Almost 30 years since its inception, and with 200 titles in print, the BFI’s Film Classics series is relaunching with a fresh new cover approach and new titles. This signals a change of focus, with women, LGBTIQ+, black, Asian, mixed ethnicity and the Global South to be foregrounded in films selected for the series and authors commissioned to write about them.

The BFI and its publishing partner, Bloomsbury, relaunch the series with 20 titles. This comprises three brand new books: Babette’s Feast by philosopher Julian Baggini, Touch of Evil by poet and art critic Richard Deming and Rosemary’s Baby by author and academic Michael Newton.

Seventeen series favourites are also being reissued including: A.L. Kennedy on Powell & Pressburger’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Camille Paglia on Hitchcock’s The Birds, Ed Guerrero on Spike Lee’s Do the
Right Thing and Marita Sturken’s take on Thelm & Louise.

Reissues include new forewords by their authors highlighting the films’ contemporary relevance to issues such as #MeToo, Brexit,
the rise of Trump and police victimisation of young African Americans.

In addition, in a major cover refresh, each book features
specially commissioned cover artwork by leading illustrators, designers and photographers.

Forthcoming titles in the series include film critic and scholar Rebecca Harrison on The Empire Strikes Back, feminist scholar and advocate
Patricia White writing on Hitchcock’s Rebecca and writer and activist So Mayer on Sally Potter’sOrlando.

Founded in 1992, the BFI Film Classics series grew out of an initiative of the National Film and Television Archive (NFTVA), now known as the BFI National Archive, to build a collection of 360 key films in the history of cinema. Authors published in the book series include Salman Rushdie, Manohla Dargis, Amy Taubin, Simon Callow, Marina Warner, Greil Marcus and Mark Kermode.

BFI FILM CLASSICS are published by Bloomsbury.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/superpage/bfi-film-classics/