By Liam Dunn

Although arriving in mid-October, a little later in the film festival calendar than its contemporaries, the BFI London Film Festival still has plenty to offer even the most discerning of cinema goers. The festival provides a sharper focus on genre and features three competition strands which reward original filmmaking that otherwise might get lost in the shuffle at Cannes or Venice.

The biggest events at LFF are always the gala screenings, bookended by both opening and closing night films that guarantee to draw big name stars to Leicester Square to walk the red carpet. Traditionally always a crowd pleaser with socio-political themes, the opening night gala has in the past premiered films such as Suffragette and A United Kingdom. This year’s film finds actor Andy Serkis in the director’s chair debuting Breathe, the true story of married couple Robin and Diane Cavendish (Andrew Garfield and Clare Foy) and their pioneering work with sufferers of polio after Robin contracts the disease whilst living in Nairobi.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

On the flip side, the closing night film is usually a barnstorming tour de force of uncompromising filmmaking. Last year it was Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire and this year finds Martin McDonaugh’s darkly comic drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which won Best Screenplay at Venice and the People’s Choice Award at Toronto, closing off the festival in style. Some other exciting galas on the schedule include Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, fresh from its Golden Lion win at Venice, Alexander Payne’s sci-fi comedy Downsizing, Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and Lynne Ramsay’s brutally stylish detective yarn You Were Never Really Here starring Cannes Best Actor Winner Joaquin Phoenix.

The London Film Festival’s focus on different thematic and genre strands always brings an element of variety with categories such as; Debate, for films with a political focus, Dare, which showcases the provocative and controversial and Cult for all the horror and sci-fi buffs, and amongst these many strands there is a strong Australian contingent. Stephen McCallum’s Perth-set motorcycle gang drama 1% and Australia/Thailand co-production Bad Genius (described as an “exam-heist thriller”) look particularly exciting. Also, this year’s new Create strand, which focuses on films about the creative process, will be screening David Stratton: A Cinematic Life, the documentary about Australia’s beloved film critic, journalist and patron saint of cinema.

Bad Genius

Alongside the films and the annual BFI Fellowship, this year being awarded to British director Paul Greengrass, there will be a series of screen talks with internationally renowned filmmakers discussing their varied careers. The hardest tickets to get this year will be the screening of the first two episodes of the new Netflix series Mindhunter, featuring a Q & A with director and executive producer David Fincher, as well as screen talks with Guillermo del Toro and Takashi Miike, who is attending the festival on the back of his 100th film, Blade of the Immortal.

However, it is in the festival’s competition strands where some lower profile but equally powerful filmmakers are showcased and awarded for pushing the boundaries of the cinematic form. The frontrunners to win the Official Feature Film Competition are Warwick Thornton’s uncompromising 1920s-set Australian Western Sweet Country (already the winner of the Special Jury Prize in Venice) and Loveless, by Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev, himself a winner of this competition in 2015 for the sublime Leviathan, which promises to be another scathing yet profound portrayal of contemporary Russian society.

Jeune Femme

The First Feature Competition always promises to highlight the work of some strong, upcoming talent, and this year proves no exception with Camera d’Or winner Léonor Serraille’s Parisian drama Jeune Femme leading the pack, but which may have its work cut out for it against fellow French filmmaker Léa Mysius’s Ava, a confronting coming-of-age tale which not only wowed audiences at Toronto but has been compared to the works of Francois Ozon. Finally, the Documentary Competition presents a healthy mix of up-and-comers and industry veterans. Alongside Agnes Varda’s Faces Places, already a winner of the People’s Choice Documentary Award at Toronto, and Frederick Wiseman’s Ex Libris – The New York Public Library, Arash Kamali Sarvestani is presenting Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time, his undoubtedly harrowing look at Australia’s off-shore refugee detention centres, shot secretly on his mobile phone.

The BFI London Film Festival may seem like a greatest hits compilation of the year’s festivals, coming late as it does in October, but its love for cinema is undeniable. Its focus on disparate genres and themes promises there is something for everyone. Whether it is the most casual film enthusiast, the hard core cinephile or everyone in between, it is going to be an exhilarating eleven days.

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