Romeo + Juliet. Photo: NFSA.
PG | 120 Mins | Book Club at the NFSA | 1996 | 35mm | US, MEX, AUS, CAN | D: Baz Luhrmann
Book Club at the NFSA is in partnership with the Canberra Writers Festival.
This screening will be followed by a discussion of the film and the play with Bell Shakespeare Associate Director James Evans and ANU Senior Lecturer Dr. Kate Flaherty.
Baz Luhrmann slams Shakespeare’s most famous love story down in a punk futuristic setting where the Montagues and Capulets are feuding corporate empires on fictional Verona Beach.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes sizzle in Luhrmann’s second feature film (after Strictly Ballroom), which keeps Shakespeare’s original script and injects it with a kicking soundtrack and gritty modern visuals.
“Amid the clamour from outraged purists and Shakespeare spinning in his Stratford-upon-Avon, England grave, you should notice that Luhrmann and his two bright angels have shaken up a 400-year-old play without losing its touching, poetic innocence.” – Rolling Stone
James Evans is the Associate Director of Bell Shakespeare, Australia’s national theatre company specialising in the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. He graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and holds a Master of Arts in English Literature from the University of Sydney.
During his time at Bell Shakespeare, James directed significant productions of Much Ado About Nothing and Julius Caesar. He has also directed several versions of Romeo and Juliet and has played the roles of Romeo, Tybalt, and Capulet at different times in his career.
James hosts Bell Shakespeare’s popular podcast, Speak the Speech, and has led leadership and communication workshops for Wesfarmers, Deutsche Bank, Telstra, King & Wood Mallesons, Ernst & Young, and Melbourne Business School.
He co-wrote and presented the award-winning Starting Shakespeare iPad app, which was named Apple’s Best New App in 17 countries, and co-directed the ABC online series Shakespeare Unbound. The award-winning documentary, Kings of Baxter, aired in 2017 and focused on James’ work with theatre in juvenile detention centres.
Dr Kate Flaherty is a Senior Lecturer in English and Drama at the Australian National University. In 2011, she published Ours as We Play it: Australia Plays Shakespeare, the first book-length study of Australian Shakespeare.
Her other work investigates the public interplay of drama with education, gender, and empire in the 19th century. Her publications include articles in Contemporary Theatre Review, Australian Studies, Shakespeare Survey, New Theatre Quarterly, The Guardian, and The Conversation; chapters and co-edited volumes from Routledge and Palgrave; and chapters in books from CUP and Arden Shakespeare. Her latest book is Ellen Terry, Shakespeare and Suffrage in Australia and New Zealand (CUP, 2025).
Kate is a recipient of the ANU Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Education and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
The Details
What: A screening of Romeo + Juliet will be followed by a discussion of the film and the play with Bell Shakespeare Associate Director James Evans and ANU Senior Lecturer Dr. Kate Flaherty.
When: Sun 22 Jun 1:00 PM
Where: Arc Cinema, NFSA Acton
Cost: $18-21 Tickets available via the NFSA.
