A successful fashion designer spirals in isolation as the flighty object of her affections fails to return her devotion in Fassbinder’s autobiographical masterpiece.

In her decadent Bremen apartment, revered fashion-designer Petra von Kant lives with her tormented assistant, Marlene, in a poisonous co-dependency. But when Petra meets the young and beautiful Karin, a toxic infatuation consumes her and the three women are drawn into a dangerously eddying dance of cruelty, obsession, and power. Sumptuously shot in one location, Fassbinder’s masterful melodrama is a singular, transfixing descent into the psyche.

The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant is screening as part of Too Much: Melodrama on Film, a major UK-wide season from the BFI celebrating cinema's biggest emotions and heightened dramatics from around the world.

The performance on Sun 14 Dec, 3.15pm will be preceded by an introduction to the film by Dr Alan Morton.

In German with English subtitles.