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London Film Festival · 2016

London Film Festival 2016

Debate

Programme

30 films · 7 reviews

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Adieu Bonaparte

Hsitorical drama set during the French occupation of Egypt.

(Country: Egypt, France; Year: 1985; Director: Youssef Chahine; Writer: Youssef Chahine, Yousry Nasrallah; Stars: Michel Piccoli, Mohsen Mohieddin, Patrice Chéreau, Mohsena Tewfik, Christian Patey, Gamil Ratib, Taheya Cariocca, Claude Cernay, Mohamad Dardiri, Hassan El Adl, Tewfik El Dekn, Seif El Dine, Hassan Husseiny, Farid Mahmoud, Hoda Soltan)

The Bacchus Lady (Jug-yeo-ju-neun Yeo-ja)

A sex worker solicits older men in public parks by offering them bottles of Bacchus energy drink.

(Country: South Korea; Year: 2016; Director: Lee Je-yong; Writer: Lee Je-yong; Stars: Youn Yuh-jung, Chon Mu-song, Yoon Kye-sang)

A Billion Colour Story

A schoolboy aims to restore his parents’ belief in themselves and in the Indian nation.

(Country: India; Year: 2016; Director: N Padmakumar; Writer: N Padmakumar; Stars: Gaurav Sharma, Vasuki, Dhruva Padmakumar)

Boundaries (Pays)

The lives of three women intersect on a small island.

(Country: Canada; Year: 2016; Director: Chloé Robichaud; Writer: Chloé Robichaud; Stars: Emily VanCamp, Serge Houde, Macha Grenon, Rémy Girard, Max Laferriere, Alexandre Landry, Carlo Mestroni, Yves Jacques, Micheline Lanctôt, Michael Rudder, Nathalie Doummar, Sophie Faucher, Karl Werleman, Jean-Guy Bouchard, Jules Philip)

Close Relations ( Rodnye)

A documentarian who became Russian because he was living in Moscow when the Soviet Union broke down examines his relationship with his Ukrainian family and the complex relationship between the two countries.

(Country: Germany, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine; Year: 2016; Director: Vitaly Mansky)

A Day For Women (Yom Lel Setat)

Worlds collide when Sunday is decreed a day for women at the local swimming pool.

(Country: Egypt; Year: 2016; Director: Kamla Abouzekri; Writer: Hanaa Attia; Stars: Elham Shahin, Mahmoud Hemeda, Nelly Karim, Ayad Nassar, Farouk El Fishawy, Ahmed El Fishawy, Ahmed Dawood, Nahed El Sebaee, Hala Sedki, Ragaa Hussein)

The Day Will Come (Der kommer en dag)

Story of two brothers in a brutal children's home.

(Country: Denmark; Year: 2016; Director: Jesper W Nielsen; Writer: Søren Sveistrup; Stars: Lars Mikkelsen, Sofie Gråbøl, Harald Kaiser Hermann, Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt, Laurids Skovgaard Andersen, Lars Ranthe, Søren Sætter-Lassen, David Dencik, Sonja Richter, Solbjørg Højfeldt, Jens Jørn Spottag, Mads Wille, Rasmus Lind Rubin, Ulla Vejby, Paw Henriksen)

Farouk, Besieged Like Me (Farouk, un assiégé comme moi)

Reflections on Syria and identity.

(Country: France; Year: 2016; Director: Hala Abdallah; Writer: Hala Abdallah; Stars: Farouk Hardam-Bey)

Graduation (Bacalaureat, Family Photos)

Review preview for Graduation

Cristian Mungiu is such a master of vivisecting human interrelations that we might almost overlook how he sets the tone with animals, vegetables and minerals.

Anne-Katrin Titze · 4 out of 5
Story of a small town doctor who is faced with a stark choice after his daughter is assaulted.

(Country: Romania, France, Belgium; Year: 2016; Director: Cristian Mungiu; Writer: Cristian Mungiu; Stars: Vlad Ivanov, Maria-Victoria Dragus, Ioachim Ciobanu, Adrian Titieni, Gheorghe Ifrim, Emanuel Parvu, Valeriu Andriuta, Claudia Susanu, Adrian Vancica, Liliana Mocanu, Lia Bugnar, Tudor Smoleanu, Andrei Morariu, Rares Andrici, Constantin Cojocaru)

Full review See: Cristian Mungiu in conversation on Graduation (Bacalaureat)

Hissen Habré, A Chadian Tragedy (Hissein Habré, une tragédie tchadienne)

Documentary about the victims of the Hissein Habré regime in Chad.

