16/09/2015 - Season dedicated to Love on screen will see around 1,000 events taking place all over the UK

Director Stephen Frears

The British Film Institute (BFI) has revealed a UK-wide season of films about love in partnership with Plusnet. Titled ‘Love: Films to fall in love with… Films to break your heart’ (19 October – 31 December), the season encompasses three key themes – The Power of Love, Fools for Love and Fatal Attractions. There will be some 1,000 events spread across the UK. These include film screenings and Q&As with directors Stephen Frears (My Beautiful Laundrette, Dangerous Liaisons), Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love and Basketball, Beyond the Lights) and Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral), actors Derek Jacobi (Love is the Devil), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Beyond the Lights), Adrian Lester (Hustle), John Gordon Sinclair and Claire Grogan (Gregory’s Girl) and musician KT Tunstall. 

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Other highlights in the season include a Jane Austen Day, a new restoration of Dr Zhivago (1965) on theatrical release, 70th anniversary screenings of Brief Encounter with nationwide tea dances, Wings of Desire at Paisley Abbey, pop-up screenings of films including Vertigo (1958) in Brighton’s Royal Pavilion and family favourites including Beauty and the Beast (1991), The Princess Bride (1987) and Frozen (2013) at Castell Coch and Caerphilly Castle, Wales. 

Heather Stewart, Creative Director, BFI said, ‘‘Film can bring love to life more powerfully than any other art form – it is cinema's most seductive illusion and has transformed the way we see ourselves, and our love lives. Our season is not about sex. We’re getting back to Love: embracing the intimacy of the close-up and the anticipation of the much longed-for screen kiss: the very language of cinema itself.”