A Canterbury Tale

See three films in our Powell & Pressburger season for £21 – select your tickets and the discount will be applied at checkout. Please note this offer excludes The Boy Who Turned Yellow, which is Pay What You Can.

This screening will be introduced by Matthew Jarron, Curator of Museum Collections at the University of Dundee, and is part of Cinema Unbound – our 14 screening Powell and Pressburger retrospective celebrating Britain’s greatest and most enduring filmmaking partnership. 

Three latter-day pilgrims embark on journeys of self-discovery in this personal, wartime ode to the English countryside. Meditations on mysticism and identity dominate a slender plot, with Pressburger’s script espousing the moral virtues (and quirks) of his adopted homeland. Returning Powell to his Kentish roots, Erwin Hillier’s cinematography evocatively captures Canterbury during wartime and the enduring rural communities nearby. 

"Meditations on mysticism and identity dominate..."

One of Powell and Pressburger’s few box-office flops, A Canterbury Tale was unsuccessfully recut and rereleased – though many now claim it to be a masterpiece.  

Supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFl's Film Audience Network and National Lottery funding from the BFI.