The 70th edition of the BFI London Film Festival has revealed its official competition, with 10 titles set to compete for the best film award. The films selected represent 10 countries, including the U.K., Ireland, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, and Poland. The winner will be chosen by the LFF awards jury.
Among the film are news works from Hirokazu Kore-eda, Sergei Loznitsa, Carol Morley, Lili Horvát, Benjamín Naishtat, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, Giovanni Tortorici, Malgorzata Szumowska, May el-Toukhy and Michal Englert and Rubaiyat Hossain. Star names among the casts include the likes of Aimee Lou Wood, Monica Bellucci, Mackenzie Davis, Rupert Friend and Johnny Flynn. As ever, it’s been creatively nourishing for myself and the team to encounter each of these works — we’re excited to share these with audiences in October.” The 10 films in the official competition are: “7 Miles Out” (UK, Dir-Scr.
Carol Morley) Carol Morley (“Dreams of a Life,” “The Falling”) adapts her moving semi-autobiographical novel, which documents her adolescence in Stockport during the 70s and 80s. Morley’s film follows Ann, who struggles to come to terms with her beloved father’s suicide and finds escapism in the emerging of new-wave punk movement. Molloy and Lawlor (“Baltimore,” LFF 2023) engage in a witty and moving conversation that explores family history and their latest project, a film about groundbreaking artists Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore.
Benjamín Naishtat) An act of betrayal between a close group of friends has terrible consequences in Benjamín Naishtat’s atmospheric period-noir thriller. Four young men in the provincial Argentine city of Chivilcoy find their lives disrupted when a retired police officer and his glamorous young wife move into the area. Add two visiting American Mormons into the mix, along with a volatile political situation, and tensions soon escalate.
Sergei Loznitsa) Archival footage master filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa reframes Soviet history once again, via the revealing gaze of Italian cameramen who captured life there in the early 1970s. The footage Loznitsa uncovered at Rome’s Audiovisual Archive of the Labour and Democratic Movement left him marvelling at the contrast with official Soviet productions from the same era. Giovanni Tortorici) Following his debut with “Diciannove” (LFF 2024), Giovanni Tortorici continues his collaboration with producer Luca Guadagnino on this vibrant coming-of-age story, set in early 2000s Palermo.
Giulio a dissatisfied 16-year-old, drifts through life with no enthusiasm for his education or his future, much to his family’s dismay (particularly his endlessly frustrated mother, brilliantly played by Monica Bellucci). Hirokazu Kore-eda) Spanning more than a decade, Hirokazu Koreeda’s tender coming-of-age story follows two girls who bond over their passion for and dream of becoming manga artists. Fujino, a gifted artist and aspiring manga artist, meets Kymoto, a shy admirer of her work.
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