SOMA Magazine SOMA Film and Music Issue Aug 15 | Page 22

About Place

British Film Institute
text by Michelle robertson

The British film institute resists definition. It is a movie
theatre comprised of three thwarted and an IMAX cinema. It
is the home of the worlds largest film archive. It is a charity
governed by Royal Charter. It is a film academy. More than
anything, the BFI is a London cultural institution.
It’s easy to miss the BFI South bank building, as it is engulfed
by towering concrete high-rises and crowds of tourists stumbling
away from Big Ben with their sights set on the Globe Theatre.
Only by taking a sharp turn down an unassuming alley next door
to the national theatre, towards the muddy Thames, will one
discover this treasure trove of cinema.
From the outside, it looks like a film studio. The front is
floor-to-ceiling windows that give the passersby a glimpse into
the cafe and gift shop. Passing through the automatic doors,
you become immersed in the buildings studio warehouse
atmosphere. Aluminum-tiled floors are accented by red velvet
ropes, and posters of films old and new dot the Walls. You feel
both as if you are entering a shrine of cinematic history and
simultaneously participating in the creation and preservation
of upcoming films.
Grandiose musings aside, the BFI Southbank is
simply an excellent bulwark against the tourist crowds that
stampede across Southwark.
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Growing up in the suburbs of San Francisco, my local movie
theatre played all the blockbusters, delivered with a side of
creaky seats and gum-stained floors. If I had a cinema like the
BFI in my neighborhood, I no doubt would have grown up with
a greater knowledgeof and appreciation for the cinematic arts.
This isn’t a place you come to sit in the back and make out with
your date, this is a place where cinephiles can feed their appetites for the great films of old and the up-and-coming films of
the day.
At the BFI, grannies seeking a matinee ticket special rub
elbows with bearded hipster film snobs catching the latest David
Lynch and suited businessmen grabbing a cocktail at happy hour.
Whether they come for the movies or the calming modernist
architecture, the BFI Southbank is undoubtedly a local meeting
place, buzzing with activity even on the Thursday afternoon that
I visited.
Perhaps the BFI resists definition because it has such widespread appeal to an audience as diverse as the films it shows.
Don’t come to the BFI expecting to zone out to a superhero
movie as you scarf down a bucket of popcorn, (they actually
don’t even sell popcorn.) Come to the BFI to remember what a
trip to the cinema was back in the old days: a temporary refuge
from reality and an immersion in the fantastic.