Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £4.99 a month
Play Me Something
Tilda Swinton stars in a playful and ingenious cine-essay on the art of storytelling, from art critic John Berger and filmmaker Timothy Neat.
Drama 1989 69 mins
Director: Timothy Neat
Overview
Tilda Swinton stars in a playful and ingenious cine-essay from art critic John Berger (Ways of Seeing) and author/filmmaker Timothy Neat.
Berger himself plays a mysterious storyteller who regales waiting passengers at the tiny Hebridean airport of Barra with wild tales of Venetian peasants. Mixing myriad textures and sources – colour, black and white, 16mm, 35mm and still photographs – Play Me Something is a meta-textural meditation on storytelling, people and places.
Related
Drama
The Tell-Tale Heart
Drama 1953 21 mins Director: J.B. Williams
Stanley Baker enacts the classic Edgar Allan Poe story in this chilling short film, only recently rediscovered after being lost for 50 years.
Mammuth
Comedy 2010 91 mins Director: Benoît Delépine
Legendary actor Gérard Depardieu is at his most uninhibited as an abattoir worker who hits the road with wild abandon.
Intimate Lighting
Drama 1965 71 mins Director: Ivan Passer
This wonderfully subtle comedy of provincial life is the debut film of the great director Ivan Passer (Cutter's Way) and one of the signature works of the Czech New Wave.
The Cremator
Comedy 1968 96 mins Director: Juraj Herz
This story of a professional cremator whose increasingly deranged impulses are given free reign during Prague's Nazi occupation, is a brilliantly chilling mix of Dr Strangelove and Repulsion.
Sawako Decides
Comedy 2010 112 mins Director: Yuya Ishii
Sawako tries to save her father's ailing clam-packing business, but it's an uphill struggle, in Yuya Ishii's joyous, nuanced, comic drama.
Daisies
Comedy 1966 73 mins Director: Vera Chytilová
Two self-confessed hedonists wreak wanton havoc in Věra Chytilová's visually spectacular neo-dadaist farce.
Unavailable on DVD
Flight to Berlin
Drama 1984 90 mins Director: Chris Petit
Chris Petit’s sparse moody thriller begins with a mysterious death.
Maeve
Drama 1981 110 mins Director: Pat Murphy
Pat Murphy and John Davis’ experimental film brings a feminist alternative to the conventional narrative of the Troubles.
Welcome to Britain
Documentary 1976 73 mins Director: Ben Lewin
Ben Lewin’s 1976 film captures a moment in Britain's evergreen immigration debate, focusing on new arrivals at Heathrow as they wrestle with immigration law.
Uncle Silas
Drama 1947 98 mins Director: Charles Frank
Gothic chiller based on the novel by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Jean Simmons stars as an heiress pursued by her unbalanced uncle and his perverted son.
Time Flies
Comedy 1944 88 mins Director: Walter Forde
Fast-talking funny man Tommy Handley visits Elizabethan England - and ends up teaching Good Queen Bess con tricks - in this snappy time-travel comedy.
Ascendancy
Drama 1982 82 mins Director: Edward Bennett
An English aristocrat is driven to despair over the effects of violence on her family, in this powerful meditation on the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
New
The Tell-Tale Heart
Drama 1953 21 mins Director: J.B. Williams
Stanley Baker enacts the classic Edgar Allan Poe story in this chilling short film, only recently rediscovered after being lost for 50 years.
The Woodsman and the Rain
Comedy 2011 128 mins Director: Shûichi Okita
A redneck lumberjack is recruited to work on a rookie producer's inane zombie movie, in this hilarious movie-making satire.
Vulgaria
Comedy 2012 93 mins Director: Pang Ho-Cheung
Ho-Cheung Pang's wild, ribald comedy about a Hong Kong movie producer who will do anything to get his projects off the ground.
Who Loves the Sun
Comedy 2006 94 mins Director: Matt Bissonnette
Lukas Haas and Adam Scott play two old friends with a tempestuous history in this delightfully witty character comedy.
Mammuth
Comedy 2010 91 mins Director: Benoît Delépine
Legendary actor Gérard Depardieu is at his most uninhibited as an abattoir worker who hits the road with wild abandon.
Mitsuko Delivers
Comedy 2011 109 mins Director: Yuya Ishii
An eccentric, pregnant young lady returns to her hometown to help her downtrodden old neighbours, in Yûya Ishii 's strange, whimsical comedy.