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London Film Festival · 2022

London Film Festival 2022

Debate

Programme

14 films · 7 reviews

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Blaze

After a young girl witnesses a violent crime, she summons an imaginary dragon to help process her anger and protect her on her journey into womanhood.

(Country: Australia; Year: 2022; Director: Del Kathryn Barton; Writer: Huna Amweero, Del Kathryn Barton; Stars: Simon Baker, Yael Stone, Remy Hii, Josh Lawson, John Waters, Heather Mitchell, Morgan Davies, Julia Savage, Will McDonald, Rebecca Massey, Stephen James King, Bernie Van Tiel, Ryan Hedges, Kristy Wordsworth, Neal Horton)

Blue Island

Mixes documentary footage and fictional recreations of the past starring contemporary student protestors.

(Country: Hong Kong; Year: 2022; Director: Tze Woon Chan; Writer: Tze Woon Chan)

Bobi Wine: The People's President

Review preview for Bobi Wine: The People's President

Though we spend a good part of the film inside offices or private homes, there is also a lot of footage from the streets, where passions run high.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
A documentary about how Ugandan opposition leader, activist and musical star Bobi Wine took on the regime led by Yoweri Museveni, the person who led the country for 35 years.

(Country: UK, Uganda, US; Year: 2022; Director: Moses Bwayo, Christopher Sharp; Stars: Bobi Wine, Barbie Kyagulanyi)

Full review

Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power

Review preview for Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power

Densely packed as this film is, only so much can be squeezed into an hour and 47 minutes. Menkes succeeds, however, in delivering a pretty thorough primer.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
Based on Nina Menkes' acclaimed talk "Sex & Power: The Visual Language of Cinema", a mesmerising journey into how shot design intersects with the twin epidemics of sexual abuse/assault and employment discrimination against women.

(Country: US; Year: 2022; Director: Nina Menkes; Stars: Rosanna Arquette, Penelope Spheeris, Charlyne Yi, Catherine Hardwicke, Joey Soloway, Eliza Hittman, Julie Dash, Ita O'Brien, Maria Giese, Nina Menkes, Nancy Schreiber, Amy Ziering, Lara Dale, Freddy D. Ramsey Jr., Sandra de Castro Buffington)

Full review

Call Jane

Review preview for Call Jane

Nagy and her screenwriters’ disciplined refusal to pursue grandiose storylines results in a well-earned sense of community.

Jeremy Mathews · 4 out of 5
Chicago, 1968: after having a life-saving secret abortion, a suburban housewife seeks to give women access to healthy and safe abortions through an underground collective of women known as "Jane".

(Country: US; Year: 2022; Director: Phyllis Nagy; Writer: Hayley Schore, Roshan Sethi; Stars: Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Mara, Chris Messina, John Magaro, Aida Turturro, Wunmi Mosaku, Cory Michael Smith, Alison Jaye, Rebecca Henderson, Geoffrey Cantor, Rachel Rosenbloom, Gina Jun, Bianca D'Ambrosio, Grace Edwards)

Full review

Declaration

A couple who work in a factory face their plans for moving abroad being scuppered after an old video resurfaces of them.

(Country: India; Year: 2022; Director: Mahesh Narayanan; Writer: Mahesh Narayanan; Stars: Kunchacko Boban, Faisal Malik, Danish Husain, Sidharth Bhardwaj, Dimpy Mishra, Loveleen Mishra, Kannan Arunachalam, Divya Prabha, Gaurhav Nagar, Kiran Peethambaran, Saifudheen E., Faizal Malik)

Exterior Night

Six-part series about a shocking event that rocked Italy in the late seventies: the kidnapping and eventual murder of the country’s influential statesman and former prime minister Aldo Moro by the leftist Red Brigades.

(Country: Italy; Year: 2022; Director: Marco Bellocchio)

Hidden Letters

Review preview for Hidden Letters

A timely, moving, frequently beautiful multi-layered portrait.

Sunil Chauhan · 4 out of 5
In modern-day China, two women strive to preserve Nushu, an ancient secret language that bonded generations of Chinese women together through centuries of oppression in a clandestine support system of sisterhood and survival.

(Country: China; Year: 2022; Director: Violet Du Feng, Qing Zhao; Writer: Violet Du Feng, John Farbrother; Stars: Simu Wu, He Yanxin, Xin Hu)

Full review

If The Streets Were On Fire

Documentary about BikeStormz, which offers kids in London an opportunity to express themselves through cycling.

(Country: UK; Year: 2022; Director: Alice Russell)

Klondike

Review preview for Klondike

Gorbach presents war as an insidious and dangerous beast, prowling about the edges of people's lives, swiping at those who aren't directly involved just as easily as those who are.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
The story of a Ukrainian family living on the border of Russia - Ukraine during the start of war. Irka refuses to leave her house even as the village gets captured by armed forces. Shortly after, they find themselves at the center of an air crash catastrophe on July 17, 2014.

(Country: Ukraine, Turkey; Year: 2022; Director: Maryna Er Gorbach; Writer: Maryna Er Gorbach; Stars: Evgeniy Efremov, Oleg Shcherbina, Oksana Cherkashyna, Oleg Shevchuk, Artur Aramyan)

Full review

Next Sohee (Da-eum-so-hee)

Review preview for Next Sohee

There’s a real sense of fury behind this film.

Jennie Kermode · 5 out of 5
High school student Sohee starts job training at a call centre, but she faces pressure of greedy company which leads to her death. Detective Oh Yu-jin, who has something in common with Sohee, starts to follow traces to reveal the truth.

(Country: South Korea; Year: 2022; Director: July Jung; Writer: July Jung; Stars: Kim Si-Eun, Bae Doona)

Full review See: Interview with July Jung about Next Sohee

Palm Trees And Power Lines

Review preview for Palm Trees And Power Lines

Tucker's performance ripples like a mirage, all charm on the surface but with an air of something much less cuddly

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
A bored 17-year-old falls for a man twice her age.

(Country: US; Year: 2022; Director: Jamie Dack; Writer: Jamie Dack, Audrey Findlay; Stars: Gretchen Mol, Jonathan Tucker, Auden Thornton, Armani Jackson, Kenny Johnston, Lily McInerny, Yvette Tucker, Michael Petrone, John Minch, Yolanda Corrales, Quinn Frankel, Timothy Taratchila, Rhied De Castro, Conn Bodkin, Angel Grey Cooper)

Full review

Stonewalling

A young flight-attendant-in-training’s plans to finish college are thrown into doubt when she discovers she’s pregnant.

(Country: China; Year: 2022; Director: Huang Ji, Ryûji Otsuka; Stars: Honggui Yao)

The Store

Hybrid film set in a near-future dystopian Sweden.

(Country: Sweden; Year: 2022; Director: Ami-Ro Sköld; Writer: Ami-Ro Sköld; Stars: Isabelle Grill, Sarah Viktoria Engman, Kristina Brändén Whitaker, Victor Iván, Fredrik Evers, Arbi Alviati, Eleftheria Gerofoka, Eliza Sica, Linda Hellström, Marcus Standoft, Lana Chahto, Daysury Valencia, Alisa Sofia Paulsen, Sabrin Jaja, Joshua Nicolas Sjöö)