Organisers of this year’s BFI London film festival have promised the most accessible nationwide event in its history as it presents 58 feature films digitally and to socially distanced audiences in independent cinemas across the UK.
The festival, now in its 64th edition, unveiled a programme featuring films from 40 countries by directors including Steve McQueen, Phyllida Lloyd, Spike Lee, Miranda July and Francis Lee.
In normal years, attending the festival means booking tickets for screenings on London’s South Bank or in the West End. The festival’s director, Tricia Tuttle, said coronavirus had forced a radical rethink.
“There will be no return to business as usual. I’m keen to get back to cinemas as soon as we can but I also love the innovations we have been experimenting with this year,” she said.
Ben Roberts, the BFI chief executive, said: “Although it’s been born out of crisis, this year’s edition of the LFF will be our most accessible yet.”
The new hybrid way of operating will involve virtual premieres of about 50 films, which only audiences in the UK can book tickets for and watch. Some will be screened live while others will be available for 72 hours. Each will be available to watch just once.
Some of the films will be also screened at BFI Southbank and at independent cinemas across the UK including Chapter in Cardiff, Home in Manchester and Queen’s film theatre in Belfast.
All of which could dramatically increase audience numbers, though by how many remains to be seen. “It’s really hard to know,” said Tuttle. “We are striking out in totally new ways. I really wouldn’t want to speculate … it’s brand new. We are going big and hope to reach lots of people.”
Another change will be asking the public to decide who wins the festival’s four prizes – for best fiction feature, best documentary feature, best short film and best XR (extended reality).
Some of the films will be free to watch, including screenings of the opening film, McQueen’s Mangrove, which tells the story of the trial of the Mangrove Nine and is one of five films he has made for the BBC. It will not, however, be available online.
Other films in the programme include Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round, which features Mads Mikkelsen as a disillusioned teacher who decides he wants to be just a little bit drunk every day. “I would say that we should all do the same, but after you see the film I think you’ll know it’s not such a great idea,” said Tuttle.
She said social justice, not surprisingly given the year’s events, was a repeated preoccupation of directors. In that category is the south Londoner Yemi Bamiro and his documentary One Man and His Shoes, which explores the increasing commercialisation of black culture through the lens of Michael Jordan and his trainers.
The closing film will be the second feature by Lee, who made his name with the romantic drama God’s Own Country. Ammonite, starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, is a 19th-century love story set on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast.
Tuttle also announced the world premiere of a restoration of Peter Wollen’s neglected 1987 film Friendship Death, which stars a young Tilda Swinton as an alien sent on a mission to make peace and persuade human beings to reform to prevent their extinction. “It’s something we all need now,” Tuttle said, “an alien Tilda Swinton making us feel better”.
The BFI London film festival runs from 7-18 October.
