63^rd BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL DRAWS TO A CLOSE WITH MARTIN SCORSESE’S THE IRISHMAN

Audience attendance up 6% across London

MONOS – Alejandro Landes  wins Best Film in Official Competition, ATLANTICS – Mati Diop wins First Feature Competition, WHITE RIOT – Rubika Shah wins Best Documentary and FAULT LINE – Soheil Amirsharifi wins Short Film Competition

Films from 78 countries around the world; 40%  female directors across programme and 60% female directors in competition

London, Tuesday 15^th October 2019: The 63^rd BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express, closed with a star studded finale on Sunday with the International Premiere of THE IRISHMAN, which saw  legendary director Martin Scorsese reunite with  his equally legendary cast members; Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Harvey Keitel at a spectacular gala presentation at Odeon Luxe, Leicester Square.

Audiences throughout the UK and Ireland enjoyed THE IRISHMAN’s red carpet action via satellite streaming of the closing night premiere to over 80 cinemas, followed by simultaneous preview screenings.

Over the Festival’s 12 days there were 178,789 admissions for London screenings and events, comprised of 161,059 public attendances , including LFF Education screenings and the new LFF For Free programme – an increase of 6% on last year’s London public attendance. And also an additional 17,730 press and industry attendance across the festival. Extending its offering to audiences outside of London, the Festival hosted satellite screenings at over 100 venues around the UK & Ireland.

The 63^rd  edition welcomed over 868 International and British filmmakers to present their work at venues across the capital. The festival featured a diverse selection of 233 feature films from both established and emerging talent and hosted 28 World Premieres, 12 International Premieres and 32 European Premieres and welcomed a stellar line up of cast and crew for many of the films.

The Festival was widely applauded for its diversity and inclusion with 78 countries represented across short films and features and 40% of films directed or co-directed by women. Across all competitive categories, 60% were directed or co-directed by women.

This year saw the return of Odeon’s iconic flagship cinema, the newly refurbished ODEON Luxe Leicester Square. Once again the Festival’s spectacular purpose-built venue Embankment Garden Cinema was back for its 4^th year, Vue West End was home to the LFF Awards and Press & Industry screenings creating a Media delegate hub in London’s Leicester Square, and the BFI Southbank hosted a new free events programme, extending the fun of the Festival.

Filmmakers in attendance included:

Abe Forsythe, Aki Omoshaybi, Alejandro Landes, Alex Gibney, Alma Har’el, Anthony Chen, Aoife O’Kelly Apolline Traoré, Armando Iannucci, Atom Egoyan, Babak Anvari, Ben Rivers, Benedict Andrews, Billie Piper, Bora Kim, Bruce Springsteen, Céline Sciamma, Christine Molloy, Ciro Guerra, Claire Oakley, Cory Finley, Craig Roberts, D R Hood, David Lawrence, David Michôd, Eva Riley, Fernando Meirelles, François Girard, François Ozon, Fyzal Boulifa, Gabriela Cowperthwaite, Gavin Hood, Gitanjali Rao, Glenn Leyburn, Halina Reijn, Hinde Boujemaa, Hong Khaou, Isabel Sandoval, James Mangold, Jan-Ole Gerster, Jayro Bustamante, Jeffrey McHale, Jérémy Clapin, Jessica Hausner, Joe Lawlor, Joe Talbot, Johnny Ma, Juliano Dornelles, Julius Onah, Kantemir Balagov, Kasi Lemmons, Kim Longinotto, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Lukas Moodysson, Małgorzata Szumowska, Manele Labidi, Marielle Heller, Martin Scorsese, Mariko Minoguchi, Mati Diop, Michael Winterbottom, Mirrah Foulkes, Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stepanian, Nicholas Kharkongor, Nick Rowland, Noah Baumbach, Phillip Youmans, Rian Johnson, Robert Eggers, Roger Michell, Sarah Gavron, Shahad Ameen, Shannon Murphy, Simon Bird, Taghi Amirani, Taika Waititi, Thom Zimny, Thomas Clay, Tom Harper, Wash Westmoreland, William Nicholson, Yaron Zilberman

Cast and Special Guests in attendance included:

