Beginning tomorrow, Wednesday, October 7, and running through Sunday, October 18, the BFI London Film Festival celebrates its 59th edition with 240 films. Among these are approximately 50 documentary features, with select highlights noted below:
A dozen titles vie in the Documentary Competition, a collection of notable titles that have already appeared elsewhere on the circuit, as well as a few newcomers. The latter include: Sarah Turner’s PUBLIC HOUSE, which incorporates operatic elements into a community’s resistance to gentrification; David Sington’s THE FEAR OF 13 (pictured), a startling monologue delivered by a condemned prisoner; João Pedro Plácido’s (BE)LONGING, which follows a young, smitten Portuguese farmer.
Outside of its competition sections, the remainder of the festival’s programming is organized into one-word thematic sections. Additional nonfiction appearing here include: In Love, Roberto Anjari-Rossi’s LEGACY, which observes the lives and heartbreak of two rural Chilean women; in Debate, John Dower’s MY SCIENTOLOGY MOVIE, following British broadcaster Louis Theroux as he investigates the Church of Scientology; in Cult, Jon Spira’s ELSTREE 1976 (pictured), in which background extras from the original STAR WARS reflect on their part in the pop culture legend; and in Sonic, Bernard MacMahon’s THE AMERICAN EPIC SESSIONS, documenting a range of musicians as they record their songs using an early, weight-operated recording device.
Other, somewhat more esoteric, sections include Dare, which features hybrids like Ju Anqi’s POET ON A BUSINESS TRIP; film essays like Ross Lipman’s exploration of the Samuel Beckett/Buster Keaton collaboration FILM, NOTFILM; as well as William Fairman and Max Gogarty’s CHEMSEX (pictured), exploring drug-fueled sex parties among London’s gay scene. Even more out there are the experimental offerings of Experimenta, which include William English’s HEATED GLOVES, about an eccentric English inventor; and Miranda Pennell’s THE HOST, an essay about the filmmaker’s parents’ dealings with the petroleum industry in Iran.
what (not) to doc 