Pro­gram­mers Picks from the 2018 BFI Lon­don Film Festival

Eclec­ti­cism is the whole point of an event like the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val. It’s not just that the programme’s mul­ti­fac­eted range of titles vary mas­sive­ly in con­tent, for­mat and prove­nance, but also that there are so many films (225 fea­tures!), all run­ning in par­al­lel through a cine-map of dif­fer­ent Lon­don venues, that no one per­son can pos­si­bly hope to see any­where near every­thing in the 12 days avail­able. So unless you are pre­pared to go lucky dip and to choose so arbi­trar­i­ly that every­thing is a Sur­prise Film, you too must be eclec­tic your­self in your approach to the festival.

This might involve due dili­gence, cross-ref­er­enced cal­en­dars, exten­sive research, Oui­ja boards and elab­o­rate Venn dia­grams, all in aid of chart­ing a route through the fes­ti­val pro­gramme that is per­fect­ly cus­tomised to your own tastes. It is also pru­dent, how­ev­er, to seek expert advice and advo­ca­cy – and there is nobody more expert than the pro­gram­mers them­selves. For while they love each and every selec­tion that they have made for the film fes­ti­val, they are in a prime posi­tion to direct you to their more eas­i­ly over­looked choic­es. Here, pre­sent­ed in no par­tic­u­lar order, are some of the pro­gram­mers’ top picks from this year’s programme.

An eccen­tric auteur shoots a schlocky B‑movie in an aban­doned hos­pi­tal, his wise­crack­ing crew flaunt­ing their wok­e­ness, and guile­less star­let Mabel swerv­ing the advances of her smarmy co-star. Open­ing with an iron­ic Pauline Kael quote, this is all set to be a wit­ty insid­er take on the per­ils of low-bud­get film­mak­ing. And then the bus­load of ​‘freaks’ arrive, a sup­port­ing cast of phys­i­cal out­siders, includ­ing Rosen­thal (Adam Pear­son from Under the Skin), who has neurofibromatosis.

While every­one falls over them­selves to wel­come these dry­ly cyn­i­cal new­com­ers, Mabel strug­gles with her own response to Rosen­thal: by turns patro­n­is­ing, fas­ci­nat­ed, fetishis­tic, and roman­tic. As the day draws to a close, though, the set’s well-mean­ing façade turns out to be a sham, and the mis­fits are left to spend the night in the aban­doned hos­pi­tal. And then the real fun begins. A riot of humour and for­mal slip­per­i­ness, the film dives into thorny issues of screen rep­re­sen­ta­tion with intel­li­gence, wit and thrilling cine-lit­er­a­cy. Kate Tay­lor

You are invit­ed down the rab­bit hole to land in a can­dy coloured world of arti­fi­cial­i­ty peo­pled by fem­i­nine per­fec­tion. Then enter the beau­ty par­lour of Fig­ure­head, embod­ied by the artist her­self, Rachel Maclean, who lec­tures her cos­meti­cised sub­jects on West­ern aes­thet­ics, assist­ed by the lat­est and most attrac­tive sur­veil­lance technology.

What is she say­ing about the role and the pow­er of art? Have (male) artists, and syco­phan­tic (male) crit­ics, been the omnipo­tent cre­ators of the ideas and images of beau­ty and taste that dom­i­nates us today? How are we to find alter­na­tive visions when our cul­tur­al norms are all encom­pass­ing? Maclean’s (lit­er­al­ly) icon­o­clas­tic film insists we ask these ques­tions but also shows us the dan­gers of doing so. Con­fronting the sys­tem could mean we end up as meat. But resis­tance isn’t futile; our sis­ters from the past, the Suf­fragettes, return to lead the charge. Helen de Witt

We’ve seen too many films in which (pre­dom­i­nant­ly female) sex work­ers are either pun­ished for their sup­posed indis­cre­tions, or reach life-chang­ing epipha­nies which see them turn their backs on their cho­sen pro­fes­sion in favour of a more ​‘whole­some’ path. Daniel Goldhaber’s thrilling­ly sex-pos­i­tive tech­no-hor­ror Cam is refresh­ing in many ways, not least in how it refus­es to pan­der to con­ser­v­a­tive assump­tions about the so-called amoral­i­ty of erot­ic enter­tain­ment. The sto­ry revolves around an ambi­tious cam-girl who finds her­self faced with an uncan­ny online dop­pel­gänger, deter­mined to steal her iden­ti­ty and destroy her life.

