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Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock is returning to UK cinemas

Returning to the big screen in the UK and Ireland on 21 February 2025 to celebrate its 50th anniversary, in a dazzling 4K restoration of the Director’s Cut, Peter Weir’s 1975 adaptation of Joan Lindsay’s novel, Picnic at Hanging Rock, has lost none of its mystique or mesmerising power. A significant influence on the work of director Sofia Coppola, the film has become a landmark for its dreamlike exploration of the intensely romantic, yet profoundly unsettling, experience of girlhood and burgeoning sexuality.

Valentine’s Day previews include BFI Southbank which is also screening the film on Extended Run from 21 February.

On Valentine’s Day 1900, students from Appleyard College, a girls’ private school in Victoria, Australia, embark on a picnic to an unusual but scenic volcanic formation called Hanging Rock. Despite the rules against it, several of the girls wander off. It’s not until the end of the day that the group realise that some of their party have mysteriously disappeared.

British star of stage and screen Rachel Roberts ( Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, This Sporting Life) was cast in the lead role of strict headmistress Mrs Appleyard. Another British actor, Dominic Guard , who had starred in The Go-Between with Alan Bates and Julie Christie, played Michael Fitzhubert, the young Englishman visiting relatives, who happens to see the schoolgirls and, entranced by Miranda (Anne LambertThe Draughtsman’s Contract), follows them to the rock. Australian TV, stage and screen actors Helen Morse and Jacki Weaver had key roles as the French mistress and the school’s maid respectively.

Director Peter Weir was established in Australia at the time, having made films including Homesdale and The Cars That Ate Paris , but it was Picnic at Hanging Rockwhich took him to an international audience. Screening at the Cannes Film Festival and promoted with a stunt – a picnic on the beach with girls in flowing white dresses – the film got rave reviews, including from the UK’s Alexander Walker, film critic for the London Evening Standard who wrote: “I declare that I have not had the same sense of a new talent making its mark in world cinema since say Antonioni’s L’Avventuraor Bo Wideberg’s Elvira Madigan .”

The film was a commercial and critical success and Peter Weir went on to make many popular films including WitnessDead Poet’s Society The Truman Show and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

Picnic at Hanging Rock was shot on location at Hanging Rock, a famous picnic site some miles out of Melbourne. The volcanic outcrop, most likely the core of an ancient volcano, is around 500 feet high. The other main setting was Martindale Hall, a massive Georgian-style mansion built in the 1870s.

The BAFTA-winning cinematography was by leading Australian photographer Russell Boyd who went on to work with Peter Weir again on Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (for which he won an Oscar) and Gallipoli. He gave the film a shimmering, romantic effect, perfectly in keeping with the period setting and storyline.

The distinctive and memorable score contributed to the dreamy yet ominous, mysterious feel of the film and featured two traditional panpipe pieces played by Romanian folk musician Gheorghe Zamfir, with Swiss born Marcel Cellier playing the organ. Australian composer Bruce Smeaton contributed several original compositions for the film.

Picnic at Hanging Rock was restored in 4K in 2022 by Acid Pictures in collaboration with Second Sight Films at The Grainery laboratory, from the original camera negative preserved by Australian National Film and Sound Archive. Now 50 years old, this cult classic remains a wonderful, haunting treat.

Valentine’s Day previews on 14 & 15 February and opening in cinemas in the UK & Ireland on 21 February 2025.

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