Festival:
The 63rd BFI London Film Festival
Dates:
October 2-13
About:
Nonfiction makes up about a fifth of this notable UK event’s 200+ lineup.
WHITE RIOT
The festival’s Documentary Competition includes a mix of both recent festival favorites and less familiar titles – among the latter are Rubika Shah’s
WHITE RIOT, about 1970s protest movement Rock Against Racism; José Filipe Costa’s hybrid
A PLEASURE, COMRADES!, which revisits the dawning sexual liberation of post-dictatorship Portugal of the mid-1970s; and Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian’s
I AM (NOT) A MONSTER, a survey of alternative thinkers around the world.
SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME
Nonfiction is sprinkled throughout the event’s various one-word thematic sections, including, in Love, Dermot Lavery and Michael Hewitt’s
LOST LIVES, which pays tribute to those who have died as part of Northern Ireland’s Troubles; in Create, Mike Figgis’
SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME, a portrait of The Rolling Stones’ guitarist Ronnie Wood; and, in Debate, Sasha Joseph Neulinger’s
REWIND, in which the director recounts the childhood sexual abuse his sister and he endured; Nuno Escudeiro’s
THE VALLEY, documenting the face-off on the France/Italy border between authorities and those who would help refugees; and Zed Nelson’s
THE STREET, on the gentrifying new businesses that threaten longtime shopowners of a London street.
I DIE OF SADNESS CRYING FOR YOU
More innovative work appears in Journey, including John Skoog’s hybrid
RIDGE, a free-associative portrait of life in southern Sweden; and Ridham Janve’s
THE GOLD-LADEN SHEEP & THE SACRED MOUNTAIN, which blends observational doc with metaphysical fable to follow the quest of a shepherd in search of treasure. Finally, experimental projects are showcased in Experimenta, including Nina Danino’s
I DIE OF SADNESS CRYING FOR YOU, an essay film exploring a once popular Spanish music genre devoted to unrequited love; Roz Mortimer’s
THE DEATHLESS WOMAN, which takes a mythological approach to the genocide of the Roma by the Nazis; and Louis Henderson and Olivier Marboeuf with The Living and The Dead Ensemble’s
OUVERTURES, a complex, performative history of Haiti’s foundation.
