AUGUST 3-8 • BACK STUDIO SOHO
Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair
A week-long curated film festival of the finest films from the world of heavy cinema.
GET PROGRAM"It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise."
Fyodor Dostoevsky
WHAT IS BLEAK WEEK?
"BLEAK WEEK: Cinema of Despair" started in 2022 in Los Angeles and has slowly grown through independent cinemas around the world and is currently screened in 73 cities.
While it is held in June everywhere else in the world, we don't have a regular home and only recently found somewhere that suits for this kind of cinema. So we thought we'd jump on the bandwagon, albeit a little late.
Bleak Week is a week long festival that spotlights some of the greatest films from around that world that explore the darkest sides of humanity, as well as some of the bleakest points in human history. A harrowing, yet powerful lineup of films defined by stark imagery, unimaginable tragedies, existential fear, nihilism and shocking acts of brutality, this series features the world’s leading filmmakers who wholly embrace a cinema of despair in pursuit of unpleasant truths and raw empathy.
Join us for Bleak Week as we explore the sobering tones of this wide variety of artful films and discover the ways that filmmakers have used cinema to portray, understand, empathize with, and at best, overcome humanity’s moments of despair.
TYRANNOSAUR
Our top pick of Bleak Week.
Paddy Considine's directorial debut stars Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman in roles that will bash, then nestle their way into you. Their slowly diminishing memory will stay there for a long while... Considine's film looks at grief, alcoholism, and domestic violence in such an oppressively quiet and powerful way. Tyrannosaur is a hard watch — but one with a real, hard-won thread of hope running through the destruction.
It premiered at Sundance in 2011, where it won three awards including the World Cinema Directing Award. Olivia Colman went on to win the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress, and Considine took home the BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.
THE SELFISH GIANT
Our top pick for Bleak Week.
Rather than a story to fall in love with characters over, The Selfish Giant is about what happens when kids get treated as worth less than what can be extracted from them. Director Clio Barnard - "one of the most vital new voices in British Cinema" - has said she wanted to show exactly what's lost when greed becomes the ruling ideology of a place, and that's what hits hard — not sentimentally, but quietly, and it stays with you well after the credits.
It premiered in the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes in 2013, where it won the Europa Cinemas Label Award, then went on to take Best Film at the Stockholm International Film Festival, the Grand Prix at Film Fest Gent, and a BAFTA nomination for Best British Film. Peter Bradshaw gave it five stars in The Guardian, calling it the arrival of a major talent.
LEVIATHAN
Shot beautifully by cinematographer Mikhail Krichman, this Russian drama unfolds against the stark landscapes and townships of Kirovsk, Monchegorsk, and Olenegorsk, near Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula in Russia's extreme northwest.Kolya, a mechanic in a small coastal town, is forced into a fight against a corrupt mayor after being told his home will be demolished. He recruits a lawyer friend to help his case, but the man's arrival brings further misfortune for Kolya and his family.Touching on alcoholism, male pride, small-town politics, and life under an oppressive state, it's a film that lingers long after the credits roll.
PRECIOUS
Adapted from Sapphire's novel Push, this unflinching drama finds unexpected tenderness within one of the darker corners of the human experience. Made on a shoestring budget with no distributor attached, it arrived at Sundance and Cannes to standing ovations — a reception strong enough that Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry stepped in as executive producers to help it reach wider audiences.Gabourey Sidibe anchors the film with a remarkable lead performance in her acting debut, alongside a cast that includes Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz cast well against type. Mo'Nique's performance as the film's antagonist earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, while Geoffrey Fletcher's screenplay won Best Adapted Screenplay, making him the first African-American to win an Oscar for screenwriting.Dark and heavy, but deeply human — a film built on exceptional performance and craft.
Monday 3rd August - 6:00pm
Thursday 6thth August - 8::30pm
Friday 7th August - 3:30m
Sunday 9th August - 2:15pm
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BORGMAN
When we originally saw Borgman it was unlike anything we had seen before. Unsettling, uncomfortable and creepy in the most unique way. And then a few years later we saw Parasite. And then we saw it take all the awards. And then we wondered how no one had heard about Borgman.
Alex van Warmerdam's Dutch psychological thriller was the first Dutch film in competition at Cannes in 38 years, nominated for the Palme d'Or in 2013. A mysterious drifter talks his way into a wealthy suburban household and methodically dismantles the family from within — sound familiar? Six years before Bong Joon-ho's version existed, Borgman was terrorising your regular wealthy suburban family. This film just goes further into the surreal where Parasite stays grounded. And what a surreal ride it is.
THE ROAD
John Hillcoat's incredible adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel, starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as a father and son walking a dead, ash-covered America. It picked up a BAFTA nomination for Best Cinematography and competed for the Golden Lion at Venice. This is a film about what's left of love and civilization when everything else is gone. The way Hillcoat carries the pervailing sense of emptiness and such desolation is something so harrowing... and the love Viggo's character has for his son is devastating. One not to be missed.
COME AND SEE
Directed by Elem Klimov, who spent eight years fighting Soviet censors before he was allowed to make it. Set in Nazi-occupied Belarus, it follows a teenage boy who joins the resistance expecting glory and finds only atrocity — shot with a subjective, feverish camera that puts you inside his unraveling rather than watching from a safe distance. It's widely regarded as one of the most devastating anti-war films ever made, precisely because it refuses to look away. A recent restoration won Best Restored Film at Venice Classics. People don't forget this one.
ONCE WERE WARRIORS
Lee Tamahori's debut feature, adapted from Alan Duff's novel, became the highest-grossing film ever released in New Zealand at the time, overtaking Jurassic Park, and was later voted the best New Zealand film ever made. It swept the New Zealand Film and Television Awards for Best Director and Best Film, with Rena Owen's performance recognised internationally. A confronting portrait of an urban Māori family fractured by alcoholism and domestic violence, it didn't just win awards — it changed the national conversation around family violence in New Zealand and remains one of the country's most important films.
SNOWTOWN
Justin Kurzel's directorial debut (he lives in Tassie!), dramatising South Australia's real "bodies in the barrels" murders — and the film that announced him as a major talent, winning him the AACTA Award for Best Director. It premiered to a special mention from the jury at Cannes Critics' Week and took the Audience Award at Adelaide Film Festival.
A lot can be said about this film... it's haunting and hard to watch. Critics called it "a bleak endurance test". For a film to be regarded with such weight, shows true artistry in the director and cast. This film is astounding. Gut wrenching yes, but astounding. Definitely one that deserves to be seen.
Mon 3 Aug
6:00pm
Fri 7 Aug
3:30pm
Tues 4 Aug
6:00pm
Sun 9 Aug
6:15pm
Tues 4 Aug
8:15pm
Sun 9 Aug
4pm
Fri 7 Aug
8:30pm
Tues 4 Aug
6:00pm
Tues 4 Aug
6:00pm
Sun 9 Aug
6:15pm
