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Powerful and Innovative Stories: Looking Back at London Film Festival 2024

The 68th BFI London Film Festival has just drawn to a close with an impressive mix of movies and masterclasses. Opening with the world premiere of Steve McQueen’s World War 2-era drama Blitz, there were some fine gala screenings, including Andrea Arnold’s beguiling Bird. The British filmmaker, who joined ASFF for a stirring masterclass back in 2020, here brought a social realist fable about a young girl (Nykiya Adams) and her friendship with a mysterious stranger (Franz Rogowski). Man-of-the-hour Barry Keoghan, who starred in last year’s opener Saltburn, also features. 

Among the prizes at the festival, Portuguese-born, Edinburgh-based director Laura Carreira won the Sutherland Award in the First Feature competition for her debut On Falling. It was the first British movie to win the prize since 2010, when Clio Barnard’s The Arbor took it. The story of a lone female toiling away in an Amazon-like ‘fulfilment centre’ in Scotland, Carreira’s film is the latest production by Sixteen Films, the company behind the work of legendary British filmmaker Ken Loach. Its sensitive look at the exploitation of workers felt like something Loach himself might’ve made in years gone by. 

This year’s LFF shorts segment featured six themed strands, plus an animated selection for younger viewers. Playing in Wondering, Wandering was Rehab Nazzal’s powerful Vibrations from Gaza, which took the Short Film Award, decided by the jury led by Sri Lankan-British filmmaker Chloe Abrahams. Available on MUBI and BFI Player among other platforms, the short examines the lives of deaf children, who have grown up under Israeli bombardments, and how they perceive missile strikes through vibrations in the air.

While gaming and virtual reality has increasingly become part of the film festival landscape, this year’s LFF took it to another dimension with the inclusion of Grand Theft Hamlet. Made by Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane, a project that began in lockdown, this esoteric documentary was entirely shot inside the online version of Grand Theft Auto V. In it, two out-of-work actors mount a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the world of Los Santos, the Los Angeles-like universe in the Rockstar Games video game sensation. In a festival full of innovation, this was surely the highlight.


Words: James Mottram


Stills:

  1. Bird (2024), dir. Andrea Arnold
  2. Vibrations from Gaza (2023), dir. Rehab Nazzal
  3. Grand Theft Hamlet (2024), dir. Pinny Grylls, Sam Crane