🎬 Into the night... #2: 'Nightshift' (1981)

Dark alleys, people coming and going. You can’t see them, but they’re there. The sun has set, streetlights are on. We’re allowed to commit crimes, to fall in our lovers’ arms, to chase temptation, to enchant one another. To roam the streets endlessly, looking for danger. The mystery of the nocturnal offers us what we can’t have during the day. These films bring you the witching hours. Nightly escapades, midnight mischief. Places you can get lost in. Elevators, for example. Or dusty hotels. Step into the night with this curated selection of films that (mostly) unfold over the course of one night.

NIGHTSHIFT
Robina Rose | 1981 | USA | 68’ | EN subtitles

A gorgeously photographed work of surreal, somnambulant cinema, Robina Rose’s singular snapshot of London’s early 1980s art scene casts a hypnotic spell all its own. Over the course of a single nightshift, a West London hotel clerk plays silent witness to a nocturnal constellation of guests ranging from punk rockers and scenester magicians to seemingly staid businessmen and old-world gentry. As the hours march deeper into night and the varied clientele depart the waking world, the hotel transforms into an otherworldly liminal space swaying between the everyday and the enchanting. Screening the 4K restoration. 

Nightshift has been digitally restored by Lightbox Film Center (Philadelphia) in collaboration with the British Film Institute and Cinenova. Restoration funding provided by Ron and Suzanne Naples. Film distributed by Cinenova.