The annual BFI London Film Festival has returned and this year it will be taking place across 10 venues nationwide offering simultaneous screenings to widen the reach, as well as a virtual festival on the BFI player. We’re hugely proud at the level of alumni involvement in the festival each year with 2022 proving to be another fantastic showcase of achievement.
We’re delighted that LFS former student, Oliver Hermanus will be screening Living at the LFF Headline Gala. It’s a huge achievement and fantastic recognition for the film which stars Bill Nighy and is based on Ikiru by Akira Kurosawa and LFS Honorary Associate Elizabeth Karlsen co-produced with Kazuo Ishiguro as screenwriter on the project.
Carla Simón who graduated from LFS in 2014, will also be showing the Golden Bear-winning Alcarràs. The second feature film from the Catalan writer-director Simón follows the story of a peach-farming family in rural Catalonia who face a crisis when the landowners plan to turf them out to use the land for a solar farm instead. The news sends the extended family spiralling in different directions from one another, with each set on a different idea of how to go forward.
It was fantastic to hear that former MA Filmmaking student, Robin Moran will be at LFF with Autobiography, the film he has co-produced. The film had its world premiere at Venice and won the Fipresci Prize – huge congrats! It’s also screened at TIFF, Busan, Singapore, and is receiving excellent reviews. Robin studied at LFS in 2004 and as well as working on an autobiography, has had great success with films including Photocopier which won 12 Citra awards from a record 17 nominations at Festival Film Indonesia. The film is currently available on Netflix.
For everyone attending the BFI’s London Film Festival there’s the opportunity to take part in a series of events hosted by ARTEF, Anti-Racism Taskforce for European Film on which MA International Film Business Course Leader Victoria Thomas is a Board member.. On Friday 7th October there will be a conversation celebrating the life and careers of filmmakers from Black and Global Majority backgrounds working globally, featuring Nikyatu Jusu, Youssef Chebbi and Moussa Sene Absa, the event will take place at Picturehouse Central. On Sunday 9th October there will be Anti-Racism Workshops, sessions led by BFI’s Race Equality Lead, Rico Johnson-Sinclair, that look at what anti-racism is and how to engage with it as a person who isn’t racialised. Full details of the events, plus details of the screening of Pretty Red Dress can be found on the ARTEF Facebook page.
Images (from top):
Still from Alcarràs (Dir: Carla Simón, DoP: Daniela Cajías)
Still from Living (Dir: Oliver Hermanus, DoP: Jamie Ramsay)
Poster of Autobiography (Dir: Makbul Mubarak)