Hard Truths, 2024. Written and Directed by Mike Leigh. Starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin, David Webber, Tuwaine Barrett, Elliot Edusah, Tiwa Lade, Jonathan Livingstone, Samantha Spiro, Sophia Brown, Hiral Varsani, and Bryony Miller. SYNOPSIS: Pansy is a woman tormented by anger and depression, hypersensitive to the slightest possible offense, and ever ready to fly off […]
BFI London Film Festival 2024 Review – Hard Truths
Hard Truths, 2024. Written and directed by Mike Leigh. Starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin, Sophia Brown, Ani Nelson, and David Webber. SYNOPSIS: Set in London, Leigh’s new film explores family relationships in the post-pandemic world. Mike Leigh has been one of the most pioneering voices in the UK film industry since the 1970s with the […]
British Cinema – Naked (1993)
Naked, 1993. Directed by Mike Leigh. Starring David Thewlis, Lesley Sharp and Ewen Bremner. SYNOPSIS: Naked follows Johnny (Thewlis) a highly articulate and intelligent loner who drifts through the backstreets of London taking part in violent sex, living on the streets and eloquently engaging everyone in conversation to completely different reactions from each stranger. Naked […]
Exclusive Interview – Mike Leigh on his new film Peterloo
Thomas Harris chats with filmmaker Mike Leigh… Mike Leigh may be our formative filmmaker. His career has spanned close to fifty years, encompassing the minutiae of interpersonal relationships and tackling epics with that same deft touch. His latest, Peterloo is his most expansive piece; a sprawling epic that, as with his other films, finds the […]
2018 BFI London Film Festival Review – Peterloo
Waterloo, 2018. Directed by Mike Leigh. Starring Maxine Peake, Rory Kinnear, Neil Bell, Pearce Quigley, David Moorst, Rachel Finnegan, Tom Meredith, Simona Bitmate, Robert Wilfort, Karl Johnson, Sam Troughton, Alastair Mackenzie, David Bamber and Tim McInnerny. SYNOPSIS: The story of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre where British forces attacked a peaceful pro-democracy rally in Manchester. Peterloo […]
Mike Leigh’s Peterloo gets a first trailer
The first trailer has arrived online for writer-director Mike Leigh’s new film Peterloo , a historical drama documenting the shocking true story of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre which saw the British government forces charging into a crowd of over 60,000 people protesting the rising levels of poverty; watch it here… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCl2ezoRDk4 An epic portrayal of the events […]
Getting Naked Again: Revisiting Mike Leigh’s Naked
Tom Jolliffe takes a look back at Mike Leigh’s 1993 film, Naked… The other day I attended a special screening at The Prince Charles Cinema in London. It was part of a specially curated selection of films (from NFTS) devoted to the vile and unlikeable. The first film of the series was Mike Leigh’s 1993 […]
