’s extraordinary smash-hit WR: Mysteries of the Organism (1971), a cinematic artefact about radical politics and sex.

Film on Film also shines a spotlight on documentary including The Grierson Sisters: Today We Live, a programme celebrating the innovative films of Ruby and Marion Grierson, sisters of revered documentarian John Grierson and premiering new 35mm prints of Beside the Sea (1935) and They Also Serve (1940), made by the BFI National Archive. In our experimenta strand, the work of filmmaker Yugesh Walia is celebrated with a discussion, Yugesh Walia and the Birmingham Film Workshop and screening of African Oasis (1982) Walia’s impressionistic yet highly informative documentary portrait about Birmingham’s Handsworth Cultural Centre, made in the Birmingham Film Workshop. Presented as part of an on-going BFI project on the Black and South Asian Workshops.

For the young, and young-at-heart, a rare screening of Don Bluth’s Amblin-produced animated gem An American Tail (1986), will screen from an original release print. A veteran of the Disney machine, Don Bluth was able to recapture some of this magic in his own mouse tale, an immigrant’s fairytale of New York: an idyllic dreamland of peace and prosperity, following immigrant Fievel Mousekewitz in a search for family and freedom on the scuzzy streets of 1880s New York. A programme of children’s classics on 16mm will screen a colourful medley of cartoons, with something for everyone in this family screening including Henry’s Cat, Charles and Ray Eames’ classic Powers of Ten (1977) and Squirrel on My Shoulder (1979) alongside a family workshop session.

The festival are partnering with Straight 8 on a filmmaking workshop for 16-18-year-olds, entitled Filmmaking on Film: straight 8 x FoFF taking participants from conception to premiere in one weekend.

Expert voices from the BFI’s world-leading curatorial, conservation and projection teams will lead a vibrant programme of events, talks and discussions, a number of them for free, throughout the festival weekend, including a panel discussion on The Star Wars Influence, looking at how Star Wars revolutionised film technology, pioneering motion control photography, groundbreaking compositing and advanced lab techniques that set industry standards, transforming filmmaking, distribution and restoration for decades to come. 28mm Film: Rediscovering Pathé’s Forgotten Home Movie Gauge explores the largely forgotten and rarely shown format, featuring original prints projected on a 28mm hand-cranked Victor projector. This year we celebrate The BFI National Archive at 90, in a panel discussion BFI Executive Director of Knowledge and Collections Arike Oke and other members from the archive will explore and celebrate the history of the Archive on its 90th anniversary and the vital work undertaken for film preservation and restoration, and much more.

The new 35mm prints created for the BFI National Archive are made possible by working with a global network of expert photochemical laboratories. Laboratories who’ve struck prints within the programme include: L’Immagine Ritrovata, HagheFilm Digitaal, FotoKem and Hungarian Film Archive Laboratory.

BFI Patrons – Tuesday 6 May (from 12:00)

BFI Members – Wednesday 7 May (from 12:00)

General sale – Friday 9 May (from 12:00)

Audiences aged 25 and Under can buy tickets on the day of screenings during the BFI Film on Film Festival via the BFI’s ticket scheme for young audiences for just £4.

For audiences with access requirements, the festival will feature a number of accessible screenings. These will include on screen subtitling (including descriptions of non-dialogue audio via WatchWord glasses), audio description and BSL introductions/Q&As. Full details will be listed on our website from Monday 28 April.