Opening night event sponsored by:
Mike Leigh’s assured debut feature film, masterful in its understated tension and gentle interplay of characters serving as a clear signpost to his later work.
A shy, intelligent middle-class woman, Sylvia, works a tedious office job and looks after her elder sister who has special needs. The narrative revolves around relationships, with her sister, a woman who works in her office, a highly inhibited schoolmaster boyfriend and a drop-out guitar player.
Enthused by Leigh’s outline Albert Finney was the primary backer of the film, which emerged after weeks of cast rehearsals that honed the characters, scenes and dialogue before shooting began. Austere in approach but with flashes of genuine pathos and humour Leigh’s sensitive first film is an uncompromising work, a moving tragicomedy of people living in a suburban wilderness of awkwardness and frustrated emotional near-misses.
After the screening Mike Leigh will discuss the film, and its importance in his body of work, with Dan Chambers.
“This is Mike Leigh’s first film, and it shows that not only is he a natural film-maker but that he has no interest in compromising his intentions … it’s a remarkable debut.”
The Observer
“What is most impressive about it is that the writer-director seems to know exactly what he is about every minute of the time. We are embarrassed along with his characters, our nerves are sometimes jangled by the endless struggle to say anything at all, the oppressive slowness of everything, but we are never bored for a moment: there is always an electric tension to hold us enthralled.”
The Times
“The film is a prolonged poem to inhibitions, speechlessness and social unease … a scene in a Chinese restaurant is worthy of Forman at his finest.”
New Statesman
“At times the film is reminiscent of Olmi, as when Sylvia and her boyfriend have an evening out in an almost deserted Chinese restaurant as they try and fail to communicate. Shot entirely on location in South London in a quietly controlled, almost austere manner.”
London Film Festival
“Extremely funny in a Pinterish sort of way, it’s one of the most loving films I’ve ever seen, and it is so funny.”
BBC Radio 3
BLEAK MOMENTS / Mike Leigh / UK / 1971 / 111 mins
Mike Leigh trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, at Camberwell and Central Art Schools in London, and at the London Film School. His many stage plays include Babies Grow Old (1974), Abigail’s Party (1977), Ecstasy (1979), Goose-Pimples (1981), Smelling a Rat (1988), Greek Tragedy (1989), It’s a Great Big Shame! (1993), Two Thousand Years (2005) and Grief (2011).
Following Bleak Moments his films include Hard Labour (1973), Nuts In May (1975), The Kiss of Death (1976), Who’s Who (1978), Grown-Ups (1980), Home Sweet Home (1982), Meantime (1983), Four Days In July (1984), Life Is Sweet (1990), Naked (1993), Secrets & Lies (1996), Career Girls (1997), Topsy-Turvy (1999), All or Nothing (2002), Vera Drake (2004), Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Another Year (2010), Mr. Turner (2014), Peterloo (2018), Hard Truths (2024) and the upcoming Tender Loving Care.
Dan Chambers is a producer, and co-founder of Blink Films. Recent cinema films include Space Station We Have a Problem (nominated for an Emmy in 2026) and Lost City of Gold following Zimbabwean archaeologists as they reclaim a thousand-year old city which nineteenth-century settlers said was built by white outsiders. Recent TV series include Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story, one of Netflix’s highest rating series for 2025, Ben Fogle in China for C5, the controversial Hitler’s DNA for C4, and long-running series Strangest Things and Disaster Autopsy for National Geographic.
Before starting Blink Films, Dan was the Commissioning Editor for Science at Channel 4 where he commissioned the first British Big Brother. As Head of Programmes at Channel 5, he introduced history, science, reality shows and drama to the output, taking the channel to its highest annual audience in its 29 year history.
Dan has served on the board of trustees for the London Film School and the Freud Museum, and the TV Committee for Bafta. He is the grandson of Contemporary’s founder Charles Cooper.