The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo)
Italy 1970 . Dir Dario Argento.
With Tony Musante, Suzy Kendall. 97 min. 35mm.

With his sharp directorial debut The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, the ex-film critic Dario Argento paid homage to director Mario Bava, reviving interest in Italian horror internationally. Here he fashions a mysterious figure clad in a shiny black PVC raincoat and black leather gloves who slashes beautiful young women. Argento’s highly stylised pursuit of the killer is accompanied by a haunting score by Ennio Morricone.

Exploring a range of subjects such as cursed clothing, obsessive gestures and desires, and the history of the cinematic slap, eight artists have collaborated with the Festival to create new films that explore the themes of “If Looks Could Kill” . Weaving together the work of photographers, performers, designers, artists and film-makers, the programme takes a long hard look at the fixations, joys and fears that can become attached to garments and styles of dress. The Co-conspirators artists are: Paulette Philips, Eloise Fornieles, Elizabeth McAlpine, Dino Dinco, Shannon Plumb, Wendy Bevan, Derrick Santini and Boudicca.

The diverse approaches include artist Paulette Phillips’ re-sequencing of Hollywood film clips, emphasising the viewer’s pleasure in watching female criminals and the visual codes that mark them as seductive deviants; photographer Derrick Santini’s tracing of a pair of gloves that encourage their wearers to commit the criminal act of frottage; and artist Shannon Plumb’s focusing on New York street corners and the identification of criminals through their appearance. Performance artist Eloise Fornieles has collaborated with cameramen in an interactive gallery performance, which examines the relationship between wasteful consumption and violence , and artist Elizabeth McAlpine has choreographed sequences of slaps from the history of cinema, identifying them as a particularly female form of violence.

Co-conspirators generates a dialogue between several different art forms and creative industries, including film, art, photography, performance and design, and encourages experimentation by artists for whom the moving image is not a primary medium.

Co-conspirators is guest-curated by editor and curator Louise Clarke and writer and curator Laura McLean-Ferris.

Saturday 29 Nov, 18.30

The Tenth Victim (La decima vittima)
Italy 1965. Dir Elio Petri.
With Ursula Andres, Marcello Mastroianni. 92 min. Digi-beta.

Saturday 29 Nov, 20.30

In a distant 21 st century where the world lusts for violence, an international organisation called “The Big Hunt” has legalised murder. Things get heated when the game’s top players become Victim and Hunter. Marcello Mastroianni stars as a blond-haired, sun-glassed impassive Victim and Ursula Andress as his beautiful Amazonian Hunter in what can only be described as an über-cool Italian '60s pop art sci-fi comedy extravaganza, complete with an exciting electronic musical score and comic book architecture. In the midst of the action, the film is also a fashion show of ultra-modern geometric garments à la André Courrèges .

Click here for slide show.

The Rat with a new score composed by Jean Hasse
UK 1925. Dir Graham Cutts.
With Ivor Novello, Isabel Jeans. 80min. 35mm.

Sunday 30 Nov, 18.30

In a special presentation featuring live music and performance, the BFI invites you to enter the world of "the Rat". Party like it's 1925 with the reprobates of the White Coffin Club after the film in Benugo's. Please dress appropriately!

Guest-curated by Bryony Dixon; event concept by Rhidian Davis, Claire Geddie and The Willow Partnership.

Ivor Novello plays Pierre Boucheron, “the Rat,” in this tale of the Paris underworld. A jewel thief who commands the allegiance of the denizens of the White Coffin Club, he meets his match in Zelie de Chaumet, the dazzling demi-mondaine who is also accustomed to dog-like obedience. With style written right through it, from the opulent string of pearls that she dangles before him, to the flick knife with which he slits his partner’s skirt in the brutal apache dance, The Rat is quintessentially Twenties.

Purple Noon (Plein Soleil)
France 1960. Dir René Clément. 115 min. 35mm.

Sunday 30 Nov, 20.30

This iconic French thriller, which was remade in the late Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), is a portrayal of a murderer who is at once alluring and terrifying. Much of Ripley's anti-hero mystique is tied up with his ambiguous sexuality, expressed in the film not only through his bronzed torso but also through the use of fashion and adornment. His polished look of Gucci loafers, white jeans and suede shirts brings to the screen a breeze of wealthy and easy living, but also comes to represent his perverse criminality. Director Clément cast Alain Delon in the lead role, implicitly aware that the actor’s own association with the criminal underworld would aid his notoriety and international stardom.