10 inde­pen­dent gems from the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val 2021

Along­side Cannes and Venice heavy-hit­ters, the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val always offers a smörgås­bord of under-the-radar gems hav­ing their first out­ing with an audi­ence. This year proved no excep­tion with films from across the globe – as well as plen­ty of home grown tal­ent – exem­pli­fy­ing why we love, and need, fes­ti­vals; as places to take a chance on a new director’s debut doc­u­men­tary, or a Burmese satire, or a word-of-mouth sen­sa­tion from Ethiopia and dis­cov­er your new favourite film­mak­er. We picked out some under-the-radar gems at this year’s LFF that should be com­ing to a screen near you soon.

Set in the pres­ti­gious Parisian uni­ver­si­ty, Sor­bonne, sparks fly between Ahmed and Farah, the two lit­er­a­ture stu­dents at the heart of Ley­la Bouzid’s sec­ond fea­ture. Bond­ing over their out­sider sta­tus – Ahmed grew up in one of the city’s ban­lieues, while Farah has just arrived from Tunisia – the pair begin a tumul­tuous courtship in Bouzid’s cam­pus film, which nav­i­gates pol­i­tics, pas­sion and poet­ry with­out falling into cliché.

UK release TBC

In the 1960s, Mary Quant pio­neered a fash­ion rev­o­lu­tion on the streets of Britain, bring­ing mini skirts, flashy eye make­up and colour­ful tights – all now ubiq­ui­tous to the decade – to the mass­es. With vibrant edit­ing and a suit­ably ​’60s sound­track, Sadie Frost’s debut doc­u­men­tary is a time machine back to the peri­od, but one with the ben­e­fit of hind­sight as fast fash­ion and con­sumerism are also explored as part of Quant’s legacy.

UK release 29 Octo­ber via Stu­dio Soho

Rehana, a sin­gle moth­er and assis­tant med­ical pro­fes­sor, wit­ness­es a sex­u­al assault on a stu­dent by one of her col­leagues. Played by Azmeri Haqui Bad­hon, Rehana is defi­ant and resilient, deter­mined to bring the assailant to jus­tice, but she finds her­self locked in a sys­tem of patri­ar­chal bureau­cra­cy and silenc­ing. This Bangladeshi fem­i­nist film drama­tisies the cost of speak­ing up.

UK release TBC

Set in the Ethiopi­an city of Harar, Jes­si­ca Beshir’s debut doc­u­men­tary casts a trance-like spell. Faya Dayi fol­lows a steady flow of peo­ple con­nect­ing with one anoth­er while many of them har­vest, trade or chew on khat, a local crop that has hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry effects. Evok­ing the effects of its sub­ject, the film’s black-and-white sequences are dreamy and gor­geous, weav­ing togeth­er lay­ers of son­ic and visu­al texture.

UK release TBC via MUBI

Writer-direc­tor-star, Nana Men­sah, proves her­self a bud­ding triple threat with Queen of Glo­ry, a dark com­e­dy set in the Bronx. After her Ghana­ian-Amer­i­can mother’s death, Sarah (Men­sah) inher­its the family’s Chris­t­ian book­shop, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing her already messy life which involves an affair with a mar­ried man and plans to move to Ohio. Ground­ed in wry real­ism, Mensah’s film­mak­ing and lead per­for­mance are equal­ly heart­felt in this love let­ter to com­mu­ni­ty, fam­i­ly and heritage.

UK release TBC

Return­ing from a stint vol­un­teer­ing with refugees abroad, Pete reunites with his old uni­ver­si­ty mates when the gang – com­pris­ing a posh artist and even posh­er lawyers – throw him a birth­day par­ty in a rur­al manor house. Reliv­ing their hedo­nis­tic stu­dent days, the group adopt a local, while Pete becomes increas­ing­ly para­noid that he’s being replaced. Andrew Gaynord’s direc­to­r­i­al debut walks a care­ful line between hor­ror and com­e­dy, before esca­lat­ing into a bru­tal and cut­ting satire of priv­i­leged millennials.

UK release 2022 via BFI

Writ­ten and direct­ed by Fred Bail­lif, a for­mer youth work­er, La Mif is a raw and often volatile glimpse inside the care sys­tem, set in a res­i­den­tial home for at-risk teenagers in Gene­va. With a young female cast and bristling ener­gy, there’s an obvi­ous par­al­lel to Sarah Gavron’s Rocks, but La Mif is very much its own, nuanced, spe­cif­ic por­tray­al of teenagers trapped in unfair sys­tems with out­stand­ing per­for­mances from its young cast.

UK release 25 Feb­ru­ary via BFI

In an unnamed, war-torn East­ern Euro­pean coun­try, two sib­lings are sep­a­rat­ed from their par­ents after their home is destroyed. Their dan­ger­ous jour­ney to cross the bor­der to safe­ty is inti­mate­ly ren­dered on screen by swirling brush­strokes of oil paint­ed onto glass, a gor­geous and unusu­al ani­ma­tion tech­nique from The Crossing’s direc­tor and ani­ma­tor Flo­rence Miailhe.

UK release TBC

A run­away fes­ti­val hit and Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val award win­ner, Flee is a ten­der, ani­mat­ed inter­view between the film’s direc­tor, Jonas Poher Ras­mussen, and his school friend, Amin. Amin chron­i­cles a dif­fi­cult phys­i­cal jour­ney from Afghanistan to Den­mark, and an even more chal­leng­ing emo­tion­al jour­ney to live open­ly as a gay man, all of which is ren­dered on screen in stun­ning animation.

UK release TBC via Curzon

Tak­ing place on a film set that is run­ning dis­as­trous­ly behind sched­ule, Mon­ey Has Four Legs is Burmese film­mak­er Maung Sun’s fea­ture film debut. The lat­est in a niche canon of films set on film sets, Sun’s film is part indus­try-satire, part social-com­men­tary about the unhap­py mar­riage between mon­ey and art. Oscil­lat­ing between sur­re­al and tense, Mon­ey Has Four Legs is a wild­ly con­fi­dent debut film.

UK release TBC