63^rd BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val line-up brings female direc­tors to the fore

We’re get­ting to the point where they don’t sell cakes big enough to house the amount of can­dles need­ed to cel­e­brate the cur­rent age of the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val. It’s 63 years young, and shows no signs of flag­ging, or wear and tear. Yet it’s nev­er just the same old thing, as this year brings new film­mak­ers, new venues, new events, new polit­i­cal themes, and a new attempt to heard that mul­ti­tude of cats that we like to call world cinema.

The charge for gen­der par­i­ty con­tin­ues, with this year strik­ing a ⁴⁰⁄₆₀ bal­ance between female and male film­mak­ers (up two per cent from 2018). And this year’s line-up fea­tures films from such far flung and under­rep­re­sent­ed locales as Bangladesh, Mon­go­lia, Burk­i­na Faso and Chad (there are, in fact, 79 coun­tries rep­re­sent­ed). All the usu­al venues will be in play, so expect to be split­ting your time between the red car­pet glitz of Leices­ter Square, and the fes­ti­val hub near Embank­ment and Water­loo, where pop-up venue Embank­ment Gar­dens will be returning.

So let’s kick things off with the big guns: the main galas. Already in the bag we had Arman­do Iannucci’s The Per­son­al His­to­ry of David Cop­per­field – his own rib­ald take on Dick­ens with Dev Patel in the lead (a show­case of his immac­u­late com­ic tim­ing, we hear). Then clos­ing things out we have the biggest of the big dogs, Mar­tin Scors­ese, who will be accom­pa­ny­ing his new one, The Irish­man, for clos­ing night detail. Then, the AMEX cen­tre­piece gala, sees Rian John­son return­ing from his trip to a galaxy far, far away with his new one, Knives Out, which looks to be his own, per­son­al homage to the mys­tery nov­els of Agatha Christie.

Else­where in the mix we have David Michôd’s The King, his take on Shake­speare star­ring a bowl-cut­ted Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met, and there’s also Tai­ka Waititi’s so-called ​“anti-hate satire” Jojo Rab­bit, about a young boy in the Hitler Youth whose imag­i­nary friend takes the form of the Führer him­self. There’s petrol­head man­na in James Mangold’s Le Mans ​’66 (aka Ford vs Fer­rari), with a bud­dy team-up of Matt Damon and Chris­t­ian Male, while Tom Han­ks seems well cast as the nicest man in TV, Fred Rogers, in Marielle Heller’s awards-tipped A Beau­ti­ful Day in the Neighborhood.

Greed sees the return of Michael Win­ter­bot­tom and his part­ner in crime, Steve Coogan, in what looks like a bac­cha­na­lian take-down of the cap­i­tal­ist mon­ster, and there’s also the return of Cory Fin­ley, direc­tor of LWLies-endorsed Thor­ough­breds, with his new com­e­dy Bad Edu­ca­tion. Cannes favourites The Light­house (by Robert Eggers), Bacu­rau (by Kle­ber Men­donça Fil­ho and Juliano Dor­nelles) and Por­trait of a Lady on Fire (by Céline Sci­amma) will make an appear­ance, as will Venice com­pe­ti­tion hope­fuls Mar­riage Sto­ry (by Noah Baum­bach) and Ema (by Pablo Larraín).

Out­side of the ritzy galas, word round the camp­fire is that this is a strong year for UK debut fea­tures. We will, of course, have to dive in and see a bunch of them before we can endorse that mes­sage, but on the slab for your con­sid­er­a­tion is Rose Glass’ Saint Maud, Nick Rollins’ Calm with Hors­es, Simon Bird’s Days of the Bag­nold Sum­mer and Bil­lie Piper’s Rare Beasts. We are also unfea­si­bly excit­ed to catch Fan­ny Lye Deliver’d, the very, very long-await­ed third film from Thomas Clay, who wowed us with his film Soi Cow­boy, over a decade ago in 2008. And def­i­nite­ly see you on the front row for Rose Plays Julie, the new film from the great Joe Lawlor and Chris­tine Molloy.

With this being a mod­ern film fes­ti­val, we must have some space in the pro­gramme for upcom­ing tele­vi­sion works. This year there are two, and both are from cel­e­brat­ed fea­ture direc­tors: the first is Gös­ta, a episod­ic work by Sweden’s Lukas Moodys­son, which has been billed a return to his com­ic ear­ly works Togeth­er and Show Me Love, and is about a child psy­chol­o­gist who is too nice. Also in the mix is Athi­na Rachel Tsangari’s eight-part series made for the BBC, Trigonom­e­try, about a Lon­don cou­ple strug­gling to pay their mort­gage and so agree to take on a lodger.

We’d love to list every fea­ture play­ing this year, but if we did you’d prob­a­bly be read­ing this sto­ry deep into next week. So dive in to the full pro­gramme your­self and it’s very like­ly you’ll sur­face with a shiny pearl or two.

The 63^rd BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val takes place between 2 – 13 Octo­ber. Tick­ets will be avail­able to pur­chase from 12 Sep­tem­ber at bfi​.org​.uk/lff