LWLies 100: Spe­cial Anniver­sary Issue – Out now!

The prospect of this anniver­sary issue has been some­thing of an obses­sion for a num­ber of years now. In the world of print mag­a­zines, you’re con­stant­ly ask­ing your­self the ques­tion: how can we do some­thing spe­cial? But some­thing spe­cial that’s also achiev­able with the means at your disposal.

Think­ing about this issue, the LWLies team and I want­ed it to serve as a cel­e­bra­to­ry bench­mark for our cen­ten­ni­al – a dif­fi­cult num­ber to reach in the ultra-pre­car­i­ous world of inde­pen­dent pub­lish­ing. We want­ed the issue to look back and look for­ward, but also to not take its eye away from a present moment that cap­tures the film indus­try in a state of curi­ous flux.

What about the cov­er? How would it look and what would it say? Tra­di­tion­al­ly, we select a sin­gle cov­er film and the design inspi­ra­tion derives from that finite point. But with this issue, the plan was always to expand our hori­zons, and so the bound­aries for what we could or should put on the cov­er changed along with it.

One per­son­al spec­i­fi­ca­tion for this issue would be that it would deliv­er a sense of (hope­ful­ly pos­i­tive) nos­tal­gia for both the read­ers and the cre­ators who have picked up and worked on the mag­a­zine in the past. But also, this one had to be an intro­duc­tion to the brand and an invit­ing sum­ma­tion of our cin­e­mat­ic enthu­si­asms – not just a great issue 100, but a great issue 1 too.

So I’ve talked about what we want­ed LWLies 100 to be, so maybe I’ll say a lit­tle some­thing about what it is. We end­ed up look­ing inwards, tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from our review scor­ing sys­tem and divid­ing the issue up into three chap­ters: Antic­i­pa­tion, Enjoy­ment and In Ret­ro­spect. Each chap­ter opens on a spe­cial per­son­al essay address­ing con­cerns of the past, present and future in the world of film. Then, there are three spe­cial fea­tures: the first look­ing at film­mak­ers; the sec­ond look­ing at films; and the third look­ing at the his­to­ry of the mag­a­zine. The high­fa­lutin con­cept has been used as an excuse to talk about the things we love and devise an edi­to­r­i­al jour­ney that you’ll want to hold in your hands and keep forever.

You can’t see it, but I’m get­ting a lit­tle teary-eyed just writ­ing about this – it’s emo­tion­al­ly over­whelm­ing to just con­sid­er all the col­lab­o­ra­tors who have helped along the years to make LWLies what it is today. I’ve always believed that one thing that makes mag­a­zines unique is that they are a phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of the col­lec­tive endeav­our, where the work of writ­ers, artists, illus­tra­tors, design­ers, researchers, proof-read­ers, edi­tors and pub­lish­ers can co-min­gle and inter­act in a way that the dig­i­tal world has yet to sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly recre­ate. Any­way, we have per­son­al­ly thanked you all inside this issue.

A final thing: I hope she doesn’t mind me say­ing so, but LWLies artis­tic direc­tor, Lau­rène Boglio, lives out in the Mass­a­chu­setts coun­try­side and all the cre­ative ele­ments of this issue were pow­ered through a series of one-hour after­noon video calls. This has been the set-up since pre-Covid, and with this issue, even though it was a much more com­plex beast to grap­ple with, we got our method down to a tee. The joy of mak­ing mag­a­zines, the thrill of mak­ing deci­sions and exam­in­ing the work of col­lab­o­ra­tors, work­ing out the best visu­al pedestal to place it on, is com­plete­ly cap­tured in these calls.

On the cover(s)

With a cel­e­bra­to­ry vibe in mind, a par­ty theme emerged ear­ly on in our think­ing about what would go on the cov­er of this spe­cial issue. We engaged four amaz­ing artists each to pro­vide a pan­el for a con­nec­tive art­work depict­ing a huge, vibrant house par­ty – how bet­ter to cap­ture the films of the past two decades? If you look a lit­tle clos­er at the guests, you see that they rep­re­sent every one of the films – and themes – that have been select­ed for our past cov­ers. So when you pick up or receive your copy, you’ll actu­al­ly be hold­ing one of four pos­si­ble covers.

Cov­er 1: Top left (Issues 51 – 74)
By Kyle Platts

Cov­er 2: Top right (Issues 75 – 99)
By Muru­giah

Cov­er 3: Bot­tom left (Issues 1 – 24)
By Zara Wilkins

Cov­er 4: Bot­tom right (Issues 25 – 50)
By Tim Alexan­der

And, because we’re not doing things by halves this issue, we also have a fifth cov­er that every read­er will receive in the form of a spe­cial slip­case designed by our very own Lau­rène Boglio. The inspi­ra­tion for this out­er cov­er design comes from the three chap­ters of the book and is a work that rep­re­sents the mul­ti­plic­i­ty of ways we can engage with cin­e­ma, and that cin­e­ma can engage with us.

