Welcome to Storyhouse’s latest round-up of films that you can watch from the comfort of your home. We can’t wait to welcome you all back to your local independent cinema, but until then…
This week, Storyhouse’s film programmer Nicky Beaumont picks some of the best new releases online alongside a selection of powerful films exploring racial discrimination and the history of black people.
How can I get a cinema experience at home?
Aside from the more well-known platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, we’ve teamed up with some alternative platforms to help you watch the latest releases as well as independent and world cinema:
Mubi
We’ve teamed up with online cinema platform Mubi to give you a free 90 day trial period so you can continue to enjoy cult, classic, independent and world cinema. They add a new film every day! Sign up to watch for free using the website or app, on any device. Head here to get started with Mubi.
Reminder: If you signed up for the three month free subscription for Mubi in March the offer will end in July and you will be charged for the subscription service going forward unless you choose to cancel. The three month offer is still currently open for anyone signing up for the first time. https://mubi.com/storyhouse
Curzon Home Cinema
You can get 15% off all brand new releases on Curzon Home Cinema during May using the code CHCJUN (this replaces the previous ATHOME15 code which was valid for April and the CHCMAY code for May). These can be found in the (Not) In Cinemas Now section. Head here to get started with Curzon Home Cinema.
New Releases
Days of Bagnold Summer
A single mum and her moody, heavy-metal-obsessed teenager negotiate their strained relationship in Simon Bird’s (The Inbetweeners) poignant and funny coming-of-age movie. Monica Dolan is terrific as Sue Bagnold, a fiftysomething librarian whose feckless former husband is living in the States with his new much younger girlfriend. Daniel (Earl Cave – Nick’s rising star son) has been planning to spend the summer in Florida with his dad – but inevitably he is let down, leaving him facing six weeks at home with his mum. Needless to say – he’s not happy. Days of Bagnold Summer is one of those peculiarly British Films and a must see for anyone who has ever been a mum, or a teenager, or a mum of a teenager, or teenager with a mum …. It also stars Rob Brydon as Daniel’s history teacher who strikes up a relationship with his mum – as if things couldn’t get any worse.
Days of Bagnold Summer is available on pay to view platforms including Curzon Home Cinema, BFI Player, Amazon , and Google Play.
On Friday 12 June there will be a live #CurzonLivingRoom Q&A with director Simon Bird and stars Monica Dolan and Earl Cave on Curzon Home Cinema at 8.30pm https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSTNp_bnKMUJ1XEyaTTUDHg
Parasite
The multi-Oscar winning blackly comic thriller was one of the most acclaimed films to reach cinemas earlier this year. If you missed it now is the chance to catch up. A downtrodden family, the Kims, eke out a hand to mouth existence living in a miserable basement apartment. Things take a turn for the better when the son manages to land a job teaching English to the daughter of a wealthy family, the Parks. Slowly the Kims infiltrate every aspect of the Parks’ daily life – elevating themselves to a better place. But, when an interloper threatens their new-found status, a battle of class warfare breaks out and things start to unravel horribly.
Parasite is available on pay to view platforms including Curzon Home Cinema, BFI Player and Amazon.
Da 5 Bloods
Acclaimed director Spike Lee (BlackKKlansman, She’s Gotta Have It) returns this week with a brand new film for Netflix streaming from June 12. Da 5 Bloods is the story of four African-American Vets — Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) — who return to Vietnam searching for the remains of their fallen Squad Leader (Chadwick Boseman) – and the promise of buried treasure. Drawing on the experiences of African American soldiers both during and after Vietnam, it explores the confused relationship between the soldiers and the war they are fighting. The film has been scheduled for release on Netflix for sometime, and would have been in cinemas had it not been for the pandemic – however, now is a good time to celebrate the work of one of the best known black American directors. For those wanting to explore or re-watch some of Lee’s earlier work both Malcolm X and Do The Right Thing are available on pay to view on BFI Player.
Da 5 Bloods is exclusive to Netflix.
Three documentaries to watch now
Inspired by the recent global protests in response to the murder of George Floyd we recommend catching up on these ground-breaking documentaries.
Black Power Mix Tape 1967 –1975
This eye-opening documentary was created after invaluable footage from a turbulent time in US race relations was rediscovered 30 years after it was shot. Essential viewing for anyone inspired by recent events and looking for some historical perspective. The film is the culmination of the near-decade in which a Swedish TV news team travelled the States interviewing prominent Black American radicals of the day – Stokley Carmichael, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Elaine Brown and Angela Davis all feature.
Black Power Mix Tape is available on the Mubi subscription channel now for a limited time.
I Am Not Your Negro
Raoul Peck’s acclaimed documentary takes writer James Baldwin’s final and unfinished manuscript – Remember This House – to create a picture of the history of oppression of African Americans and those who led the Civil Rights struggle – and ultimately paid with their lives. The film recounts the life of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.
I Am Not Your Negro is available to rent on BFI Player.
James Baldwin also wrote the novel If Beale Street Could Talk that Barry Jenkins adapted into an award winning film in 2018. This is available to watch on Amazon Prime as part of the subscription service.
The 13th
Filmmaker Ava DuVernay explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, with a focus on why the nation’s prisons are disproportionately filled with African Americans, and how this history stretches all the way back to the 13th Amendment in the constitution. A compelling and fascinating film which makes a very clear argument about the history of inequality.
The 13th is available on Netflix.