David Farnor | On 02, Jul 2022

BFI Player is a gateway to global film, offering a collection of arthouse and world cinema to subscribers, alongside its pay-per-view rental releases and free archive titles and silent movie shorts.

Here’s what’s coming to BFI Player’s subscription service in July 2022:

Tides – 1st July

Four thirtysomethings find some much-needed time to reconnect in Tupaq Felber’s beautifully observed and subtly insightful debut.

Servants – 1st July

Czechoslovakia in the early 1980s. The communist regime threatens to subjugate the Catholic Church. Will young seminarians Michal (Samuel Polakoviĉ) and Juraj (Samuel Skyva) remain true to their ideals?

Catch the Fair One – 4th July

Native American boxer Kaylee (Kali Reis) embarks on the fight of her life when she goes undercover in a sex trafficking operation to seek answers and revenge against the men responsible for the disappearance of her sister.

Goodbye Solo – 4th July

Solo (Souléymane Sy Savané), a Senegalese immigrant driving a taxi in North Carolina, has aspirations of becoming a flight attendant to help provide a better life for his pregnant wife and step-daughter. One night he picks up William (Red West), a tough Southern old-timer with a lifetime of regrets. One man’s dream is just beginning, while the other’s is quickly winding down. But despite their differences, both men soon realise they need each other more than either is willing to admit.

Chop Shop – 4th July

Alejandro, a tough and ambitious Latino street orphan on the verge of adolescence, lives and works in an auto-body repair shop in a sprawling junkyard on the outskirts of Queens, New York. In this chaotic world of adults, young Alejandro struggles to make a better life for himself and his 16-year-old sister, Isamar. Intimate, heartbreaking and yet ultimately hopeful, CHOP SHOP is a portrait of a young boy navigating his way through a chaotic adult world.

Top of the Heap – 7th July

After failing to get a promotion, a DC cop launches a personal crusade against criminals.

Mysterious Object at Noon – 7th July

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s hallucinatory debut feature is an extraordinary mix of experimental documentary and fiction that wends its way through the landscapes and mindscapes of rural Thailand. The film is structured as a surrealist game; a small film-crew travel the Thai countryside asking people they encounter along the way to invent the next chapter of a story. The daisy-chain structure of interlocking vignettes – alternately fantastical, comic and workaday – bridge documentary realism and the avant-garde, resulting in a boldly original debut that looks and feels like nothing else.

Cemetary of Splendour – 7th July

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s imaginative, sensuous and enigmatic film about soldiers suffering from a mysterious sleeping sickness.

Hostile – 11th July

Sonita Gale’s documentary focuses on the UK’s complicated relationship with its migrant communities. The film particularly explores the impact of the evolving ‘hostile environment’ policies that target migrants.

Celia – 11th July

Set in mid-1950s Australia, with the fear of communism in the air, Ann Turner’s refreshingly unsentimental debut feature depicts a long hot summer seen through the eyes and over-active imagination of nine-year-old Celia. Shaken by the death of her beloved grandmother, Celia finds herself adrift between the cruel games and rituals of childhood and the incomprehensible world of grown-ups. With monstrous creatures stalking her dreams by night, those imagined terrors blur by day with the banal brutality of the adult world and lead to tragic and shocking consequences.

Ikarie XB-1 – 11th July

Adapted from Stanisław Lem’s novel The Magellanic Cloud, the film is set in 2163 and follows a mission deep into space in search of alien life. During their perilous journey the crew confront the effects of a malignant dark star, the destructive legacy of the 20th century and, ultimately, the limits of their own sanity. With outstanding design and cinematography, and a superb score by Zdeněk Liška, IKARIE XB-1 is imbued with a seriousness, intelligence and attention to detail rarely seen in science-fiction cinema of the period.

The Sailor Who Feel with Grace from the Sea – 15th July

After his father dies, a disturbed young boy plots to take revenge on the new man in his mother’s life.

 
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