Over 12 days from October 9 to October 20 London’s iconic cinemas, including the BFI’s own South Bank cinemas, the Prince Charles Cinema, the ICA, Curzon Soho and Mayfair and Vue West End expect to see award contenders along with a selection of this year’s premieres from the international festival circuit.
This year’s festival will open with BLITZ an Second World War drama starring Saoirse Ronan and Stephen Graham – along with newcomer Elliot Heffernan as a 12-year-old boy who goes missing amid the Nazi bombing campaign on London.
Also screening:
ENDURANCE (2024) UK/US
The actual voices of British Polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew come alive in thanks to AI techniques in this new documentary charting their remarkable journey to Antarctica in 1914
MEMOIR OF A SNAIL (2024) Australia
Oscar-winning director Adam Elliot’s tale of separated twins in 1970s Australia is a funny and poignant stop-motion story seen from a woman’s perspective and suffused with all the anguish of modern life. This tender tale of loss and alienation it soon branches out into a relatable stop meditation with appeal for all ages.
MY EVERYTHING (2024) France, Anne-Sophie Bailly
Laure Calamy is the star of this amusing family drama that centres on a mother and her disabled son. Their uplifting relationship and two terrific central performances makes this a positive pleasure despite the tricky issues involved.
MALDORDOR (2024) Belgium
In his second film of the season thriller supremo Fabrice du Welz (Adoration, Alleluia, Calvaire) gets together with regulars: Laurent Lucas and Beatrice Dalle in a gritty thriller that explores an episode of institutional dysfunction and police corruption so parlous some claimed they were ‘ashamed to be Belgian’.
ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT India
Unfolding in two parts and shifting deftly from realism to reverie this Cannes-awarded first feature from Payal Kapadia is about two women caught in impossible love stories in modern day Mumbai.
THE BRUTALIST (2024) US (main photo)
Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones shine in Brady Corbet’s wartime epic that tells the story of the American Dream through the lives of visionary architect Laszlo Toth and his wife Erzsebet.
MANJI (1964) Japan
Directed by the Japanese auteur Yasuzo Masumura and based on the novel ‘Quicksand’ by Juinichiro Taniziki this stylishly sensual ‘folie a deux’ sees a married woman (Kyoko Kishida from Woman of the Dunes and a ruthless young girl (Ayako Wake) engaged in a doomed love affair. Remade many times but never living up to the original).
BFI LONDON FLIM FESTIVAL 2024