As part of their Film on Film Festival, the British Film Institute have invited us to present Jonathan Demme’s Citizens Band on a rarely seen 35mm print from the BFI National Archive. After five years working with Roger Corman, Demme made the move to Paramount to make this loose and charming ensemble comedy following a disparate band of characters who communicate across the airwaves, including his Melvin and Howard star Paul Le Mat as a self-proclaimed ‘CB vigilante’ and his longtime collaborator Charles Napier as a bigamist trucker.

Citizens Band was intended to capitalise on the CB Radio craze that swept the US in the mid-1970s, but despite positive reviews it failed to find an audience and – having been released a week before 1977 juggernauts Star Wars and Smokey and the Bandit – the film quickly disappeared from the public consciousness. Demme was left fearing that his nascent career was already over, but it’s time to reclaim Citizens Band from obscurity and celebrate it as the emergence of a distinctive directorial voice.

A huge influence on Paul Thomas Anderson, Citizens Band exemplifies the empathy for eccentrics and outsiders that would characterise Demme’s celebrated 80s films, and its exploration of the way communication technology facilitates unlikely connections and allows people to play with their personas makes it an unexpectedly resonant film in our social media age. 

Running from 8-11 June 2023 at BFI Southbank, the BFI’s inaugural Film on Film Festival will consist solely of screenings from Super 8, 9.5mm, 16mm, 35mm and 70mm prints, as well as the first UK nitrate screenings in over a decade. The full programme can be viewed here and tickets for our screening of Citizens Band will go on sale here for BFI Patrons on 2 May, BFI Members on 3 May and general sale from 5 May.

Join us at BFI Southbank for a celebration of celluloid and discover a sorely undervalued early gem from a great American filmmaker.