Gold­haber wrote the film with close friend and for­mer sex work­er, Isa Mazzei, and her per­spec­tive lends not just a sense of accu­ra­cy, but deep­er authen­tic­i­ty which engen­ders an implic­it sense of trust in the mate­r­i­al. Ter­ri­fy­ing for all the right rea­sons, Cam offers a night­mar­ish yet pro­gres­sive view of the adult enter­tain­ment indus­try, tak­ing the shame out of sex work. Michael Blyth

Chilean direc­tor Domin­ga Sotomay­or won the Best Direc­tor Award at this year’s Locarno Fes­ti­val for her third film, a tale of three young peo­ple Clara (10), Sofia (16) and Lucas (16), expe­ri­enc­ing desire and dis­ap­point­ments in the run up to a New Year’s Eve par­ty. Set in 1990 when Chile was nego­ti­at­ing its return to democ­ra­cy fol­low­ing Pinochet’s dic­ta­tor­ship, it uses the aspi­ra­tions of an eco­log­i­cal com­mune to reflect on the wider changes in the nation state.

Draw­ing on the director’s expe­ri­ence grow­ing up in an iso­lat­ed envi­ron­men­tal com­mu­ni­ty at the foot of the Andes, the film is both a com­ing-of-age tale and a del­i­cate por­trait of a clus­ter of peo­ple test­ed by the demands of the sit­u­a­tion in which they find them­selves. There is some­thing very Chekhov­ian in the piece’s con­struc­tion: the pri­ori­ti­sa­tion of mood, the del­i­cate chore­og­ra­phy of the com­ings and goings, lean dia­logue, and a healthy dose of wry, sub­tle humour. A gor­geous piece of film­mak­ing. Maria Del­ga­do

The words that come to me when I think of Free­dom Fields are sis­ter­hood, deter­mi­na­tion, and defi­ance. The film charts six years of Libya’s nascent nation­al women’s foot­ball – a com­plex jour­ney, to say the least. Beau­ti­ful­ly shot, sub­tly told, by turns mov­ing, infu­ri­at­ing and exhil­a­rat­ing, this is a cel­e­bra­tion of an incred­i­ble group of women that you sim­ply must meet for every­thing they rep­re­sent – not only for free­dom, the pow­er of team, the resilience of get­ting up over and over again and achiev­ing small but sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ries against all odds, but also because if you have no knowl­edge of what the com­plex post-Gaddafi sit­u­a­tion in Libya looks like, then this film would be a great place to start.

Behind the cam­era, British Libyan direc­tor Naz­i­ha Are­bi has been no less fear­less and ener­getic her­self in bring­ing the film – her debut fea­ture – to screen over the last six years. One of the great plea­sures of track­ing films over years, as I have with this one, is to see their pow­er unfurl as they meet an audi­ence for the first time. I can­not wait to intro­duce LFF view­ers to Naz­i­ha, to Fad­wa, Nama, Hal­i­ma and their team – an inspi­ra­tional young gen­er­a­tion, try­ing to build a bet­ter future. Elhum Shak­er­i­far

Sergei Loznit­sa is one of the most pro­lif­ic ​‘post-Sovi­et’ film­mak­ers. He made his name with his out­stand­ing doc­u­men­tary films, among them Maid­an, record­ing the protest move­ment in Ukraine in 2014. His fic­tion films include My Joy, In the Fog, and A Gen­tle Crea­ture, pro­vid­ing some of the most strik­ing analy­ses of the Sovi­et and post-Sovi­et expe­ri­ence yet made.

