TRANSMISSION: Youth Across Generations
A multi-event programme exploring how youth culture has shaped identity, belonging and collective memory in Britain from the 1980s to the present.
Transmission: Youth Across Generations has been developed as part of BFI FAN's Rip It Up season. The programme will be delivered through a series of eventised screenings, using cinema as a meeting point between generations, inviting audiences to share experiences, memories and perspectives through discussions, live music, creative workshops and participatory activities.
At its heart is a simple question: How do we recognise ourselves in other people's youth? Rather than treating youth culture as nostalgia, Transmission explores how film, music and shared cultural experiences connect generations. Rather than presenting films as standalone screenings, each event treats cinema as a catalyst for conversation, creativity and shared cultural experience, encouraging audiences to reflect on youth culture while engaging in meaningful intergenerational dialogue.
Transmission asks how different generations continue to recognise themselves in one another through film, music and shared cultural experience.
SCREENINGS & EVENTS
EVENT PASSED!
curated by Rowan Sharp
7 OCTOBER, 7pm-late | VOODOO ROOMS
Tired of their mundane jobs, five friends set out on a drug-fuelled weekend in Cardiff, hopping from pubs, clubs and parties. A cult classic of the ‘Cool Cymru’ era, Human Traffic is a charming social commentary about 90s rave culture and the alienation of a generation. An unapologetic exploration of youthful hedonism and rebellion, this is the debut film by 25 year old Welsh writer/director Justin Kerrigan. Celebrating music that shaped the generation, featuring Orbital, Underworld and Primal Scream, the film is also packed with numerous cameo performances as well as a young Danny Dyer in his debut feature. Recently restored in 4k courtesy of the BFI.
Following the screening, enjoy an interactive exhibition, exploring Scottish nightlife across different generations.
We wrap the night with a DJ session packed with 90s bangers and tunes inspired by the film.
This film will be screened with Descriptive Subtitles.
Event past : Babylon (1980) + Live Interactive Musical Performance (co-presented by Be United)
curated by Muratiwa Chinake
Event finished.
Join us for a screening of Franco Rossi’s cult classic Babylon (1980), followed by “We ‘Can’t Tek No More’ of That”: Sound as Resistance and Healing, a live interactive musical performance commissioned in collaboration with Be United. Bringing together film, archival imagery and contemporary music, the evening explores how sound has shaped Black British identity, challenged systemic injustice and created spaces for resistance, belonging and collective healing across generations.
Be United is a SCIO that advocates for, nurtures, and champions Black people working in the performing arts, screen, and cultural event sectors in Scotland. Be United believes our sectors are richer when all people are in the room. For more information, please visit their website https://be-united.org.uk/.
curated by Livvie Wharmby
22nd OCTOBER, 7pm | FRENCH INSTITUTE
In Charlotte Wells's debut feature, eleven-year-old Sophie travels with her young father, Calum, to a faded Turkish holiday resort in the summer of 1999. Filming the trip on a MiniDV camera, Sophie drifts between her father's company and the teenagers she is curious to be like, while Calum, warm and playful on the surface, carries something heavier he can't quite share. Years later, an adult Sophie revisits the footage, searching it for the father she knew and the man she didn't.
Audiences will find Aftersun rewarding for its restraint. Its power lies in what goes unsaid: a glance, a silence, a song, a shared joke. Paul Mescal's Oscar-nominated performance and newcomer Frankie Corio's naturalism give it a lived-in intimacy, while the soundtrack makes it a film to feel as much as to watch. Many viewers find it lingers long after the credits.
Within TRANSMISSION, Aftersun sits under the theme of Belonging Now, asking how we recognise ourselves in other people's youth. The film offers a natural starting point for intergenerational conversation, one the viewer may not even realise they’re ready to have.
curated by Vama Urban and Eva Rodrigues
25 OCTOBER, 5pm | NORTON PARK ARTS, LEITH
Cinetopia presents this double bill of Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen (2002) and Michael Caton-Jones' Our ladies, as part of our Transmission: Youth Across Generations program, exploring youth culture movements, memory and identity in Britain across the decades.
Between both screenings, audiences are invited to share their own stories in response to the themes that connect both films: rebellion, escape and belonging. Through an interactive sound and listening booth, audiences are encouraged to use their voices to reflect on experiences, share songs and contribute their own perspectives across generations to a collective sound archive.
EVENT PASSED!
Patch It Up! A punk-inspired clothes customisation workshop
30 SEPTEMBER,7pm | FILMHOUSE
Inspired by Poly Styrene, Cinetopia will be hosting Patch It Up! A punk-inspired clothes customisation workshop - bring along an item of clothing like a denim jacket or t-shirt and turn it into a unique statement piece with studs, fabric paint, pins, patches and more.
EVENT PASSED!
Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché + Q&A with filmmaker Paul Sng
curated by Shivani Krishna
30 SEPTEMBER, 8.20pm | FILMHOUSE
As the first woman of colour in the UK to front a successful rock band - X-Ray Spex - Poly Styrene was a blazing voice of rebellion in the chaos and upheaval of 1970s Britain - singing about identity, consumerism, postmodernism, and everything she saw unfolding with a rare prescience and a female perspective.
Screening preceded by Patch it Up! A clothes customisation workshop inspired by the DIY punk aesthetic (must be booked separately)
