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  1. Culture
6 September 2012updated 05 Oct 2023 8:53am

Gilbey on film: What can we expect from this year’s London Film Festival?

Incoming Festival Director Clare Stewart shows signs of having created a properly dynamic programme.

By Ryan Gilbey

Another year, another London Film Festival — though this one distinguishes itself from its immediate predecessors by starting earlier than usual (October 10), running for 12 days rather than the usual 16, spreading out across more of the capital than ever before (reaching Hackney, Islington and Shoreditch), sharing some of its gala screenings with audiences across the country (the opening night attraction, Tim Burton’s stop-motion animated horror Frankenweenie, adapted from his own 1984 live-action short, will be screened simultaneously at other UK cinemas) and incorporating a competitive element that brings it more in line with other major film festivals. This new broom is wielded by the incoming Festival Director, Clare Stewart, former head of the Sydney Film Festival. Stewart will have quite a job filling the shoes of Sandra Hebron, but early signs are that she has concentrated on making the shape and content of the programme properly dynamic.

Now the tricky part: speculation. Looking back at the sorts of festival titles I’ve suggested in past years has thrown up the occasional embarrassment (I was as disappointed as you probably were by Rampart and This Must Be the Place). But not for nothing is the LFF known as a best-of-the-fests affair, rounding up the cream of Berlin, Cannes, Venice and Toronto. Sure enough, the 2012 programme includes this year’s Palme d’Or winner, Michael Haneke’s celebrated Amour; Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, about the downfall of a kindergarten teacher, for which Mads Mikkelsen won the Best Actor prize at Cannes; and the same festival’s Best Director recipient, Carlos Reygadas, for his audacious drama Post Tenebras Lux. The Taviani brothers also return with their Berlin Golden Bear-winning Caesar Must Die, in which a group of prisoners stage Julius Caesar.

If it’s a surprise that neither Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master nor Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder have made the journey to London from their recent Venice premieres, perhaps that means they are in the running for a different kind of surprise—the LFF’s Surprise Film.

Here are ten other selections from the LFF programme, along with the reasons why I think they could be worth your time and mine:

 

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In the House (Dans la maison)

Because François Ozon, great at camp (Potiche, 8 Women), is even better at psychological thrillers (Regarde la Mer, Under the Sand, Swimming Pool), and this study of the relationship between a teacher (the always excellent Fabrice Luchini) and his talented pupil looks full of promise. Kristen Scott-Thomas and Emmanuelle Seigner co-star.

 

Seven Psychopaths 

Because no one writes like Martin McDonagh. He also directs here for the first time since In Bruges, with a cast including Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell and Colin Farrell.

 

Everyday 

Because the premise of Michael Winterbottom’s drama about a family coping with the long-term imprisonment of one of its number is elevated by its execution: it was shot on-and-off over five years, the better to capture the authentic changes in its cast members.

 

Hyde Park on Hudson 

Because Bill Murray plays FDR. What more reason do you need?

 

For No Good Reason

Because it’s a documentary about the great, savage illustrator and cartoonist (not to mention NS contributor) Ralph Steadman.

 

The Central Park Five

Because it promises to be a powerful analysis of a miscarriage-of-justice case in New York City in the late 1980s.

 

Reality

Because Matteo Garrone’s new film, about a fishmonger who yearns to be on Big Brother, is his first since the extraordinary Gomorrah.

 

Paradise: Love 

Because Ulrich Seidl (Import/Export, Dog Days) is a continually daring and abrasive director, and this film about sex tourism, the first in a trilogy, would suggest he hasn’t yet defected to the romcom.

 

Obsessive and Compulsive 

Because this programme of shorts on the theme of obsession includes Up the Valley and Beyond, about Russ Meyer, and Picture Paris, directed by Brad Hall and starring his wife, Seinfeld/Veep star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, as a woman hooked on Paris.

 

Mekong Hotel  

Because while it may be only an hour in length, it’s also by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (who made Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives), a filmmaker who crams more treasure, pleasure and meaning into a few frames than most directors do into an entire career.

 

Booking opens to BFI members on 13 September, and to the public from 24 September.

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