(Country: Chad, Senegal, France; Year: 2016; Director: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun)

Hospital

Restored documentary about the Metropolitan Hospital in NYC.

(Country: US; Year: 1970; Director: Frederick Wiseman; Stars: Eugene Friedman, Stanley Friedman, Robert Schwartz)

In the Last Days Of The City

A filmmaker in Cairo attempts to capture the zeitgeist of his city as the world changes around him - from personal love and loss to the fall of the Mubarak regime.

(Country: Egypt, Germany, UK, United Arab Emirates; Year: 2016; Director: Tamer El Said; Writer: Tamer El Said, Rasha Salti; Stars: Khalid Abdalla, Laila Samy, Hanan Youssef, Mariam Saleh Saad, Hayder Helo, Basim Hajar, Bassem Fayad, Aly Sobhy, Islam Kamal, Mohamed Gaber, Etimad Ali Hassan, Zeinab Mostafa, Fadila Tawfik, Elsit Ikram, Mohamed Adel)

Kate Plays Christine

Review preview for Kate Plays Christine

Robert Greene's intriguing semi-documentary explores the event through a process not dissimilar to Chubbuck's own.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
An actress prepares to play Christine Chubbuck, who died by suicide live on air in 1974.

(Country: US; Year: 2016; Director: Robert Greene; Writer: Robert Greene; Stars: Kate Lyn Shiel)

Full review

Lo And Behold, Reveries Of The Connected World

Review preview for Lo And Behold, Reveries Of The Connected World

This is a poetic documentary, a reverie, in which partitioned themes offer differing perspectives on the whole.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
A documentary about the internet and its impact on human experience.

(Country: US; Year: 2016; Director: Werner Herzog)

Full review

Ma' Rosa

A husband and wife who sell narcotics to help make ends meet. After Rosa is arrested, her family are willing to do anything to buy her freedom from the corrupt police.

(Year: 2016; Director: Brillante Mendoza)

Memories Of Underdevelopment (Memorias Del Subdesarrollo)

Charting the life of an intellectual, who decides to stay in Cuba following the 1959 revolution.

(Country: Cuba; Year: 1968; Director: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea; Writer: Edmundo Desnoes, Edmundo Desnoes, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea; Stars: Sergio Corrieri, Daisy Granados, Eslinda Núñez, Omar Valdés, René de la Cruz, Yolanda Farr, Ofelia González, Jose Gil Abad, Daniel Jordan, Luis López)

A Moving Image

An artist returns to Brixton and starts to question whether she is part of the elite who are destroying its community.

(Country: UK; Year: 2016; Director: Shola Amoo; Writer: Shola Amoo; Stars: Tanya Fear, Hussina Raja, Aki Omoshaybi, Yrsa Daley-Ward, Alex Austin, Yinka Oyewole, Joe Layton, James Hamilton, Okorie Chukwu, Lamin Tamba)

Nocturama

Review preview for Nocturama

It is in the second half of Nocturama - which takes place in a department store by night - that Bertrand Bonello's prowess at showing us worlds closing in on themselves comes to full force.

Anne-Katrin Titze · 4.5 out of 5
One morning in Paris. A fistful of adolescents, from different backgrounds. Individually, they begin a strange dance through the labyrinth of the metro and the streets of the capital. They seem to be following a plan.

(Country: France; Year: 2016; Director: Bertrand Bonello; Writer: Bertrand Bonello; Stars: Finnegan Oldfield, Vincent Rottiers, Hamza Meziani, Manal Issa, Martin Petit-Guyot, Jamil McCraven, Rabah Nait Oufella, Laure Valentinelli, Ilias Le Doré, Robin Goldbronn, Luis Rego, Hermine Karagheuz, Adèle Haenel)

Full review See: Rendez-Vous with French Cinema Bertrand Bonello in conversation on Nocturama

Debate gala.

On The Other Side (S one strane)

For twenty years Vesna has been trying to forget the past which nearly destroyed her family... but a phone call from her dad changes everything.

(Country: Croatia, Serbia; Year: 2016; Director: Zrinko Ogresta; Writer: Mate Matisic, Zrinko Ogresta; Stars: Ksenija Marinkovic, Lazar Ristovski, Tihana Lazovic, Robert Budak, Toni Sestan, Tena Jeic Gajski, Vinko Kraljevic, Ivan Brkic, Alen Liveric, Mate Gulin, Iskra Jirsak, Ivana Legati, Marija Tadic, Ljerka Margitic Miholjevic, Mira Bosanac)

Park

Ten years have passed, and the Olympic Village in Athens is in decay. Among the abandoned athletic facilities and new-money tourist resorts nearby, Dimitris, Anna, a retired athlete, and their friends traverse Greece's glorious past with the decadence of today, creating a portrait of a society unprepared for the brutal fall.

