We chatted to Isabel about helping to put together the BFI London Film Festival.
How have you found the experience of helping put together the programme for this
year’s festival?
It always feels like a huge feat to put together the programme, but it’s also an exciting processthat keeps us on our toes and full of surprises. It takes a big team to put the programme together, and I feel lucky to work with such talented colleagues, and to learn from one another. We are so excited to finally release the programme for audiences to enjoy, discover, and build their wish list.
I think what really excites me about LFF is how we can showcase films from established
filmmakers, such as the opening night film ELSINORE starring Andrew Scott and Olivia
Coleman, a deeply moving true story of the actor Ian Charleston, who faced incredible odds
while preparing to perform his life in Hamlet at the National Theatre in London, The anticipated
taunt relationship drama POSSIBLE LOVE by Lee Chang-dong, his first film since 2018’s
BURNING where four strangers find their lives entwined. As well as Boot’s Riley’s inventive,
idiosyncratic, anti-capitalist LOVE BOOSTERS, with an all-star cast including Keke Palmer,
Lakeith Stanfield, and Demi Moore. Playing alongside filmmakers early in their careers, such as
the impressive debut MASC by UK filmmaker Bertil Nilsson, which explores masculinity,
sexuality, and his neurodivergence as a young man navigates the world, and the evocative,
distinctive first feature by award-winning artist Beatrice Gibson, AT NIGHT which takes place
over the course of a single night in Paris.
What is your starting point in putting together the festival?
Throughout the year, we do a lot of research tracking films so we can see what will be available in time for our festival. We also visit film festivals throughout the year to watch films to see what would work for LFF and London audiences. As an audience-facing festival, we are always thinking about what films we would like to share with LFF and London audiences, what films will be hotly anticipated, as well as discovery titles and hidden gems. As a London-based festival, we take place in a multicultural city, and we want to include stories that reflect the audience’s experience and the stories on screen. We also want audiences to seek out films that show a different life and experience from their own.
What are you most excited about for this year’s festival?
I have so many films I am excited about that it is hard to name just a few. One of my highlights this year is the MAKING OF MARIE ANTONIETTE, a behind-the-scenes look at Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film made in collaboration with her late mother, Eleanor, who shot the footage on set. We will also have ScreenTalk with Sofia Coppola, which is very exciting. I always like to point audiences to the new repertory films we have sprinkled throughout the programme. For example, this year we have the much-anticipated 4K restoration of Ken Russell’s THE DEVILS; it is the first publicly released version of the film as intended by the director. We will also screen Kamal Amrohi’s 1972 Bollywood classic PAKEEZAH, which will look stunning in the BFI IMAX. I would also like to highlight the Greek film A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JO: CHAPTER PHAEDRA, the second film by Jacqueline Lentzou who is such a wonderful filmmaker with a truly unique vision. This year’s first feature competition will include playing musician/actor Ashley Walters’s debut feature as a director, ANIMOL. A London-based drama set in young offenders’ institute which we feel will attract audiences with Walters gaining fans for his work in ADOLESCENCE and TOP BOY.
Are there any particular films that you are looking forward to audiences experiencing?
This year’s cult strand offers unforgettable, visually arresting and disturbing films for audiences to enjoy, including THE BLOOD COUNTESS a delicious, high-camp vampire film starring Isabelle Huppert and visionary director Ulrike Ottinger, and the return of Anna Biller, director of THE LOVE WITCH, with a blood-soaked homage to Technicolor films. Lastly, NIGHTBORN, a gruesome, bloody horror by Hanna Bergholm, draws deeply from the wells of folk horror and psychological post-natal angst to explore the arrival of a new baby, where not everything is as it seems. Most of our Cult strand will play at the legendary Prince Charles Cinema, the perfect place to experience future cult classics with fellow enthusiastic audiences.
Are there any particular trends that you have picked up while putting together this
year’s festival?
This year we have lots of incredible documentaries that use amazing archive footage, including QUEER EDWARD II, a compelling behind-the-scenes documentary about Derek Jarman and his collaborators making his radical queer masterpiece Edward II. Also, the next instalment of Mark Cousins’ epic essay on the history of documentaries, THE STORY OF DOCUMENTARY FILM, chronicles the 1990s. We will also be very happy to play ONCE UPON A TIME IN HARLEM, filmed by William Greaves and completed by his son David more than 50 years later; it is a rapturous love letter to the Harlem Renaissance.
We also have some incredible animation in this year’s programme, which includes audience
favourites from Cartoon Saloon (SONG OF THE SEA, SECRET OF THE KELLS) with their
beautiful new film JULIAN, who thinks he is a mermaid, a celebration of oneself screening in our family programme. We will also have the innovative animation ANA, EN PASSANT by Brazilian filmmaker Fernanda Alves Salgado, which infuses 2D animation with real-life footage to create a travelogue of memories; it is not to be missed on the big screen. Fans of LAIKA Studios (CORALINE) will be anticipating the release of WILDWOOD, part of this year’s Gala strand, a moving epic stop-motion saga.
The 70th BFI London Film Festival will run from the 7th to the 18th October.