After the announcement came yesterday for the official competition selection for the 62nd BFI London Film Festival, the full line-up of films has been announced at a special launch this morning.
This year, the Festival will host 21 World Premieres, 9 International Premieres and 29 European Premieres and will welcome a stellar line up of cast and crew for many of the films.
Already announced yesterday saw Official Competition titles include Destroyer, In Fabric, Joy, The Old Man and The Sea.
Heading up the opening night of this year’s festival see’s Steve McQueen’s female-fueled heist thriller Widows as the Opening Night Gala. Steve Coogan and John C Reilly will close the festival in Stan and Ollie in the Closing Night Gala.
So what can we expect between? Well, Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone will star in The Favourite, this year’s AMEX UK Gala, while the Coen Brothers return to the Festival with western The Ballad of Buster Scruggs for the American Airlines Gala. Headline Gala’s – which will be presented every night at Cineworld Leicester Square – include Beautiful Boy starring Steve Carrell and Timothe Chalamet, David Mackenzie’s Outlaw King with Chris Pine, and Marielle Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me starring Melissa McCarthy.
The First Feature Competition features the likes of Wildlife, Dead Pigs, Girl and Soni, all vying for The Sutherland Award.
Also in the news – 62nd BFI London Film Festival announces 2018 Official Competition Selection
The Special Presentations spots have been taken by The Hate U Give and Been So Long, while other’s include Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9, Park-Chan-Wook’s The Little Drummer Girl, Carol Morley’s Out of Blue and Mike Leigh’s Peterloo.
Jason Reitman’s rousing political drama The Front Runner is The Mayfair Hotel Gala, while the Mayor Of London Gala spot is filled by Matthew Heineman’s A Private War starring Rosamund Pike. Many will also be pleased to hear that Call Me By Your Name’s Luca Guadagnino’s Suspira will also feature during the festival.
Tricia Tuttle, Festival Artistic Director said “We have the great pleasure and privilege at the LFF to be both a public Festival, bringing the best global cinema to the UK’s diverse and adventurous audiences, but also playing a key role in supporting producers, sales agents and distributors to launch their films. It’s our goal that LFF offers films to satisfy any cinema goer. We want to offer 12 days of pleasure – whether it’s being challenged to think about the world, or indeed the movies in a different way, or just strapping yourself in for the ride.”
The full line up of cinematic delights are below:
GALAS
The American Express Gala – Yorgos Lanthimos THE FAVOURITE receives its UK Premiere.
American Airlines Gala – The Coen Brothers THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS
BFI Patrons’ Gala – COLETTE
The May Fair Hotel Gala – THE FRONT RUNNER
Royal Bank of Canada Gala – Dan Fogelman’s LIFE ITSELF
Mayor of London’s Gala – A PRIVATE WAR
Headline Galas – BEAUTIFUL BOY, WIDOWS, STAN AND OLLIE, CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME, OUTLAW KING, SUSPIRIA.
FESTIVAL AND STRAND GALAS
WILD ROSE
ASSASSINATION NATION
BORDER
BURNING
CAPERNAUM
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE
MIRAI
ROMA
THE WHITE CROW
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
BEEN SO LONG
FAHRENHEIT 11/9
THE HATE U GIVE
THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL
OUT OF BLUE
PETERLOO
THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD
OFFICIAL COMPETITION
BIRDS OF PASSAGE, Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s sprawling exploration of family conflict and tribal warfare;
DESTROYER, Karyn Kusama’s brooding thriller about a jaded police detective haunted by her past;
HAPPY NEW YEAR, COLIN BURSTEAD., Ben Wheatley’s poignantly funny and razor-sharp observation of English family dysfunction;
HAPPY AS LAZZARO, Alice Rohrwacher’s delightful genre-bending rumination on the fate of innocence;
IN FABRIC, Peter Strickland’s haunting ghost story starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Gwendoline Christie, following the life of a cursed dress as it passes from person to person, with devastating consequences;
JOY, Sudabeh Mortezai’s affecting drama that tackles the vicious cycle of sex trafficking in modern Europe;
THE OLD MAN &THE GUN, a brilliantly entertaining crime caper directed by David Lowery, starring Robert Redford, Sissy Spacek and Casey Affleck;
SHADOW, Zhang Yimou’s stylish martial arts thriller set during China’s Three Kingdom’s era (AD 220-280);
SUNSET, Academy Award®-winner László Nemes’ fugue-like meditation on the end of an empire;
TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG, Dominga Sotomayor’s woozily gorgeous evocation of life on the fringe of society in Chile, after Pinochet’s fall
FIRST FEATURE COMPETITION – SUTHERLAND AWARD
THE CHAMBERMAID
THE DAY I LOST MY SHADOW
DEAD PIGS
GIRL
HOLIDAY
JOURNEY TO A MOTHER’S ROOM
ONLY YOU
RAY & LIZ
SONI
WILDLIFE
DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION – GRIERSON AWARD
BISBEE ‘17, the arresting documentary from Robert Greene (Kate Plays Christine, LFF 2016), blends fiction and reality with startling effect. An old mining town on the Arizona-Mexico border finally reckons with its darkest day: the
deportation of 1200 immigrant miners exactly 100 years ago. Locals collaborate to stage recreations of their controversial past.