His fourth fea­ture, Don­bass, which won Best Direc­tion in the Un Cer­tain Regard sec­tion at Cannes this year, is his pow­er­ful com­men­tary on the con­tin­u­ing war in Ukraine. Con­sist­ing of 13 episodes, there is no attempt to explain them or to cre­ate a con­ven­tion­al nar­ra­tive. Prin­ci­pal­ly based on ama­teur videos post­ed on the inter­net and ref­er­enc­ing TV news cov­er­age, Loznit­sa pro­vides a night­mar­ish and grotesque ​‘tour de force’ embrac­ing vio­lence, bureau­cra­cy, and the absurd. Peter Hames

We know from the movies, if not from per­son­al expe­ri­ence, that teenage friend­ships can be tox­ic. Think of the heady com­bi­na­tion of sex, vio­lence and voyeurism in films like Heathers and Fun­ny Games. Sticks and Stones sees bud­dies Simon and Bjarke career­ing down a sim­i­lar­ly destruc­tive path when a seem­ing­ly benign school media project pro­vides them with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cri­tique life in their nowheresville small town. Cam­era in hand, the boys begin their social doc­u­men­tary ​‘Plan­et of the Apes’, a nat­u­ral­ist take on their declin­ing locality.

Both Simon and Bjarke have some lev­el of dys­func­tion at home, which is grad­u­al­ly revealed by the ever more extreme meth­ods of their ​‘project’. Ques­tion­ing both the destruc­tive pow­er of machis­mo and unthink­ing mon­e­tary pur­suit, direc­tor Mar­tin Skovbjerg’s brave and time­ly fea­ture debut is both con­fronta­tion­al and thought pro­vok­ing. Simon and Bjarke’s antics may make you gasp, but the care­ful­ly writ­ten script and sen­si­tive per­for­mances will also make you care des­per­ate­ly. So per­haps the boys are not so many worlds away from David Atten­bor­ough after all. Sarah Lut­ton

This char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly bizarre-but-inspired new film from Winnipeg’s weird and won­der­ful Guy Maddin – here work­ing with Evan and Galen John­son – is a supreme­ly inven­tive rework­ing of the sto­ry of Alfred Hitchcock’s Ver­ti­go. Bril­liant­ly assem­bled from clips tak­en from count­less films and TV series – iden­ti­fy them if you can! – set and/​or shot in San Fran­cis­co, it chron­i­cles a cop’s fate­ful encounter with a mys­te­ri­ous woman.

Here, the Jim­my Stew­art and Kim Novak char­ac­ters are rep­re­sent­ed by a won­drous array of actors (Rock Hud­son, Joan Craw­ford, Karl Malden and dozens more); like­wise, of course, the build­ings, cars and props that fig­ure in the sto­ry­line now have flu­id iden­ti­ties. Con­se­quent­ly, besides the basic plot out­line we have a mar­vel­lous meta-nar­ra­tive, rich in sur­prise cameos (Chuck Nor­ris!), odd digres­sions, haunt­ing res­o­nances and improb­a­ble erot­ic over­tones. Cru­cial­ly, while cast­ing a fresh, philo­soph­i­cal­ly stim­u­lat­ing light on cin­e­mat­ic sto­ry­telling, it’s also very fun­ny. Mad­cap mag­ic. Geoff Andrew

Robert Greene tells the shock­ing sto­ry of what hap­pened to a group of strik­ing min­ers in the small town of Bis­bee, Ari­zona in 1917: some 1200 men, most­ly immi­grants, were round­ed up and deport­ed to the mid­dle of the desert where they were left to die. The event tore apart fam­i­lies and cre­at­ed divi­sions in Bis­bee and the sur­round­ing coun­ty that linger to this day. To mark the cen­te­nary of this dark episode the towns­peo­ple re-enact it, and Greene bril­liant­ly cap­tures the mag­ic moment when the arti­fice of sto­ry­telling and the alche­my of act­ing com­bine to make us for­get that we’re watch­ing con­tem­po­rary per­form­ers pre­tend­ing to be long-dead peo­ple. This movie-with­in-a-movie res­onates with Amer­i­can atroc­i­ties past and very present.

