London Calling
Julia Ducournau’s Cannes belter Titane
As the wet, cold, British summer soldiers on, there are two options. Either you can seek refuge in the dark, warm, somewhat overwhelming embrace of whichever major tentpoles are filling screens of newly reopened cinemas (The Suicide Squad over Black Widow, FWIW), or you can use this time to comfortably start planning.
It might be August, but you’ll blink and it’ll be October – and that can only mean one thing. London Film Festival is right around the corner.
The 65th BFI London Film Festival is set to take place from October 6 - 17, and just yesterday we were gifted with the news that Jeymes Samuel’s star-studded (Idris Elba! LaKeith Stanfield! Regina King! Producer Jay-Z!) Western The Harder They Fall will receive its premiere at this year’s edition.
So, what now? The rest of the programme will be unveiled at the start of next month, but with news of virtual and physical festivals around the world doing their thing elsewhere, there’s more than enough time and talent on the horizon to start planning. So, here goes nothing: a prayer circle, a manifestation, a wishlist for 10 titles, in no particular order, to grace our shores. Programmers, if you’re reading this, hi, let’s have a little chat.
Wolf
George MacKay wants to be a wolf and you know what? I think we should let him. Billed as a “high-concept arthouse drama”, Wolf focuses on MacKay’s character Jacob who has a real-life illness called species dysphoria, in which he believes he is this animal trapped in a human body.
(Here’s a brief ad break in your reading to remind you that social media-less MacKay hopped on Instagram, just for us, last year with his film brother Earl Cave. Please enjoy:)
Wolf is the second feature from writer-director Nathalie Biancheri, and also stars Lily-Rose Depp as Wildcat, and Dating Amber platonic sweethearts Fionn O’Shea and Lola Petticrew as German Shepherd and Parrot, naturally. And Zookeeper? Glad you asked! That’s Paddy Considine. There’s almost too much to look forward to.
The Power of the dog
Netflix quickly made it clear they were not here to play around when they started partnering with some of our finest contemporary filmmakers a few years ago. Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, and now Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog.
The inimitable New Zealand filmmaker returns with an adaptation of Thomas Savage’s novel of the same name, focusing on a sadistic ranch owner in 20th-century Montana (and who plays sadistic better than Benedict Cumberbatch?). Keep an eye out for Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons, and one of our greatest rising stars Thomasin McKenzie too.
The Lost Daughter
I know the headline here is that the enigmatic and unbelievably talented Maggie Gyllenhaal is making her feature debut as a director based on a novel by Elena Ferrante, but I’d like to tell you that the film also stars Normal People’s Paul Mescal in his feature debut since that role. Everything is fine.
But then there’s also Olivia Colman, always welcome back to our screens, and Jessie Buckley playing a younger version of Colman’s character Leda. They’re joined by Dakota Johnson (inevitably here to throw everything into disarray) and the shoot took place on the Greek island of Speteses. At least if our weather doesn’t improve, ever, we can head there for a couple of hours?
Spencer
While The Crown gave us a much more robust look at Lady Diana Spencer’s life as a monarch onscreen when Emma Corrin played the people’s princess in season 4 of the Netflix drama last year, Spencer aims to go further back and zoom in on one specific weekend, when Diana decided that she would end her marriage to Charles.
Now, roll call please: beloved indie auteur Pablo Larraín is directing this one, from a script by Peaky Blinders chief Steven Knight. Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood is on scoring duties, and Diana will be played by Kristen Stewart.
There’s a lot of big names joining her, but the one I’m most interested in is Amy Manson, who has been cast as Anne Boleyn. Yes, that one. No, she was not alive at the same time. No, I do not know how this is going to work. Yes, it must play at this year’s festival.
True Things About Me
Never trust a man with badly-bleached hair, or so the saying goes. Tom Burke, last seen as Orson Welles himself in David Fincher’s Mank, has got a brand new look in True Things About Me, Harry Wootliff’s new film about “a woman’s chance encounter with a charismatic stranger”.
It doesn’t sound like much of a stretch from Burke’s previous role in The Souvenir opposite Honor Swinton Byrne – but Ruth Wilson takes centre stage this time and, well, as Burke has shown us so far: nothing is ever what it seems.
Titane
First Cannes, next the world: Julia Ducournau is coming for us. The director of Raw returns with a gnarly body horror which blew Cannes away called Titane. It seems like it’s best to go in blind, so all we’ll say in terms of a summary is the definition of titanium.
It’s a metal highly resistant to heat and corrosion, with high tensile strength alloys. The film stars Agathe Rousselle and Vincent Lindon. The rest, we’ll find out on the big screen.
Mona Lisa And The Blood Moon
Jeon Jong-seo showed us she was not messing around in Lee Chang-dong’s Burning in 2018, and she’s back for more as the lead character in Ana Lily Amirpour’s new horror.
“A girl with unusual powers escapes from a mental asylum and tries to make it on her own in New Orleans,” the synopsis simply reads, and the first image very much confirms. Kate Hudson, Ed Skrein and Craig Robinson are also on board here, but it’s all pretty much under wraps for now – as the best thrillers often are.
Silent Night
Look, October definitely is the right time to start thinking about Christmas. I’m not glad about it, but at least there might be something entertaining to ease us into it gently this year? Camille Griffin is certainly counting on it with her warm ensemble comedy Silent Night, taking place over one particularly crowded Christmas dinner.
It stars a vibrant ensemble of homegrown favourites: Keira Knightley, Sope Dirisu, Lucy Punch, Matthew Goode, Rufus Jones, Kirby Howell-Baptiste and so many more. Oh, and the chirpy 14-year-old you recognise in the background there? That’s Roman Griffin Davis – he of Jojo Rabbit fame, and also the filmmaker’s son. Tis the season for family ties, after all.
Dashcam
It started with Host, but it certainly will not end with lockdown. Rob Savage is back with another screen-based horror in Dashcam, which he made in collaboration with Blumhouse off the back of his breakout feature.
A brief, tantalising blurb reads: “A caustic online streamer’s anarchic behaviour triggers a non-stop nightmare in the latest screenlife frightfest from Rob Savage.” And if that wasn’t thrilling enough? It clocks in at a sweet, sweet 77 minutes.
Petite Maman
It’s been two years since Portrait of a Lady on Fire, so naturally Céline Sciamma has decided to return and break our hearts all over again. This time, the love she’s looking at is between two childhood friends, in a story about imagination, loss and dreams in Petite Maman.
If you like Studio Ghibli films and discovering the greatest, most wise and moving child actors this side of the 21st century, this one’s for you.
The 65th BFI London Film Festival will announce this year’s lineup on September 7.
