29/08/2019 - A total of 29 world and 28 European premieres are on the agenda at the British gathering, which is set to unspool between 3 and 13 October

The 2019 BFI London Film Festival (LFF) will host 29 world and 28 European premieres when it runs between 3 and 13 October, it was announced today. There will be films showing from 78 different countries, with festival director Tricia Tuttle heralding the high number of African productions that have been selected this year as well as “one of the strongest line-ups of British debut films we have seen in a long time”. Said British debuts include Rose Glass’s horror debut, Saint Maud [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rose Glass
film profile], playing in the Official Competition.

As previously announced, the festival will open with Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and close with Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman. The number of confirmed features in the LFF programme stands at 229, which will be presented alongside 116 confirmed short films. The features set to be screened include 41 documentaries, seven animations, 13 archive restorations and seven artists’ moving-image features.

The proportion of films in the LFF programme directed or co-directed by women is 40%, with that number rising to a whopping 60% for the Official Competition. Wary of naysayers, this gender-based fact led Tuttle to point out, “The LFF doesn’t programme to quota.”

There is a strong line-up of European movies across the three competition strands: Official Competition, First Feature and Documentary. Nine of the ten films in the Official Competition are European productions, including the world premiere of Thomas Clay’s UK-German co-production Fanny Lye Deliver’d [+see also:
film review
film profile], a 17^th-century period drama starring Maxine Peake, as well as Jayro Bustamante’s thriller The Weeping Woman [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jayro Bustamante
film profile], Oliver Hermanus’ examination of gay men under Apartheid, Moffie [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Alejandro Landes’ Sundance favourite Monos [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Małgorzata Szumowska’s English-language debut The Other Lamb [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Malgorzata Szumowska
film profile], Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s feminist drama Rose Plays Julie [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Haifaa al-Mansour’s Saudi-set drama The Perfect Candidate [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Haifaa al-Mansour
film profile], and the aforementioned Saint Maud.

Notable films in the First Feature Competition include Nick Rowland’s Calm with Horses [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Halina Reijn’s Instinct [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Halina Reijn
film profile] and Shannon Murphy’s Babyteeth. The Documentary section boasts the world premiere of Rubikah Shah’s White Riot [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which looks at how punk influenced politics in late-1970s Britain. There is also a Short Film Award to be handed out in the Short Film Competition.

Other notable world premieres are Craig Roberts’ Eternal Beauty, starring Sally Hawkins and Billie Piper, and Wash Westmoreland’s Earthquake Bird, starring Alicia Vikander and Riley Keough.

The selected films in the competitions are as follows:

Official Competition

Fanny Lye Deliver’d [+see also:
film review
film profile] - Thomas Clay (UK/Germany)
Honey Boy - Alma Har’el (USA)
The Weeping Woman [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jayro Bustamante
film profile] - Jayro Bustamante (Guatemala/France)
Lingua Franca - Isabel Sandoval (USA)
Moffie [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] - Oliver Hermanus (South Africa/UK)
Monos [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] - Alejandro Landes (Colombia/Argentina/Netherlands/Germany/Sweden/Uruguay/USA)
The Other Lamb [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Malgorzata Szumowska
film profile] - Małgorzata Szumowska (Ireland/Belgium/USA)
The Perfect Candidate [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Haifaa al-Mansour
film profile] - Haifaa al-Mansour (Germany/Saudi Arabia)
Rose Plays Julie [+see also:
trailer
film profile] - Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor (Ireland/UK)
Saint Maud [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rose Glass
film profile] - Rose Glass (UK)

First Feature Competition (Sutherland Award)

Atlantics [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mati Diop
film profile] - Mati Diop (France/Senegal/Belgium)
Babyteeth - Shannon Murphy (Australia)
Calm with Horses [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] - Nick Rowland (UK/Ireland)
House of Hummingbird - Bora Kim (South Korea)
Instinct [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Halina Reijn
film profile] - Halina Reijn (Netherlands)
The Last Black Man in San Francisco - Joe Talbot (USA)
Make Up [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] - Claire Oakley (UK)
Relativity [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] - Mariko Minoguchi (Germany)
Scales - Shahad Ameen (UAE/Iraq/Saudi Arabia)

Documentary Competition (Grierson Award)

Cold Case Hammarskjöld [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mads Brügger
interview: Mads Brügger
film profile] - Mads Brügger (Denmark/Norway/Sweden/Belgium)
Coup 53 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] - Taghi Amirani (UK)
Cunningham [+see also:
trailer
film profile] - Alla Kovgan (Germany/USA)
I Am (Not) a Monster [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] - Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian (UK/Netherlands)
The Kingmaker - Lauren Greenfield (USA)
Mystify: Michael Hutchence - Richard Lowenstein (Australia)
Overseas [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Yoon Sung-A
film profile] - Sung-A Yoon (Belgium/France)
A Pleasure, Comrades! [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] - José Filipe Costa (Portugal)
White Riot [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] - Rubika Shah (UK)

Short Film Competition

If You Knew – Stroma Cairns (UK)
What Do You Know About the Water and the Moon – Jian Luo (China)
White Girl – Nadia Latif (UK)
Fault Line – Soheil Amirsharifi (Iran)
GUO4 – Peter Strickland (Hungary)
In Vitro – Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind (Denmark/UK/Palestine)
Algo-Rhythm – Manu Luksch
Between – Ana Carolina Marinho and Bárbara Santos
In Between – Samir Karahoda (Kosovo)
Child – Talia Zucker (USA/Australia)
Watermelon Juice - Irene Moray (Spain)
Queering Di Teknolojik – Timothy Smith