Pitchfork

The newly refurbished Royal Festival Hall in London will play host to a little paradox of tenses known as This Is Tomorrow, the latest feature from pop auteurs turned cinema auteurs Saint Etienne.

This Is Tomorrow, confusingly enough, premieres tonight (June 29)-- and if you live over in the UK and you're reading this around the time it was posted, this is tonight. So hail a taxi already and get ye to the Southbank Centre, post-haste!

Still very much pop auteurs as well, Saint Etienne will perform their soundtrack to the film at today/tonight's premiere-- backed, no less, by a 60-piece orchestra and choir featuring local schoolchildren. Said soundtrack includes several new selections written specifically for This Is Tomorrow, as well as, presumably, some old Saint Etienne favorites.

The film itself, meanwhile, showcases the history of the Southbank Centre site on the Thames-- also home to the Hayward gallery and Queen Elizabeth Hall in addition to Royal Festival-- through heaps of interviews and anecdotes from assorted talking heads of note. So yes, This Is Tomorrow is pretty much a film about yesterday. But there's also discussion of the recent renovation and, you know, the future and such.

This Is Tomorrow was directed by Paul Kelly and produced by Andrew Hinton.

Saint Etienne the pop auteurs have also made mention of plans to compile their lavish fanclub releases into one convenient boxset, due out later this year. They intend to hit up Greece for a brief tour next month as well, exact dates and venues TBA.