Pro­gram­mers Picks from the 2016 BFI Lon­don Film Festival

Run­ning 5 – 16 Octo­ber at numer­ous venues across the cap­i­tal, the 60^th edi­tion of the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val promis­es to show­case lit­er­al­ly hun­dreds of fea­tures. So here, in what has become a fruit­ful annu­al rit­u­al, we call upon some of the festival’s pro­gram­mers to pick out one title each – all films that, though per­haps eas­i­ly lost in this sweep­ing cine-copia, are well worth discovering.

Rec­om­mend­ed by Clare Stew­art, Fes­ti­val Director

The act of going to the cin­e­ma is exquis­ite­ly dis­sect­ed in Have You Seen My Movie?, Paul Anton Smith’s com­pul­sive­ly bril­liant artist film which has its world pre­mière at BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val. Imag­ine this: every film you have ever seen, and like­ly some you haven’t, that fea­tures a scene where its pro­tag­o­nists go to the movies. Smith takes these moments and assem­bles a mind-bog­gling com­pendi­um, illu­mi­nat­ing a film­mak­ing con­spir­a­cy of into­na­tions, phras­es, quips and artic­u­la­tions, and in doing so, he reveals some kind of secret cin­e­mat­ic lan­guage, as thrilling as it is seduc­tive. Hav­ing worked with Chris­t­ian Mar­clay as assis­tant edi­tor on The Clock, as well as lead Ani­ma­tor on Marclay’s Sur­round Sounds and, most recent­ly, Six New Ani­ma­tions, Smith’s first fea­ture project as direc­tor announces him as an extra­or­di­nary tal­ent with an exact­ing and pas­sion­ate approach to his sub­ject matter.

Have You Seen My Movie? is a roman­tic, lurid, ter­ri­fy­ing, joy­ous cacoph­o­ny. It’s also addic­tive, and for all read­ers of Lit­tle White Lies, part of the film’s seduc­tive appeal is its clar­i­on call to movie lovers: prove your cinephilic cre­den­tials by iden­ti­fy­ing the ref­er­enced films, decide what you need to see again and hunt out those mys­te­ri­ous unknowns. What­ev­er it prompts you to do, one thing is essen­tial, go see it in the cin­e­ma. Buy tick­ets

Rec­om­mend­ed by Peter Hames

This restored ver­sion of Julie Dash’s 1991 film pro­vides a long over­due oppor­tu­ni­ty to re-expe­ri­ence one of the clas­sics of Black Amer­i­can cin­e­ma. It made his­to­ry as the first film by an African Amer­i­can woman to get nation­al dis­tri­b­u­tion in the Unit­ed States. Set on a sea island off the coast of South Car­oli­na at the turn of the cen­tu­ry, it records the inter­ac­tions of a fam­i­ly whose younger mem­bers are prepar­ing to move to the main­land. Dash said that her film was aimed first­ly at Black Amer­i­can women, sec­ond at the black com­mu­ni­ty, and third­ly at white women. Yet its visu­al pow­er and per­cep­tion makes it a film for everyone.

Based on her own expe­ri­ence, fam­i­ly mem­o­ries, and care­ful research, Dash estab­lish­es a past world whose cus­toms and mytholo­gies are still linked to the present. Pos­sess­ing more in com­mon with Black African cin­e­ma than the stereo­types of Hol­ly­wood, its strong visu­al qual­i­ties and unortho­dox nar­ra­tive nonethe­less con­nect­ed with a wide audi­ence. Filmed at the same time as Toni Mor­ri­son was writ­ing Beloved, this is as much a film land­mark as that was a lit­er­ary one. Buy tick­ets

Rec­om­mend­ed by Jem­ma Desai

If the appar­ent col­lec­tive ambiva­lence towards the unknown and un-tra­versed in con­tem­po­rary glob­al pol­i­tics is leav­ing you cold this year, take a dip into the LFF pro­gramme and you might just find the dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives you crave. From a restora­tion of Daugh­ters of the Dust (a key influ­ence for Beyoncé’s Lemon­ade) to Bar­ry Jenkin’s mas­ter­piece on male emer­gence Moon­light this is a par­tic­u­lar­ly hard year to pick a high­light. But some­thing that might not have popped up on your cinephile radars is the world pre­mière of White Colour Black, a strik­ing British debut brim­ming with British, POC talent.

