BFI LFF 2019: The Perfect Candidate (2019)
★★★☆☆
The Perfect Candidate by Haifaa Al-Mansour is a fascinating glimpse of women’s changing status in the patriarchal kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
festivals
Moffie (2019)
★★★★☆
Oliver Hermanus evokes fear and loathing for a brutally homophobic, Apartheid-era South Africa among young LGBT conscripts in Moffie.
BFI LFF 2019: Bacurau (2019)
★★★★☆
Bacurau by Kleber Mendonça Filho is an exhilarating mixture of genres – political satire, western, science fiction – underpinned by savage political and social comment. It’s a blast.
BFI LFF 2019: The Climb (2019)
★★★★☆
In original, smart buddy comedy movie The Climb co-writer/directors Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino play two losers also called Kyle and Mike.
BFI LFF 2019: Atlantics (2019)
★★★★☆
Atlantics (Atlantiques) is Mati Diop’s dreamlike feature debut focusing on the women left behind when Senegalese migrant workers take to the seas.
BFI LFF 2019: The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)
★★★☆☆
The Peanut Butter Falcon transcends initial discomfort to become a wish fulfilment, odd-couple odyssey with a soft centre.
BFI LFF 2019: 8-13 October
★★★★☆
BFI LFF 2019: 8-13 October. The Whistlers, Deerskin, Algo-Rhythm and So Long, My Son.
BFI LFF 2019: Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
★★★★★
Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a sumptuously sensual lesbian love story set in 1770 that comments fiercely on the role of women in society – then and now.
BFI LFF 2019 OPENING GALA: The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019)
★★★☆☆
The Personal History of David Copperfield is Armando Iannucci’s brilliantly imaginative transformation of Dickens’ novel to bring out its contemporary resonances.
BFI LFF 2019: By the Grace of God (Grâce à Dieu) (2018)
★★★★☆
Based on real-life events, in By the Grace of God François Ozon empathetically opens up a French scandal of child abuse in the Catholic Church going back over 20 years.
BFI LFF 2019: Monos (2019)
★★★★★
Monos by Alejandro Landes (Porfirio), set among volatile, trainee teenage guerillas in Latin America, is quite simply one of this year’s best and most disturbing films.
BFI LFF 2019: Previews 3-7 October
★★★★☆
BFI LFF 2019: Previews 3-7 October. Beanpole, Lucky Grandma, Nimic, White Girl, Zombi Child and Bad Education.
BFI LFF 2019: Previews (2-5 October)
★★★★☆
BFI London Film Festival previews 2-5 October: Recorder, Axone, Öndög, Clemency, The Warden, A Pleasure, Comrades! and The Antenna.
BFI LFF 2019: I Die of Sadness Crying for You (2019)
★★★★☆
I Die of Sadness Crying For You is for all those interested in how music, and the sound of a voice, can take us on journeys no other art form can.