Adam Driver, Adèle Haenel, Al Pacino, Alfie Allen, Alice Lowe, Alicia Vikander, Anna Paquin, Annette Bening, Anthony Welsh, Asa Butterfield, Ashley Madekwe, Ben Mendelsohn, Bronagh Gallagher, Bukky Bakray, Carice van Houten, Charles Dance, Conrad Khan, Cynthia Erivo, Dev Patel, Don Johnson, Earl Cave, Eddie Redmayne, Emily Beecham, Felicity Jones, Freddie Fox, Gwendoline Christie, Harris Dickinson, Harvey Keitel, Hugh Laurie, Imogen Poots, Jack Huston, James Blunt, James Norton, Jennifer Ehle, Joe Alwyn, Joel Edgerton, Joely Richardson, Jonathan Pryce, Katherine Langford, Keira Knightley, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Kerry Fox, Kit Connor, Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern, Lesley Manville, Lily James, Lily-Rose Depp, Lucas Hedges, Mark Rylance, Mariana Di Girolamo, Mia Wasikowska, Michael B. Jordan, Morfydd Clark, Naoki Kobayashi, Nichola Burley, Noah Jupe, Noémie Merlant, Ollie Locke, Paul Whitehouse, Penelope Wilton, Peter Capaldi, Pixie Lott, Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Roxanne Scrimshaw, Sally Hawkins, Sean Harris, Shia LaBeouf, Sterling K. Brown, Steve Coogan,  Tim Key, Tim Roth, Timothée Chalamet, Tom Courtenay, Wendell Pierce, Willem Dafoe

At the annual BFI London Film Festival Awards on Saturday 12^th October the LFF competition winners announced were:

• MONOS – Alejandro Landes won the Official Competition (Best Film Award)
• ATLANTICS – Mati Diop won the First Feature Competition (Sutherland Award)
• WHITE RIOT – Rubika Shah, won the Documentary Competition (Grierson Award)
• FAULT LINE – Soheil Amirsharifi, won the Short Film Competition (Short Film Award)

Building on the success of last year’s new approach, placing audiences at the heart of the awards ceremony, the winning film from each competitive section was presented to the public as a surpise screening. At each sold-out screening, Festival Director Tricia Tuttle and respective Jury Presidents presented the winning film  their award on stage at the Vue, Leicester Square.

The juries were led by: acclaimed Colette and Still Alice director Wash Westmoreland, whose latest film Earthquake Bird world premiered in this year’s Festival; Austrian director Jessica Hausner, whose latest film Little Joe featured in this year’s Festival; the Oscar-nominated director of Strong Island, Yance Ford, and award-winning British film producer Jacqui Davies.

This year’s LFF Connects series of thought-provoking high-impact talks for industry and public audiences explored the future of film and how film engages with other creative industries. Events were held with Atom Egoyan and William Nicholson.

Insightful Screen Talks were given by celebrated directors and actors: Céline Sciamma, Kasi Lemmons, Kim Longinotto, Lukas Moodysson, Michael B. Jordan, Rian Johnson and Robert De Niro.

The Surprise Film was Josh and Benny Safdie’s UNCUT GEMS in which Adam Sandler plays a New York jewellery dealer trying to pay his debts after he acquires a rare gem stone. The surprise screening in London followed the film’s World Premiere in Telluride, where it received great crticial acclaim.

In a new initiative for 2019, the Festival hosted LFF For Free, offering 30 exciting free events to complement and expand the Festival programme.  The BFI Southbank became a Festival Hub for the public, with free events concentrated over two weekends. Events were designed for all ages and families, and for audiences of all tastes. These included Q&As with The Quay Brothers, DJ nights inspired by films of the festival, and a live concert with BBC Radio 3’s Sound of Cinema exploring the world of Dickens on film.

The LFF’s Industry Programme of Big Picture discussions and industry events tackled some of the most pressing questions facing the industry at this time of radical change, welcoming 2,796 industry and media delegates. This year saw two new partnerships with Creative XR and Facebook, along with existing partnerships with Film London with the Production Finance Market, and the British Council.

