I paid a visit to the BFI Southbank’s* new Studio screening room last week. It utilises digital projecction, and as such is able to show vast numbers of films from the BFI’s archive.
It really is an intimate space, deserving of their own description of it as “boutique”. There are around 40 seats there, and it’s not much bigger than a large living room, with the screen a comfortable height and distance even from the front row. I recommend going to have a look in person before you book a ticket, if possible, so you can nchoose where you’d prefer to sit. I was forced to do this anyway, as the one drawack of their usually very helpful website is that they don’t take Maestro cards (the new Switch cards), either online or over the telephone. Same price as tickets for the other screens as well.
I saw Powell and Pressburger’s stunningly photographed Black Narcissus which, Mr Dean’s ludicrously skimpy shorts aside, will have you enthralled throughout.
*It seems this is the new name for what was the NFT.