Else­where in this issue we have new illus­tra­tion work by Stéphanie Sergeant, Lau­ra Backe­berg, Drew Shan­non, Ana Müshell, Frie­da Ruh, Rumbidzai Savan­hu and Nick Tay­lor.

Inside the issue

Essay 1: The Ghosts of Cin­e­ma Future
Charles Bramesco is wor­ried that our stream­ing over­lords are drop­ping the ball and sug­gests a clever course correction.

In the Begin­ning…
Thir­ty-nine great film­mak­ers from around the globe talk exclu­sive­ly to LWLies about the impulse that led them down the rab­bit hole of cin­e­ma. Includes new inter­views with Wes Ander­son, Lulu Wang, Mark Jenkin, Alice Rohrwach­er, Davy Chou, Isabel San­doval, Pedro Almod­ó­var and Chris­t­ian Petzold.

Essay 2: The Ghosts of Cin­e­ma Present
Han­nah Strong reflects on the state of the mul­ti­plex and pon­ders whether the cin­emago­ing expe­ri­ence will ever be the same again.

Per­fect 10s
Sum­ming up the cin­e­ma of LWLies’ life­time (2005 to present) the only way we know how: with a load of irrev­er­ent top 10 lists.

Essay 3: The Ghosts of Cin­e­ma Past
Christi­na New­land opens her heart for a per­son­al explo­ration into what it means to cher­ish old movies.

Print Mat­ters
A visu­al jour­ney through the LWLies pub­lish­ing archives to demon­strate how the mag­a­zine has evolved over the years.

In the back section

Moviehunt­ing: A guide to find­ing small gems
LWLies con­tribut­ing edi­tor Sophie Monks Kauf­man charts her explo­ration at the fringes of film cul­ture over the last decade, in search of rare, bur­nished jew­els to call her own.

Inter­view: Joan­na Hogg
Soma Ghosh meets the British film­mak­er to dis­cuss the sub­tleties and sub­text of her intrigu­ing, self-reflex­ive new work, The Eter­nal Daughter.

Inter­view: Car­ol Mor­ley
David Jenk­ins chats with a film­mak­er who nat­u­ral­ly grav­i­tates towards eccentrics and mys­ter­ies as she uncov­ers the life of lost artist Audrey Amiss in her new film, Typ­ist Artist Pirate King.

Inter­view: Rodri­go Pri­eto
Anna Bogut­skaya talks to Mar­tin Scorsese’s cur­rent cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er of choice about the aes­thet­ic deci­sions that went into the maestro’s new epic, Killers of the Flower Moon.

In review

Ira Sachs’ Pas­sages
Celine Song’s Past Lives
Anna Hints’ Smoke Sauna Sis­ter­hood
Joan­na Hogg’s The Eter­nal Daugh­ter
Todd Haynes’ May Decem­ber
Mol­ly Man­ning Walker’s How To Have Sex
Ken Loach’s The Old Oak
Babak Jalali’s Fre­mont
Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Mon­ey
Car­ol Morley’s Typ­ist Artist Pirate King
Cris­t­ian Mungiu’s R.M.N.
Clement Virgo’s Broth­er
Matt Johnson’s Black­Ber­ry
Sebastián Silva’s Rot­ting in the Sun
Jus­tine Triet’s Anato­my of a Fall
Koji Fukada’s Love Life
Mar­tin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon

Plus, Matt Turn­er selects six key home ents releas­es for your con­sid­er­a­tion, includ­ing Jean Rollin’s Night of the Hunt­ed, Christo­pher Nolan’s Fol­low­ing, Kira Muratova’s The Long Farewell, Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace 4K, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s The Guard from the Under­ground and Ann Hui’s Vis­i­ble Secret.

The third edi­tion of Mari­na Ashioti’s col­umn Sticky Gold Stars which cel­e­brates LGBTQ+ cin­e­ma is inspired by the queer-tinged slow cin­e­ma offer­ings at this year’s Locarno Film Festival.

And there’s also a pre­view of all the great films play­ing at the 2023 Lon­don Film Festival.

A final big thank you to every­one at LWLies and TCO Lon­don whose tire­less efforts and nev­erend­ing hus­tle allowed all this to hap­pen: Han­nah Strong, Mari­na Ash­i­oti, Adam Wood­ward, Sask­ia Lloyd Gaiger, Ter­tia Nash, Emma Bale­bela, Han Nightin­gale, Emi­ly Sear, Kay Ogundimu, Vince Medeiros, Steph Pom­phrey, Wendy Kler­ck, Simon Bak­er, Bri­an Clark and the entire team.

LWLies 100 is avail­able to order now from our online shop. You can order all four cov­ers as a pack­age, or order indi­vid­ual cov­ers. Become a LWLies Gold Mem­ber or sub­scribe today to make sure you nev­er miss an issue.