TOO MUCH: Melodrama on Film | Members Activity Across the Midlands

We’re excited to unveil the bespoke projects we’re supporting as part of the BFI FAN’s UK-wide melodrama season.

The Midlands are putting on a real showstopper as part of Too Much: Melodrama on Film, all in an attempt to make you feel something! From Gainsborough melodramas showing us the way of the classics, with gambling highway women seeking independence, to kabuki female impersonators seeking revenge from Japanese cinema and the yearning and longing of unrequited love triangles.

Whether you're a silent weeper or a bawl your eyes out diva, you're sure to be affected with 'extra' immersive elements at some of the screenings, including live scores and in-depth discussions from industry professionals.

Too Much! For These Isles! 

Derby QUAD | 5 October - 14 December

From chance meetings on railway station platforms to bloody haircuts in London, from Kabuki theatres in Japan to love triangles in the fashion industry in 70's West Germany, QUAD's season is set to be messy and overwhelmingly emotional.

Derby QUAD are taking a national and international approach to their season, Too Much! For These Isles!

Initially sharing a range of the best in British melodrama before heading out into the world for Melodrama from a range of international places. From October, every Sunday at 1 PM, QUAD will show a different Melodrama film with an introduction and a post-screening discussion.

Derby QUAD is an arts centre comprising three cinemas and an art gallery, connecting people and businesses to art and film for entertainment, education and participation.

"Melodramas, especially from Hollywood's classical era, are never 'Too Much.' These films with style and substance, frequently aligning audiences with women navigating personal circumstances that, ultimately, upend their lives. Love, betrayal, secrets, and obsession permeate these stories with even more drama sourced from costumes, performance, cinematography, and music.

While, arguably the 1950s is the peak era of Hollywood melodramas, this style of filmmaking was present in the silent era (The Phantom of the Opera) and its influence extends to other nations, including Spain (Volver) and Britain (Brief Encounter). From the suburban home (All That Heaven Allows) to the city (Sunrise) and small town factory (Stella Dallas) the locations of these films are everyday spaces familiar to many audiences, as are the, frequently complex family dynamics.

Emotion is central to characters feeling trapped, desperate, excited, and remorseful, all displayed through the narrative, visual style, and auditory cues of each film. These film and this style of filmmaking is a testament that 'too' much is never enough" - Dr Julie Lobalzo Wright

All films in the season include a screening with an expert introduction, with contributions from Dr Alastair Pillips, Dr Jose Arroyo, Dr Ian Roberts, Dr Julie Lobalzo Wright and Dr Chris O'Rourke. We are delighted to host a panel led by Professor Richard Dyer and featuring Dr Julie Lobalzo Wright and Dr Chris O-Rourke following our Brief Encounter screening on Fri 12 Dec.

The season will feature silent films brought to life with original music - Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans will be accompanied with a live improvised score, and The Phantom of the Opera will feature a new score performed by Paul Robinson's trio.

Warwick Arts Centre is the largest arts centre in the Midlands, and the largest venue of its kind in the UK outside of the Barbican Centre in London. It is a multi-venue arts complex at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England. Embracing all types of theatre and performance, contemporary and classical music, dance, comedy, visual art, and films as a host to three cinema screens.

Mellow It Down! Seven Decades of Melodrama….

Malvern Theatres | October - December

Malvern Theatres has curated a film season exploring Melodrama, starting with classic British works from the 1930s–40s. It then expands to international films from Germany, the USA, South Korea, and Japan.

The Festival Theatre, now known as Malvern Theatres, is a theatre complex comprising an 850-seat Festival Theatre, a Forum Theatre, a 400-seat cinema, and a bar and restaurant.

Drama-rama

Flatpack Projects | October - December

Drama-rama aims to share 'Melodrama' with young people and families by adding Melodrama titles to their Colour Box programme.

What is Colour Box? It's Flatpack, but for kids. Colour Box encourages viewing and doing. Hands-on workshops led by artists and filmmakers, with access to the latest tech, immersive installation pieces, optical gadgets and crafts aplenty. Our immersive screenings showcase the best new family shorts and features from around the world.

Flatpack is a lead partner in Film Hub Midlands and is a mobile arts organisation which exists to show amazing work, bring people together and develop new ideas. Flatpack loves film in all shapes and sizes, particularly where it bumps up against other art forms, and gets a kick out of transforming spaces to create unforgettable events. Every May you can find Flatpack taking over venues across Birmingham with the "magnificently eclectic" Flatpack Festival.

Check out the overall season here

Desi Queens

Victoria Park Productions | October - December

Desi Queens is season of films, Q&As and events that celebrate the very best in world melodrama – from South Asia and the surrounding film regions.

Victoria Park Productions Ltd is an award-winning Film Production Studio, based in the heart of the UK.

Too Much: Melodrama on Film at Broadway Cinema

4 November to 9 December

This autumn at Broadway, we’re indulging in the dramatic with a season of melodrama on screen that charts the history of the much-maligned genre, from the classics of the 1940s and ‘50s to the more recent homages – reverent, tacky or both – that came in the decades that followed.

Melodrama is about an excess of emotion: bold feelings echoed by bold visuals. Women are always at the centre of the narrative, and the story often plays out in a domestic setting: mothers are plagued by ungrateful children, wives embark on risqué affairs, spinsters reinvent themselves. For this reason, and for their theatrical tone, ‘women's pictures’ were often dismissed as soapy, sensationalist and in bad taste.

Though melodrama largely fell out of fashion in mainstream cinema in the 1960s, arthouse staples like Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pedro Almodóvar, John Waters and Todd Haynes have all, in their own style, paid tribute to the genre. From the 1970s through to the noughties, these directors used the framework of the genre to explore issues contemporary to the period they were working in themselves. The results are exactly as decadent and overblown as you’d imagine – don’t forget your tissues.

– Kate Wood, season programmer

Broadway Cinema is an independent cinema in Nottingham. The cinema now boasts four screens, including the world's first (and only) cinema designed by Sir Paul Smith. For many years, film director Shane Meadows worked out of the venue; he still uses it as a base for press interviews. Likewise, the filmmaker Jeanie Finlay has edited most of her films on the premises. Broadway Cinema is currently celebrating its 35th birthday and you can read more about the venue's history here.

Think you can do better? Become a member and check out how to get involved in exhibition with Film Hub Midlands.

Find UK-WIDE events on the BFI Too Much: Melodrama on Film website.