Running Date: Oct - Dec

Too Much: Melodrama on Film is a UK wide programme supported by BFI and BFI FAN which celebrates the visual excess and dramatic potency of a form of cinema which champions emotional intensity over propriety and ‘good taste’. With roots in the exaggerated performance and expressive staging of the silent era, the melodramatic mode evolved to incorporate a wealth of genres and stories. United by their emotion-driven plots, vivid visual language and self-conscious audience manipulation, these films are designed to make you break down in tears, cause a scene, fall in love, feel something.

Showroom Cinema is dedicated to promoting classic cinema of all kinds and its lasting influence on contemporary culture. As part of the UK-wide Too Much season, Showroom will celebrate the visual and emotional excess of melodrama in film.

Film Historian Dr Sheldon Hall draws on his extensive research around hundreds of classic melodramas to deliver this Film Studies season. The season will explore the origins on film melodrama and provide vital historical context to the Too Much season through four screenings and accompanying lectures.