Greene is one the most excit­ing film­mak­ers work­ing in doc­u­men­tary today. He fre­quent­ly mines the area of life where per­for­mance and real­i­ty inter­sect and he has hit a rich seam with this mul­ti-lay­ered film, his sixth fea­ture. The sheer audac­i­ty and orig­i­nal­i­ty of the exer­cise makes it a must-see. Chris­tine Bardsley

Roar Uthaug’s immer­sive dis­as­ter­piece The Wave played the LFF in 2015, keep­ing audi­ences gripped with its all-too-real depic­tion of an 80m tsuna­mi trounc­ing the Nor­we­gian coun­try­side. John Andreas Andersen’s fol­low-up turns up the car­nage to 11: rur­al geol­o­gist Kris­t­ian Eikjord (Kristof­fer Jon­er), who pre­dict­ed the first film’s seis­mic shifts, is now a lon­er, estranged from his fam­i­ly after suf­fer­ing a men­tal break­down. Kris­t­ian has survivor’s guilt, and, after act­ing on a tip-off from a for­mer col­league, begins to wor­ry that more ruc­tions are to fol­low, this time rip­ping apart the big city – Oslo – where his wife and chil­dren live.

Kristian’s is-he-or-isn’t‑he-crazy mania only adds ten­sion to The Quake’s omi­nous build-up; indeed, an inci­dent at the opera house may well be a false alarm. Many, many oth­er films have used this card, but Jon­er – togeth­er with the estimable Ana Dahl Torp as his ex-wife – plays it for nat­u­ral­ism, mak­ing for an inter­est­ing and empa­thet­ic hero, which only ele­vates the exploita­tion ele­ments of the sto­ry. Along with The Guilty, The Quake is a great exam­ple of how genre mate­r­i­al can be human­ised with­out sac­ri­fic­ing sus­pense. Damon Wise

As the polit­i­cal shifts that have unset­tled all of us in recent years con­tin­ue to rever­ber­ate, it’s been fas­ci­nat­ing to see their effects on inde­pen­dent film­mak­ers glob­al­ly this year. As a result, I have gen­uine admi­ra­tion of the artistry behind all my selec­tions this year, but a spe­cial place is reserved for the won­der­ful nov­el­ist and film­mak­er Xialou Guo who has deliv­ered anoth­er entire­ly unadorned and dis­arm­ing­ly com­pelling essay film. As in her pre­vi­ous work, she nav­i­gates themes of migra­tion, aspi­ra­tion, home and the flow of cap­i­tal, but this time the shad­ow of Brex­it looms large.

Whilst the rhetoric on both sides of the ref­er­en­dum focused on artic­u­lat­ing the val­ue and place of eco­nom­ic migrants, Guo’s focus is on her imme­di­ate cir­cle – a group of intel­lec­tu­al migrants; peo­ple whose migra­tions haven’t been pre­cip­i­tat­ed by finan­cial hard­ship but by an age-old curios­i­ty to have new expe­ri­ences and live in dif­fer­ent places. Hav­ing made the Lon­don bor­ough of Hack­ney home for over 15 years, Guo gleans fas­ci­nat­ing insight into the shift­ing nature of com­mu­ni­ty in the cap­i­tal, demon­strat­ing unequiv­o­cal­ly the unique per­spec­tive on British­ness that belongs to the migrant artist. Come see it at LFF and get the added plea­sure of hear­ing the thoughts of a film­mak­er who is as fierce­ly intel­li­gent as her work. Jem­ma Desai

