The first film to be screened at the then new ICA cinemas on The Mall in 1968, Herostratus uses a dizzying array of cinematic techniques as we glimpse into the frenzied mind of Max, a disenfranchised working-class youth navigating an increasingly urbanised London in a post-WWII landscape.

Darkly comedic and visually versatile, Herostratus stands as a landmark snapshot of late-60s British cinema and countercultural movements, capturing critiques of consumerism, postwar idealism, and urbanisation. Featuring Helen Mirren’s first credited film role, the film amalgamates London’s postwar urban decay with burlesque commercials, collages, abattoirs, newsreel, and Beat poetry. Its cinematic blurrings of a Francis Bacon painting with the oversaturated, oversexed gloss of the advertisements provides an impressively ambitious mix of feature-length experimentation, one that’s precedence is not often given its due credit in experimental film history.

Despite its visual influence on Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange (1971) and Nicolas Roeg’s Performance (1970), the film remained unseen until its redistribution in 2009 as part of BFI Flipside. It’s a pleasure to share this cinematic gem today in the home of its debut.
– Georgia Hunter of Siren Screen