It's that time of year again: next week, the 61st edition of the BFI London Film Festival takes over nearly twenty venues across the capital, with 242 feature films from 67 countries – which is not even to mention short films, experimental strands, filmmaker Q&As, classic restorations, special events and more. It’s nearly impossible to catch everything, but here are a few of the must-see events that should be at the top of your list.
The Headline Galas
The LFF likes to go in and out with a bang, and this year is no exception: festivities kick off with an Opening Night Gala of Breathe, the directorial debut of one Andy Serkis; and officially conclude with the Closing Night Gala of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the new comic drama from In Bruges director Martin McDonagh. In between, there's red carpet treatment for the likes of real-life tennis drama Battle of The Sexes; awards-tipped coming-of-age story Call Me By Your Name; and Guillermo Del Toro's triumphant return in the shape of The Shape Of Water. Plus, Noah Baumbach's bittersweet new comedy The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected) appears at the Laugh Gala – in association with your good friends here at Empire.
The Festival Favourites
Arriving at the end of festival season, much of the LFF’s offering is a 'greatest hits' of the film festival calendar, offering the first look to British audiences of the year’s critical darlings. So it goes with the 2017 vintage: there's Alexander Payne's unique science-fiction drama Downsizing; which won raves at Toronto earlier this month; the return of festival stalwart Michael Haneke with the potentially ironically-titled Happy End, which premiered at Cannes; the new film from Chiléan director Sebástian Lelio, A Fantastic Woman, which Berlinale audiences loved; period drama Mudbound, a big hit at this year's Sundance; and Ex Libris: New York Public Library, a three-hour documentary from 87-year-old filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, which won the FIPRESCI award at Venice earlier this year.
The British Talents
As the UK's flagship film festival, it's hardly a surprise that the LFF is keen to champion a bit of homegrown talent. 2017 sees the welcome return of Scottish director Lynne Ramsay, making her first film in over half a decade with You Were Never Really There; after the astonishing, heart-wrenching, and dinosaur-free Tyrannosaur, Paddy Considine heads behind the camera again with his boxing drama Journeyman; Sherlock's Paul McGuigan heads to the Northwest for his period romance Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool; Saul Dibb adapts the classic WWI play Journey's End; the Jamie Bell-starring hostage thriller 6 Days dramatises a key event in British political history; and The Selfish Giant director Clio Barnard heads to Yorkshire for rural melodrama Dark River.
The Best Of The Rest
There’s an extraordinarily broad programme to found across the two weeks, with virtually every flavour, taste, style and culture represented. The Florida Project is the much-anticipated follow-up from Tangerine director Sean Baker; in the documentary strand, The Final Year enjoys remarkable access to the closing twelve months of the Obama administration; Brigsby Bear, starring Mark Hamill and SNL’s Kyle Mooney, is a strange and touching comedy about a children’s TV character; a barely recognisable bleach-blonde Robert Pattinson has had critics cooing for his turn in crime thriller Good Time; the world’s first fully-painted film Loving Vincent is worth catching for technical achievement alone, with every one of the film’s 65,000 frames hand-painted by a team of over 100 artists; and though not technically a film, the first two episodes of David Fincher’s Netflix series Mindhunter will be screened in a further blurring of the small screen and big screen.
The 61st London Film Festival in partnership with American Express takes place from Wednesday 4 October - Sunday 15 October 2017. To Find the full programme listing, head to the festival's site.