Fresh from win­ning the Grand Prix at FID Mar­seille Span­ish, artist Dora Garcia’s first fea­ture film is a com­pelling exper­i­men­tal doc­u­men­tary cir­cling around the work of artist, writer and psy­cho­an­a­lyst Oscar Masot­ta – a cen­tral fig­ure in the cul­tur­al life of Argenti­na from the 1950s to the 1970s. From the 1960s onwards Masot­ta staged a series of remark­ably pre­scient ​‘hap­pen­ings’ which fore­saw the rise of mil­i­tari­sa­tion in the Span­ish speak­ing world and par­tic­u­lar­ly the dis­ap­pear­ances in Argentina.

With a kinet­ic cam­era Gar­cia cap­tures a series of con­tem­po­rary restag­ings of the works and fol­lows the reac­tions of the par­tic­i­pants as they try to make sense of their expe­ri­ences. While the film cap­tures the fear and uncer­tain­ty of past (and poten­tial­ly future) trau­ma it equal­ly finds humour in the every­day encoun­ters the pub­lic have with these avant-garde works from anoth­er time, and makes an effec­tive argu­ment for art’s poten­tial to help us to con­front life’s dark­er side. Ben­jamin Cook

Mak­ing use of his own fam­i­ly his­to­ry and research on the con­nec­tions that link the themes of migra­tion and mon­ey, Swiss direc­tor Markus Imhoof deliv­ers a holis­tic and obser­va­tion­al cin­e­mat­ic study of the cur­rent refugee cri­sis. Imhoof sets Eldo­ra­do apart from oth­er doc­u­men­tary con­tri­bu­tions on the top­ic by telling the sto­ry of how his fam­i­ly wel­comed a young Ital­ian refugee dur­ing World War Two, a strik­ing and eye-open­ing par­al­lel to nowa­days when Euro­pean house­holds are not host­ing those in tran­sit and in need of care.

The film digs deep into the Ital­ian and Swiss sys­tems in place to process the arrival of dis­placed peo­ple, cold­ly designed to aim at mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion and repeal instead of inte­gra­tion. With an impact­ful and skil­ful bal­ance of fac­tu­al infor­ma­tion and per­son­al tes­ti­mo­ny, Eldo­ra­do is a stir­ring por­trait of the human tragedy that Europe per­sis­tent­ly allows to take place with­in its invis­i­ble but much too real bor­ders. Don’t look away from this one. Ana David

Film­mak­ing as a balm for bat­tered souls, South Kore­an writer/​director Shin Dong-seok deft­ly bal­ances tragedy and mys­tery in this aston­ish­ing­ly assured debut, a qui­et stand­out from our Love strand. You’d be for­giv­en for find­ing the premise unfath­omably sad, but Last Child proves to be as nar­ra­tive­ly grip­ping as it is emo­tion­al­ly acute.

Six months on from his death, Eunchan’s par­ents are still wrenched apart by grief. Mis­ook (Kim Yeo-jin) takes no solace in the fact that her son died a hero, hav­ing saved a school­mate from drown­ing. In con­trast, her hus­band Sungche­ol (Choi Moo-seong) is proud to launch a schol­ar­ship in the teenager’s name. He also wel­comes Kihyun (Seong Yu-bin), the strug­gling mis­fit their boy res­cued, into the couple’s inte­ri­or dec­o­rat­ing busi­ness as an appren­tice. Cue the unrav­el­ling of a tan­gled web of secrets, cul­mi­nat­ing in a dra­mat­ic final act that earns every sec­ond of its cathar­sis, anchored by three extra­or­di­nar­i­ly tex­tured per­for­mances. Man­ish Agarwal

The 62^nd BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val runs 10 – 21 Octo­ber. Check out the full pro­gramme at what​son​.bfi​.org​.uk/lff/