#LFF 2016: Essential Films (I)

The madness began. London’s annual date with the best cinema around the world, the BFI’s London Film Festival, kickstarted its 60th edition last Wednesday. From its opening gala ‘A United Kingdom‘, the crowd-pleasing story of an interracial royal marriage in the land that would become Botswana; until its closing night on October the 15th with Ben Wheatley’s hotly anticipated new thriller ‘Free Fire‘, over 245 features plus a large programme of shorts, talks and events will guarantee even the most demanding cinephiles a total immersion in pure cinematic joy.

We have all already heard about the standout films on show, from the hotly-tipped as future Oscar winner ‘La La Land, to Kenneth Lonergan’s acclaimed return ‘Manchester By The Sea‘. The toasts of Cannes ‘Toni Erdmann‘, Jim Jarmusch’s comeback ‘Paterson;’ Venice ‘The Woman who Left,’ ‘Arrival‘ and Sundance’s The Birth of a Nation‘ together with diverse strands to satisfy every specialist taste.

One more year, our blog will be reviewing our favourite films, looking for hidden gems and posting our discoveries. Follow us to get all the excitement straight from the event.

We kick start our coverage with our first selection of recommended titles from the ones we have already seen. The following is the first in a series of improvised Top 10s, beginning with titles that feature less prominently in the programme. If you miss them during the festival, keep an eye for their release and Have a great festival!

AFTER THE STORM (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Hirokazu Kore-eda is back in top form with another of his charming, bittersweet tales of family relations where he always finds room for the children and the elderly. This time he’s back in gentle comedy tone that even winks at Noir through the lead character, a novelist addicted to gambling -played by Hiroshi Abe-, turned detective to pay her ex-wife and child alimony, while trying to rebuild the relationship with his son. The arrival of a storms will help make this possible. As usual with the Japanese auteur, the film depicts with compassionate touch the relationships between the members of a family, led by an excellently grumpy granny -Kirin Kiki who reunites with Abe years after another of Kore-eda’s greatest films, “Still Life.” If you are a fan of the Japanese director, you know already you can’t miss it. If you’re not, this film is the perfect moment to get acquainted with his unique work.

SIERANEVADA (Christi Puiu)
From ‘Festen’ to ‘Krisha’, the family gathering gone wrong has been a recurring trope in cinema. One of the most renowned auteurs in Romanian’s new cinema, Christi Puiu, makes a significant contribution to this subject matter with another example of his skill as a social, historical and life observer. ‘Sieranevada’ is a choral, piercingly comic and ultimately tender look at the rituals involved in a family funeral that keeps on being interrupted by an constant influx of people coming and going. Unlike his former work, this one is heavy on scathing dialogue, but shares its habitual sharp characterisation, shaping up one of the best films of the year

THE BACCHUS LADY (E J-yong)
Bittersweet comedy about an ageing Korean prostitute looking after the child of a Filipino woman sent to prison after assaulting his neglecting father. It looks at its subject with unusual warmth, dignity and humour, but also serves as a frank reflection on the way society deals with both the elderly and those less privileged (as portrayed by his housemates, a transgender sex worker and a disabled young man struggling to make amends).Youn Yuh-jung gives a terrific lead performance in a film that begins with a light touch and ends up packing quite a punch.

FONKO (Göran Olsson, Lars Lovén & Lamin Daniel Jadama)
Have you ever heard of Gospel porn? Saffa House? Kuduro? This Exploration of African urban music scene is so packed with new ideas and discoveries that it could have been a TV series. The directing team behind “The Black Power Mixtape Vol. 1” and “Concerning Violence” uses the best elements of those works -a revision of music as activism and a look at the political situation of post-colonial Africa- to explore the burgeoning scene of electronic music, generated by the crash between Western trends -Hip-Hop; R&B- and local genres with extraordinary results. The Narration, sprinkled with quotes by legendary musician Fela Kuti, leads to a exciting initiation to the undiscovered sonic wonders of the black continent.

HEAL THE LIVING (Katell Quillévéré)
The process of organ donation presented as an epic marvel and told as a detailed, personal journey with stopovers in the life of everyone involved (the young deceased victim; his parents; the doctors and its recipient) helped by a superb cinematography and a cast of French and Canadian greats that features Anne Dorval; Tahar Rahim; Emmanuelle Seigner… Not without flaws, yet although it sometimes feels like a film done to promote awareness for a worthy cause, it mostly avoids predictable sentimental trappings.

A DATE FOR MAD MARY (Darren Thornton)
It could be lazily described like the Irish “Bridesmaids” as part its comic side comes from the pressures of nuptial planning, yet this hilarious crowd-pleaser offers an interesting and less conventional look at social alienation and sexual identity through its lead character, a young tomboyish woman who has just been released from a brief sentence to jail, right in time to attend her best friend’s wedding. The desperate search for a plus one, not to feel inferior to the rest of invitees, will prompt Mary into a journey of self-discovery.

KILLS ON WHEELS (Attila Till)
Does what it says in the tin! The Hungarian submission for the Academy awards takes a refreshingly humorous look the everyday difficulties disabled people have to endure, perfectly integrated into a nail biting thriller. It manages to combine a humane side of his characters with the typical, blood-splatting violence of the genre, with no tonal mismatches. A triumph!

THE RED TURTLE (Michaël Dudok de Wit)

Those who question how animation pioneers Studio Ghibli would fare after Miyazaki, fear no more. The Studio has expanded his operations in an European coproduction to create a superb, dialogue free, ecologically conscious story of a castaway on a desert island, whose attempts to leave are aborted by a giant red turtle. Forced to remain, he would find a way to live in harmony with nature and reap mother Earth rewards for his efforts. Elegantly simple, it will open new doors for the Japanese studio and has the mark of a future classic.

RARA (Pepa San Martín)

Sensitive portrait of a lesbian couple and the pressures their daughters face from peers and teachers for the only reason of their mother’s relationship. From its ‘Elefant’ recalling opening scene, in which we see the back of their oldest daughter moving across the school, this Chilean bittersweet drama set us to expect some emotional turmoil. It comes gently, avoiding clichés and melodrama, wrapped in warm feelings; but despite the normalised depiction of an LGBT family’s everyday life it also poignantly demonstrates how much society has still left to do before reaching a point of total equality.

WILD (Nicolette Krebitz)
German young actress Krebitz, debuts as a director boasting a peculiar and uncompromising vision in this tale of a young woman unleashing her savage instincts and rebelling about our numbing society after erotic going-ons with a wolf. Not for prudes!