(Year: 2016; Director: Sofia Exarchou)

The Pass

Review preview for The Pass

It is very well acted, with an explosively complex lead performance from Russell Tovey and an equally expressive supporting turn from Arinzé Kene.

Owen Van Spall · 4 out of 5
The lives of two young premier league footballers are complicated by an impromptu kiss.

(Country: UK; Year: 2016; Director: Ben A Williams ; Writer: John Donnelly; Stars: Russell Tovey, Arinze Kene, Lisa McGrillis)

Full review

Patient

Documentary about a mum caring for her seriously ill daughter in hopsital.

(Country: Colombia; Year: 2015; Director: Jorge Caballero Ramos; Writer: Carol Ann Figueroa Rueda)

The Revolution Won't Be Televised (Tej rewolucji nie bedzie w telewizji)

Documentary charting political activism against an autocratic leader in Senegal.

(Country: Senegal; Year: 2016; Director: Rama Thiaw; Writer: Rama Thiaw)

The Salesman (Forushande)

Review preview for The Salesman

The film's slow burn is gripping but, as it builds to a climax, the plot becomes overwrought.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Forced out of their apartment, Emad and Rana move into a new flat. An incident linked to the previous tenant will dramatically change the young couple’s life.

(Country: France, Iran; Year: 2016; Director: Asghar Farhadi; Writer: Asghar Farhadi; Stars: Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti)

Full review

Sieranevada

Drama set at a family reunion to commemorate the anniversary of the death of the family patriarch.

(Country: Romania, France, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Republic of Macedonia; Year: 2016; Director: Cristi Puiu; Writer: Cristi Puiu; Stars: Mimi Branescu, Bogdan Dumitrache)

The Stopover (Voir du pays)

Misongyny in the French military among soldiers stopping off in Cyprus after a tour of Afghanistan.

(Country: France, Greece; Year: 2016; Director: Delphine Coulin, Muriel Coulin; Writer: Delphine Coulin, Muriel Coulin; Stars: Soko, Ariane Labed, Ginger Romàn, Karim Leklou, Andreas Konstantinou, Makis Papadimitriou, Alexis Manenti, Robin Barde, Sylvain Loreau, Jérémie Laheurte, Damien Bonnard, Jean-Yves Jouannais, Pierre Devérines, Kevin Delta, Yves Francillette)

The Student (Uchenik)

Review preview for The Student

Kirill Serebrennikov takes a fearless approach to filmmaking, unafraid of blending intellectual ideas with realistic settings.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
A teenager becomes a religious zealot and mounts a campaign against his biology teacher.

(Country: Russia; Year: 2016; Director: Kirill Serebrennikov; Writer: Kirill Serebrennikov, based on the play by Marius von Mayenburg; Stars: Yuliya Aug, Viktoriya Isakova, Pyotr Skvortsov, Aleksandr Gorchilin, Aleksandra Revenko)

Full review

Ten Years

Short films set in a futuristic, dystopian Hong Kong.

(Country: Hong Kong; Year: 2015; Director: Jevons Au, Ng Ka-Leung, Chow Kwun-Wai, Fei-Pang Wong, Kwok Zune; Stars: Peter Chan, Lau Ho-Chi, Kin-Ping Leung, Kai Chi Liu, Siu Hin Ng, Tanzela Qoser, Ching Wong, Courtney Wu)

The Unknown Girl (La Fille Inconnue)

A doctor tries to discover the identity of a patient who died after she refused to treat her.

(Country: Belgium; Year: 2016; Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne; Writer: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne; Stars: Adèle Haenel, Jérémie Renier, Olivier Gourmet, Fabrizio Rongione, Thomas Doret, Christelle Cornil)

Worldly Girl (La ragazza del mondo)

A young Jehovah's Witness falls for a boy outside her community.

(Country: Italy, France; Year: 2016; Director: Marco Danieli; Writer: Marco Danieli, Antonio Manca; Stars: Sara Serraiocco, Michele Riondino, Eugenio Banella, Giorgio Careccia, Martina Cerroni, Martina Cerroni, Pippo Delbono, Maria Chiara Giannetta, Marco Leonardi, Lidiya Liberman, Lucia Mascino, Roberta Mattei, Andrea Mautone, Stefania Montorsi, Marika Murri)