The programme opened up opportunities for new business, learning and networking for industry delegates working across the wider screen industries as well as policy makers. These included Spotlight Conversations with major global business leaders such as Glen Basner, CEO of Filmnation Entertainment, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, Co-presidents of Plan B Entertainment, and Fox Searchlight Pictures Co-chairmen, Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula.  Other highlights were an event exploring how the industry is responding to climate change emergency with Kumi Naidoo, Secretary General of Amnesty International with Co-founder of Eco-Age Livia Firth, activist and actor Lily Cole, screenwriter Duncan Macmillan and filmmaker Scott Z. Burns, as well as sessions looking at screenwriting and authorship, high-end television, the art of sound, working with intimacy directors, the role of film festivals, international sales, film distribution and immersive storytelling. Filmmakers and international experts participating as speakers included Academy Award® winner Walter Murch, Lars Blømgren from Endelmol Shine, Jane Featherstone from Sister Pictures, Vicki Dobbs Beck from ILMxLAB, Andy Harries from Left Bank Pictures, Hakan Kousetta, COO of See-Saw Films, Ryan Kampe from Visit Films.  Guest speakers also includes screenwriters Moira Buffini (Harlots), Charlie Covell (The End of the F***ing World), Nida Manzoor (Lady Parts); and filmmakers Rose Glass (Saint Maud), Philip Youmans (Burning Cane), Craig Roberts (Eternal Beauty), Sarah Brocklehurst (Animals), Babak Anvari (Wounds) and Claire Oakley (Make-up).

NETWORK@LFF, the annual flagship professional development programme designed  to support and inspire original new voices gave  12 writers, directors and producers the opportunity to learn from visiting international filmmakers and executives screening their work at the LFF.

BFI LFF Education in partnership with Into Film returned to this year’s Festival with a new offer for young people of all ages keen to engage with the BFI LFF programme. For the first time, BFI LFF Education offered screenings and events to young people across the UK.

Additionally the Festival hosted a day dedicated to young aspiring filmmakers aged 16-25, offering transformational opportunities and exclusive access to filmmaking talent. The BFI LFF Critics Mentorship Programme returnedand 16-25 year were able to take advantage of the 25 and Under £5 rush ticket offers.

There were 3,661 attendances for Education and Industry events, including attendances at screenings for young people at 5 venues around the UK. There were over 345k views of the GenerationNow coming-of-age short films, which for the first time were made available to view for free online as part of BFI London Film Festival offering to young people.

]]> https://latestenglishmovies.com/earthquake-bird/ Fri, 11 Oct 2019 08:03:35 +0000 https://latestenglishmovies.com/?p=3706 One of the more interesting entries to the ‘Thrill’ category of the BFI LFF is Westmoreland’s Netflix funded Earthquake Bird which premiered yesterday.  Starring Alicia Vikander as the enigmatic Lucy who is a translator in Tokyo where she has lived for 5 years.  As part of her backstory we learn she is Swedish but her accent is neutral and her Japanese impeccable.

EARTHQUAKE BIRD (2019) 

She is single and rather detached from life around her.   A street encounter with a tall attractive local photographer leads her into a passionate affair with Teiji with a very slow build up to their first love-making session.  Once they have reached intimacy Lucy forms a deep attachment with Teeji which renders her vulnerable.   The arrival into her social set of Lily (Riley Keogh) a provocative and sexually forward American nurse throws a shadow across her relationship with Teeji and leads eventually to a rather daring threesome that sets the fuse for an explosive series of events.  People seem to die around Lucy, whether by accident or intent and this leads to her being under suspicion when the American nurse Lily vanishes, believed dead.  This is a nuanced film and a worthy contribution to the festival.  See it a BFI LFF.

Seeking solace in alcohol, prescription drugs and pot, Tyler rapidly descends into a drug induced mania with tragic consequences for the whole family, their lives changed forever.  At this point I and most of the audience assumed the film had finished but we were wrong.  A whole new storyline started involving Tyler’s young sister Emily (Taylor Russell) and her love story with shy guy Luke which changed the whole rhythm of the film and not in a good way.  Not quite sure what Trey Shults was hoping to achieve but it made the film very long and finally unsatisfying.

Catch this at BFI London Film Festival 2019

HOPE GAP tracks the unravelling of three lives, through stages of shock, disbelief and anger, to a resolution of sorts.

There are no villains; only good people who’ve lived too long with old mistakes and are now paying the price. There are no easy answers, and no simple paths to redemption. A husband, a wife, a son are forced to face hard truths, and out of those truths to fashion new lives. In the end, HOPE GAP is a story of survival.

The casting is perfect and the Nighy and Benning as the main protagonists are almost archetypes of middle-aged, middle class couples who have unresolved issues that they have pushed under the carpet and now threaten to consume them. Benning’s reaction is explosive in its acidity and culminates in her painful comment to Edward after she meets his new partner and sees his new home – “you left ME for THIS???”  Yes, Grace had completely misunderstood the true needs of her husband that were so far from her own understanding of the dynamics of their marriage.

