Cinegirl at the BFI London Film Festival: Our 2021 Titles to Watch
With the festival season well underway, Cinegirl is heading to the British Film Institute’s 2021 London Film Festival later this month. Staff writer Lauren Devine rounds up her most anticipated titles and filmmakers to watch ahead of what LFF hopes will be a triumphant return to an in-person film festival, featuring an expansive slate of 159 feature films including 21 world premieres. The festival will be presented in London this year with additional festival screening venues across the country and a select number of titles available for festival-goers unable to attend in person to stream remotely.
SPENCER
Directed by Pablo Larraín
With Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Jack Nielen, Freddie Spry
Following Pablo Larraín’s acclaimed 2016 feature Jackie, the director returns with another biographical drama about a woman whose marriage thrusts her private life under the scrutiny of the public eye. I’m very intrigued to see how Kristen Stewart will portray the late and much publicly beloved Diana’s internal struggle.
“Pablo Larraín’s sublime ‘fable from a true story’ imagines a Christmas weekend at Sandringham in the early 1990s, as an unhappy Princess Diana contemplates saying ‘no’.” - BFI
THE POWER OF THE DOG
Directed by Jane Campion
With Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee
Prior to the 2021 Palme D’Or being awarded to Titane director Julia Ducournau earlier this year, New Zealander Jane Campion had been the only female director to receive Cannes’ most prestigious honour in 1993 for her film The Piano. The Power of the Dog marks Campion’s return to the silver screen with a feature that missed out on a debut at Cannes because of Netflix’s decision not to adhere to regulations set out by the festival’s administration board, which stipulate that films cannot be invited to compete if they do not have at least a local French theatrical release planned. The Power of the Dog instead made its world premiere in competition at The Venice Film Festival, where it was received with critical acclaim and awarded the Silver Lion for Best Direction.
Produced with Brightstar and Max Films and developed in conjunction with BBC Films, Campion’s highly anticipated latest feature is an adaptation of Thomas Savage’s novel of the same name. Campion’s Western depicts the turbulent lives of two wealthy 1925 Montana brothers, Phil and George Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch and Kodi Smit-McPhee), shot on location on New Zealand’s South Island.
View the trailer for The Power of the Dog
BELLE
Directed by Mamoru Hosoda
With Belle, acclaimed director Mamoru Hosoda brings LFF’s only animated feature in competition for the festival’s Best Film award. As someone who has long been fascinated with the cult following surrounding anime film and culture, I probably should have seen more anime films than I have - so I’m making sure to see this one in theatres at LFF.
“Suzu is a 17-year-old high school student living in a rural village with her father. For years, she has only been a shadow of herself. One day, she enters “U,” a virtual world of 5 billion members on the internet. There, she is not Suzu anymore but Belle, a world-famous singer. She soon meets with a mysterious creature. Together, they embark on a journey of adventures, challenges and love, in their quest of becoming who they truly are.” - Anime Limited
HIT THE ROAD
Directed by Panah Panahi
Following a family’s hectic car journey, on the surface the premise of Iranian director Panah Panahi’s story is all too relatable. The family Panahi has assembled for the screen in Hit The Road, which screened as part of Cannes’Director’s Fortnight back in July, features an energetic child (Rayan Sarlak) and their sullen brother (Amin Simiar), a surly father with a broken leg (Hassan Madjooni), and an overbearing mother (Pantea Panahiha), driving towards an unspoken destination. I missed Hit the Road at Cannes, so I’ll make sure I catch it in London.
“Deftly navigating a sea of conflicting emotions, Panahi’s debut heralds an exciting new talent. This journey along the dusty road of life is a treasure that might just break your heart.” - BFI
View the trailer for Hit The Road
ALL ABOUT MY SISTERS
Directed by Wang Qiong
Wang Qiong’s All About My Sisters is one of my most highly anticipated films in this year’s program. Qiong’s documentary explores the troubled and deeply unsettling history of the filmmaker’s family, who lived through China’s one-child policy, which saw many unborn girls aborted right up to the last month of a pregnancy, and newborn baby girls dumped in the garbage, because boys were preferred.
If you’re looking for a documentary introduction to the devastating legacy of China’s one-child policy ahead of seeing All About My Sisters at LFF, I’d recommend Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang’s 2019 documentary One Child Nation.
View the trailer for All About My Sisters
TRUE THINGS
Directed by Harry Wootliff
With Ruth Wilson and Tom Burke
I’m intrigued to see what calibre of performance the director, Leeds-born female filmmaker Harry Wootliff, manages to elicit from this two-hander in a tale of ennui and obsession. Led by performances from Ruth Wilson and Tom Burke the story is adapted from Deborah Kay Davies’ novel True Things About Me. Macmillan, Kay’s publisher, describes the novel’s story thus:
“One ordinary afternoon in a nameless town, a nameless young woman is at work in a benefits office. Ten minutes later, she is in an underground parking lot, slammed up against a wall, having sex with a stranger.
What made her do this? How can she forget him? These are questions the young woman asks herself as she charts her deepening erotic obsession with painful, sometimes hilarious precision. With the crazy logic and hallucinatory clarity of an exhilarating, terrifying dream, told in chapters as short and surprising as snapshots, True Things About Me hurtles through the terrain of sexual obsession and asks what it is to know oneself and to test the limits of one's desires.” - Macmillan
View the trailer for True Things
WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY
Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
After utterly falling in love with Ryusuke Hamagachi’s emotionally driven filmmaking at Cannes following seeing Drive My Car, I can hardly wait to see what the Japanese director has in store with his latest feature, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy.
“The film’s three episodes focus on female characters, as did Hamaguchi’s (over five-hour) Locarno success Happy Hour (2015) and Asako I & II (given a special mention at Cannes in 2018). Its tripartite structure frames stories of a hurtful love triangle, a botched seduction trap, and an encounter based on mistaken identity. Sections are labelled Magic, Door Wide Open and Once Again, but might equally be called Taxi, Door and Escalator, for the narrative vehicles that transport protagonists on fateful journeys through the neatly functional, Muji-middle-class spaces so characteristic of Hamaguchi’s Japan.” - BFI Sight and Sound
View the trailer for Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
In addition to the above stand-outs I’ll be running around London trying to catch, this year’s opening night gala, Jeymes Samuel’s star-studded Western featuring an all-black cast, The Harder They Fall, is high on my list. There are also titles at the London Film Festival this year that I was lucky enough to catch at Cannes back in July, and that I definitely recommend to anyone visiting London this year:
Great Freedom - directed by Sebastian Meise
The Worst Person In The World - directed by Joachim Trier
Freda - directed by Gessica Geneus
Rehana Maryam Noor - directed by Abdullah Mohammad Saad
Lingui (The Sacred Bonds) - directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haeroun
The Story of Film: A New Generation - directed by Mark Cousins
The BFI London Film Festival will run from 6 - 17th October. Tickets for general audiences are now on sale.