DREAM AWAY, sees co-directors Marouan Omara and Johanna Domke document the surreal world of Sharm El Sheikh, three years after the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 as a group of hotel staff reflect on their life, hopes and dreams in a deserted Egyptian holiday resort.
EVELYN, Academy Award®-nominated director Orlando von Einsiedel (Virunga) turns the camera on his own family as they attempt to cope with a devastating loss. On a walking odyssey across the United Kingdom, three siblings must confront a past they’ve been unable to talk about, whilst simultaneously repairing the fractures in their own relationships.
JOHN MCENROE: IN THE REALM OF PERFECTION , narrated by Mathieu Amalric and directed by Julien Farau (Un
Regard Neuf sur Olympia 52), this entertaining and innovative archive documentary captures volatile tennis star John McEnroe at the height of his success, during the final of the 1984 French Open with Ivan Lendl.
THE PLAN THAT CAME FROM THE BOTTOM UP, from director Steve Sprung tells the inspiring story of the Lucas Plan, a plan to avoid job losses concocted by the ambitiously pioneering factory workers, that became the starting point for an incisive account of our current and future economic climate – including the wind turbine, hybrid car, heat pump and energy efficient housing.
PUTIN’S WITNESSES, from award-winning exiled Russian filmmaker Vitaly Mansky (Let Us Have Power) uses first-hand footage he shot of Boris Yeltsin, Mikhail Gorbachev and Vladimir Putin to deliver a damning indictment of the early stages of Putin’s presidency.
THE RAFT, (dir. Marcus Lindeen) tells the hidden story behind what has been described as ‘one of the strangest group experiments of all time’ on the salaciously dubbed ‘Sex Raft’ through extraordinary archive material and a reunion of the surviving members of the expedition.
THEATRE OF WAR is Lola Arias’ innovative documentary revealing the personal stories of both British and Argentinean veterans whose lives were deeply affected by Falklands War timed to mark the 35th anniversary
WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHEN THE WORLD’S ON FIRE? is award-winning filmmaker Robert Minervini’s thought-provoking and all-too-relevant documentary, following a Louisiana community during the summer of 2017 during the aftermath of a police shooting that sent shockwaves throughout the country.
YOUNG AND ALIVE by Matthieu Bareyre, documents a young community in Paris whose lives were changed irrevocably by the terror attacks of 2015.. Led by new faces and unheard groups with pioneering values and ideals they open a new dialogue, challenge the state and get ready for a new kind of revolution.
SHORT FILM AWARD
ANOTHER DECADE, dir. Morgan Quaintaince
DE NATURA, dir. Lucile Hadžihalilovic
THE FIELD (LE CHAMP DE MAIS) dir. Sandhya Suri
HELLO, RAIN, dir. C J ‘Fiery’ Obassi
LASTING MARKS, DIR Charlie Lyne
LEASH, dir. Harry Lighton
MONELLE, dir. Diego Marcon
SALAM, DIR. Claire Fowler
SOLAR WALK, dir Réka Bucsi
VESLEMØY’S SONG, DIR. Sofia Bohdanowicz
The winners in each competition are selected by festival juries and this year will be announced at a unique new event celebrating public access to the winning films on Saturday 20 October.
Key filmmaking talent due to attend the Festival’s Gala and Special Presentation screenings include:
Steve McQueen, Michelle Rodriguez, Viola Davis, Daniel Kaluuya, Steve Coogan, John C. Reilly, Jon S. Baird, Jeff Pope, Faye Ward, Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Joe Alwyn, Nicholas Hoult, Mark Gatiss, Olivia Coleman, James Smith, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Tim Blake Nelson, Liam Neeson, Bill Heck, Steve Carell, Timothée Chalamet, Felix van Groeningen, Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Anne Carey, Amy Nauiokas, Wash Westmoreland, Keira Knightley, Dominic West, Denise Gough, Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley, Hugh Jackman, Jason Reitman, Dan Fogelman, Olivia Cooke, David Mackenzie, Matthew Heineman, Rosamund Pike, Jamie Dornan, Stanley Tucci, Luca Guadagnino, Ali Abbasi, Lee Chang-Dong, Nadine Labaki, Alfonso Cuarón, Ralph Fiennes, George MacKay, George Tillman Jr, Amandla Stenberg, Angie Thomas, Carol Morley, Patricia Clarkson, Peter Jackson, Viktor Kossakovsky, Rachel Maclean, Wanuri Kahiu.
The Jury for each category will be announced ahead of the opening of the Festival.
For more detailed information head over to the official BFI London Film Festival site here
The 62nd BFI London Film Festival will be on from October 10th until 21st.