See at BFI London Film Festival.

Alfre Woodward in Clemency

When you have officiated at a dozen lethal injections you become hardened to the routine and learn to take a detached view on the ultimate sanction of American justice.  Warden Bernadine Williams (Alfre Woodward) has grown a thick skin in her job running a Texas prison with a busy death-row.  She, like most of her charges is coloured but she sits in her office as a symbol of the prison service rather than as a symbol; of black middle class life.  In fact her suburban married life is falling apart at the seams due to the stress of her working day.  She relaxes with a colleague for after work drinks rather than with her teacher husband who is openly resentful to her coolness to him in their bedroom.

The film opens with an execution going badly wrong and a prisoner suffering on the death row gurney. There is another execution to follow in a few weeks time  and their is a strong feeling that the condemned man is not guilty of murder.   But he is black so that does not bode well for him in the local justice system.   Bernadine knows that the get through this next execution she must ensure that everything works in a clean methodical manner and she knows that she must keep her emotions in check or risk an emotional collapse.  You can watch Clemency at the London Film Festival.

Every scene makes you think ‘don’t do that!’, don’t go there!, and floorboards creak and strange things happen.   The kids hate the new mum who was responsible for the suicide of their real mum when dad went off with her and they plan a sick trick on her that badly misfires.  The new mum – Grace, has a very troubled history as the only surviving member of a death cult run by her father that is only kept in check by a steady supply of medications that the children have gone and hidden.  So we get a slaying in the snow storm and the daddy gets back just in time to watch his mad girlfriend in action slaying the kids.  The movie is atmospheric and beautifully shot but very little in the way of original plotting.

Catch it at the BFI London Film Festival.

Chris Pine is on charismatic but reined-in form as the Bruce himself, reluctantly swearing fealty to England when we meet him, but soon taking up arms against them — despite knowing and fearing the cost of another failed rebellion. He’s similarly slow to move in his personal life. Still in mourning for his first wife, he greets the good match offered, or rather mandated, by King Edward I (Stephen Dillane) with dutiful distaste. The courageous and compassionate Elizabeth (Florence Pugh), however, quietly sets out to win him around, and convinces him she’s committed to his cause despite her English birth.

Mackenzie is strong on detail, beautifully depicting the sheer weirdness of noble marriage in the Middle Ages. If the love story is ultimately cut short — the cuts made to the film after its Toronto festival debut seem to have hit that subplot hard — there’s enough here to give the gloomy guerilla warfare a little lift. The battle scenes, meanwhile, are as spectacular as one could wish, judiciously filled out with CG but with enough physical heft to make you wince at the squelch of gore and muck and metal.

The BFI London Film Festival runs 10-21 October. For more info visit whatson.bfi.org.uk/ lff.

Robert Greene tells the surprising story of what happened to a group of striking miners in the small town of Bisbee, Arizona in 1917: some 1200 men, primarily immigrants, were assembled as well as deported to the middle of the desert where they were delegated die. The occasion tore apart family members as well as created departments in Bisbee as well as the surrounding region that remain to this particular day. To note the centenary of this dark episode the townspeople re-enact it, and also Greene wonderfully records the magic moment when the artifice of storytelling as well as the alchemy of acting integrate to make us neglect that we’re enjoying contemporary performers making believe to be long-dead individuals. This movie-within-a-movie resonates with American atrocities past as well as really present.

Greene is one of the most interesting filmmakers operating in documentary today. He often mines the location of life where efficiency and reality intersect and also he has actually hit a rich seam with this multi-layered film, his sixth function. The large audacity as well as originality of the workout makes it a must-see.

The BFI London Film Festival runs 10-21 October. For more info visit whatson.bfi.org.uk/ lff.

With McQueen at the helm and a script from Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, the film is a possible contender for the 2019 Oscars. Last year Andy Serkis’ directorial debut Breathe opened the festival, while Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri closed it. The international premiere of Widows will take place on Wednesday 10 October at Cineworld Leicester Square, and the full LFF programme will be announced on 30 August.

Of the announcement, McQueen has this to say: “I am absolutely delighted that Widows will be opening this year’s BFI London Film Festival. Watching the UK TV version of Lynda La Plante’s original thriller as a teenager in the ’80s had a major impact on me and so it feels very special to be sharing this film with a UK audience.”

The BFI London Film Festival runs 10-21 October. For more info visit whatson.bfi.org.uk/ lff.