BFI London Film Festival

Toni Erdmann: Conversation With Maren Ade

August 8, 2017February 2, 2017 by Roberto

To celebrate its release in the UK this Friday, the second in our Toni Erdmann “double bill” of interviews is the conversation we had with its director Maren Ade during the London Film Festival, where the film was chosen as the gala for the Laugh strand and became one of the most talked-about titles of the programme.

One of our favourites of the year, Toni Erdmann is up for eight Rober Awards. Among them, Ade herself for best director and original screenplay.

Radiating with good humour but joking about feeling confused with so many interviews, the chatty German director talked about her writing process; the way she works with actors; her production company and the current state of the film industry.

(By Roberto González)

#LFF Recommended: Sembène! And Brand: The Second Coming, Two Approaches To Revolution

October 25, 2015October 7, 2015 by Roberto

You might not find many chances to connect the works of two artists as disparate as Ousmane Sembène, the late father of African cinema, and British superstar comedian Russell Brand, but two remarkable documentaries convey the influence that ideals of political revolution have had in their respective output; both driven by a similar ambition to become a spokesperson for the people. The first one more than achieved his goal through a ground breaking body of work; whereas the results of the latter’s much publicised reincarnation as a political agitator are yet to be seen.

#LFF Recommended: They Will Have To Kill Us First: Malian Music In Exile (Johanna Schwartz)

October 25, 2015October 5, 2015 by Roberto

One of the highlights of last year’s London Film Festival was Abderrahmane Sissako’s modern classic ‘Timbuktu’, depicting the occupation of Mali’s northern city by Islamic fundamentalists and the damage it caused to the local way of life. This year the festival’s sonic strand has a worthy companion in Johanna Schwarzt’s notable debut feature.

The Jihadis’ extreme application of sharia law involved a ban on all kinds of music, which they dismiss as the work of Satan. Their rule forced performers to an exile in the southern regions or in neighbouring countries and deprived an area formerly enjoying one of Africa’s richest folk traditions from an integral part of its cultural heritage.

#LFF Recommended: Taxi Tehran (Jafar Panahi)

October 4, 2015October 4, 2015 by Roberto

Since the Iranian government banned him from the exercise of his profession, Jafar Panahi has managed to find increasingly brave ways to circumvent that ban and carry on shooting new works internationally acclaimed as courageous acts of nonviolent resistance.

Taxi Tehran is the third and best film on this new, highly restricted period of his career, after This Is Not a Film and Closed Curtain. The auteur, who humbly declares he carries on filmmaking -despite the obvious risks he faces- because is the only thing he can do, shares an idea from fellow Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami‘s ‘10’, impersonating a cab driver who chats to a wide range of customers, with a camera set in the vehicle’s control panel filming their conversations while driving around a Tehran brimming with life.