“Where are you from? No, but where are you real­ly from..?” Being non-white and grow­ing up in large­ly white envi­ron­ment, that ques­tion crops up at an alarm­ing rate at social gath­er­ings. Joseph a. Adesunloye’s debut fea­ture deft­ly chal­lenges the assump­tion of the kind of neat dual­i­ty to migrant iden­ti­ty that the ques­tion assumes, with an exquis­ite­ly pho­tographed and nuanced dra­ma about a young mixed her­itage man liv­ing in Lon­don. Not to be missed. Buy tick­ets

Rec­om­mend­ed by Michael Blyth

Every now and then a screen psy­cho comes along who real­ly gets under your skin. Think of hand­some chauf­feur-cum-para­noid vig­i­lante Travis Bick­le, a weirdo as moral­ly abhor­rent as he is strange­ly charm­ing. Or how about Hen­ry (of John McNaughton’s incen­di­ary debut) an insane every­man who feels too dan­ger­ous­ly real to be eas­i­ly dis­missed as a mere work of fic­tion. Well, it’s time to add a new name to the dis­tin­guished list of most fas­ci­nat­ing movie mad­men: Lar­ry De Cec­co, in Car­les Tor­ras’ Call­back. Like the best cin­e­mat­ic sociopaths, Lar­ry is an anti-hero you can’t help but fall for. He’s clear­ly unhinged, yet odd­ly relat­able, a human car crash you are pow­er­less to look away from. It’s not what Lar­ry does, so much as how he does it, and thanks to an excru­ci­at­ing­ly squirm-induc­ing per­for­mance from the aston­ish­ing Mar­tin Baci­galupo in the lead role, this sly­ly droll exer­cise in dis­com­fort is as per­verse­ly enjoy­able as it is hor­rif­i­cal­ly upset­ting. The per­fect com­bo if you ask me. Buy tick­ets

Rec­om­mend­ed by Edward Lawrenson

It’s the mid 1930s and into a rep­utable sana­to­ri­um by the Black Sea is admit­ted Emanuel, a young Jew­ish stu­dent with aspi­ra­tions to write suf­fer­ing from bone tuber­cu­lo­sis. The con­di­tion is seri­ous, and his sym­pa­thet­ic but no non­sense doc­tors drain his abscess (not for the faint-heart­ed) and entomb him in a cast that requires him to lay hor­i­zon­tal for months.

So begins Roman­ian direc­tor Radu Jude’s engross­ing and bold­ly told chron­i­cle of Emanuel’s life in the sana­to­ri­um, loose­ly based on the writ­ings of Max Blech­er. This black­ly com­ic dra­ma is a mas­ter­ly exer­cise in for­mal restraint: most of Jude’s char­ac­ters are flat out on beds (zipped about by bois­ter­ous med­ical porters), framed by a sta­t­ic cam­era and with­in the squar­ish bounds of an Acad­e­my aspect ratio. But as Emanuel (a superb per­for­mance from Lucian Rus) falls in love with a for­mer patient, argues over Europe’s trou­bled pol­i­tics with his fel­low bed com­pan­ions (and drink­ing bud­dies), and sur­ren­ders to melan­choly revery through his read­ing and writ­ing, this study of a man laid low by chron­ic ill­ness pul­sates with life and glows with bound­less admi­ra­tion for his flinty per­se­ver­ance. Buy tick­ets

Rec­om­mend­ed by Maria Delgado

Jonás True­ba has often been writ­ten about in rela­tion to his father’s body of work – both are film­mak­ers asso­ci­at­ed with Madrid, its foibles and land­scape. Fer­nan­do is per­haps best known for the wry roman­tic com­e­dy Belle Epoque which won the Oscar for Best For­eign Lan­guage Film in 1994, acknowl­edg­ing Bil­ly Wilder as a key influ­ence. Jonás’ ref­er­ence points lie clos­er to home. The Wish­ful Thinkers, shot in a seduc­tive black and white, evoked some­thing of the French New Wave in its homage to film­mak­ing in a time of aus­ter­i­ty while The Roman­tic Exiles rein­vent­ed the Fran­coph­o­ne road movie as its trio of dream­ers to Paris in search of lost loves.

The Reunion (Las Recon­quista) has a whis­per of Rohmer in its ambling tale of two child­hood sweet­hearts meet­ing again on a cold, win­try Madrid evening after many years apart, but it offers a shift of tone from his ear­li­er three films. There is some­thing open and invit­ing in the way Trueba’s cam­era invites us to join Olmo (played by True­ba reg­u­lar Francesco Car­ril) and Manuela (Itsaso Arana) on their noc­tur­nal odyssey through the city – an odyssey that feels fresh, inti­mate and spon­ta­neous. The Reunion is a break­out film for Jonás True­ba – a grown up romance for our glob­al times han­dled with wit, ten­der­ness and orig­i­nal­i­ty. Buy tick­ets

Rec­om­mend­ed by Tri­cia Tuttle

So Yong Kim fol­lows up For Ellen and Tree­less Moun­tain with anoth­er exquis­ite min­i­mal­ist obser­va­tion – this time of an inar­tic­u­late roman­tic friend­ship between two women. In a less­er director’s hands this might have been coy, or inhib­it­ed, but Kim’s film offers tremen­dous inti­ma­cy, reg­is­ter­ing every moment of joy or uncer­tain­ty on her char­ac­ters’ faces.

Rich with gor­geous pho­tog­ra­phy, and a fine score by Denis Vil­leneuve reg­u­lar Jóhann Jóhanns­son, Lovesong’s truth­ful­ness comes pri­mar­i­ly from the great dual per­for­mances of Jena Mal­one and Riley Keough (Amer­i­can Hon­ey, The Girl­friend Expe­ri­ence). Keough in par­tic­u­lar is a rev­e­la­tion as Sarah, a young moth­er – often left alone by her hus­band – and Mal­one is Mindy, her free-spir­it­ed col­lege friend. Told in two sequences, set years apart, this is a del­i­cate explo­ration of the grey area between pla­ton­ic and roman­tic. Not a film for peo­ple who want every emo­tion writ large or every res­o­lu­tion eas­i­ly won, but it’s a nuanced and deeply per­son­al one, bit­ter­sweet and ring­ing so true. Buy tick­ets

Rec­om­mend­ed by Kate Taylor

What if Har­mo­ny Korine had direct­ed The BFG? It might look a bit like The Giant, a smash­ing warm-heart­ed romp of friend­ship and famil­ial sep­a­ra­tion, mix­ing dark off­beat humour with a raw ver­ité film­ing style and seam­less for­ays into colos­sal fan­ta­sy. Of the sev­er­al sports movies in the Fes­ti­val this year (box­ing, foot­ball and chess duke it out in mul­ti­ple films), none can com­pare to the low-stakes field of pétanque (like boules), and there is no under­dog hero quite like Rikard, a severe­ly deformed man with autism, who is deter­mined to become Scan­di­na­vian cham­pi­on and be reunit­ed with his estranged mother.

Film­mak­er Johannes Nyholm will be known to approx­i­mate­ly 19 mil­lion peo­ple as the direc­tor of YouTube sen­sa­tion Las Pal­mas, in which a drunk baby trash­es a bar, and for his debut fea­ture he has held onto a keen sense of the absurd, cre­at­ing some­thing riotous and won­der­ful, that will sat­is­fy adven­tur­ous audi­ences who like sur­pris­es. Buy tick­ets

Rec­om­mend­ed by Lau­re Bonville

Fol­low­ing her ground-break­ing debut Bom­bay Beach and acclaimed music videos for the like of Beirut and Sig­ur Rós, Israeli direc­tor Alma Har’el returns with a deli­cious­ly dis­ori­ent­ing and immer­sive piece of film-mak­ing, explor­ing our per­cep­tion of love and rela­tion­ships. Inter­lac­ing three young people’s life tes­ti­monies, with actors play­ing them at dif­fer­ent stages in their jour­neys, topped with beau­ti­ful­ly chore­o­graphed dance sequences, Ha’rel crafts a fever­ish, dream­like and sen­su­ous universe.

We meet a young Alaskan strip­per, a Hawai­ian surfer dis­cov­er­ing he’s not the bio­log­i­cal father of his son, and a young woman in NYC pon­der­ing over faith and fam­i­ly bonds. Where does real life end and fan­ta­sy begin? This is for you to decide. Visu­al­ly glo­ri­ous and adorned with an hyp­not­ic sound­track by Fly­ing Lotus, this genre-blur­ring doc was the deserved win­ner of the Best Inter­na­tion­al doc­u­men­tary Prize at the this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Fes­ti­val. Buy tick­ets

Rec­om­mend­ed by Helen de Witt

One of the most remark­able films ever made about the his­to­ry of cin­e­ma, or rather, from the his­to­ry of cin­e­ma. This is nei­ther fic­tion nor doc­u­men­tary; it is a new film made from the very mate­r­i­al of the movies of the past. Found footage doesn’t begin to cov­er it!

Near­ly 40 years ago, around 400 films were found buried under an ice rink in Daw­son City, Yukon, when an old sports hall was being demol­ished. What were they and how did they get there? The sto­ry is scarce­ly believ­able. The ear­ly days of Hol­ly­wood coin­cid­ed with the Yukon Gold Rush, and the stu­dios sent movies up to the frozen wastes to enter­tain the gold prospec­tors. Movie-going became as much a part of Klondike life as pros­ti­tu­tion and gam­bling. Thing was, as the Yukon was so far away it was the end of the dis­tri­b­u­tion line for films that were seen to have exhaust­ed their com­mer­cial val­ue. The stu­dios saw no point in pay­ing for them to be returned to Los Ange­les so they were just left there fes­ter­ing in an old library, even­tu­al­ly being used as land­fill to lev­el an ice rink built over an old swim­ming pool.

Bill Mori­son, best known for his exquis­ite rework­ing of decom­pos­ing film mate­r­i­al in Deca­sia, was clear­ly the man to call. He sort­ed through miles of film and edit­ed the footage to cre­ate a com­plete­ly new pic­ture of pre-cen­sor­ship Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­tion, full of vamps and vil­lains, and at the same time con­struct­ed a pic­ture of ear­ly 20^th-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca, ripe with sports scan­dals and fears of reds under the beds fol­low­ing the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion. So if you what to hear sto­ries of emerg­ing mod­ern Amer­i­ca (some quite hair-curl­ing) and see ear­ly cin­e­ma that was either com­plete­ly unknown or thought lost for­ev­er, you don’t have to trav­el to the arc­tic wastes to do so – just pop along to Daw­son City: Frozen Time. Buy tick­ets

Check out the full LFF pro­gramme at bfi​.org​.uk/lff