57th BFI London Film Festival

Alfonso Cuaron's "Gravity," the Coen Brothers' " Inside Llewyn Davis" and the European premiere of Steve McQueen’s "12 Years a Slave" are among the program book-ended by Tom Hanks in opener "Captain Phillips" and closer "Saving Mr. Banks."

 

The 57th BFI London Film Festival, presented in partnership with American Express, will screen 234 fiction and documentary features, including 22 world premieres, 16 international premieres and 29 European premieres along with 20 archive films.

Highlights include Cannes winner Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is The Warmest Color, set for the love strand gala, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Don Jon for the gala of the laugh strand.
The cult strand gets Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive, while Alexander Payne’s road-trip movie Nebraska takes the journey strand gala slot.
Jason Reitman’s literary adaptation Labor Day, starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin, will also enjoy a red carpet gala.
A festival gala event is planned for the European premiere of Ralph Fiennes’ second outing in the director's chair, The Invisible Woman starring him as Charles Dickens, Felicity Jones, Kristin Scott Thomas and Tom Hollander.

The festival is again spreading films out into different strands that include Love, Debate, Dare, Laugh, Thrill, Cult, Journey, Sonic, Family, Experimenta, Treasures and Shorts. It runs from October 9-20.

Official Competition

• Abuse of Weakness (Catherine Breillat)
• The Double (Richard Ayoade)
• Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski)
• Like Father, Like Son (Hirokazu Koreeda)
• The Lunchbox (Ritesh Batra)
• Of Good Report (Jahmil X. T. Qubeka)
• Parkland (Peter Landesman)
• Rags & Tatters (Ahmad Abdalla)
• The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard)
• Starred Up (David MacKenzie)
• Tom at the Farm (Xavier Dolan)
• Tracks (John Curran)
• Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)

 Galas

• 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)
• Captain Phillips (Paul Greengrass)
• Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron)
• Inside Llewyn Davis (Ethan Coen and Joel Coen)
• The Invisible Woman (Ralph Fiennes)
• Labour Day (Jason Reitman)
• Philomena (Stephen Frears)
• Saving Mr. Banks (John Lee Hancock)

First Feature Competition

• B for Boy (Chika Anadu)
• Hide Your Smiling Faces (Daniel Patrick Carbone)
• Ilo Ilo (Anthony Chen)
• Kill Your Darlings (John Krokidas)
• The Long Way Home (Alphan Eseli)
• Luton (Michalis Konstantatos)
• Salvo (Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza)
• Sarah Prefers to Run (Chloe Robichaud)
• Sixteen (Rob Brown)
• Trap Street (Vivian Qu)
• Wounded (Fernando Franco)
• Youth (Tom Shoval)

Documentary Competition

• Aatsinki: The Story of Arctic Cowboys (Jessica Oreck)
• The Armstrong Lie (Alex Gibney)
• At Berkeley (Frederick Wiseman)
• Cutie and the Boxer (Zachary Heinzerling)
• Here Be Dragons (Mark Cousins)
• La Maison de la Radio (Nicolas Philibert)
• Manhunt (Greg Barker)
• The Missing Picture (Rithy Panh)
• My Fathers, My Mother and Me (Paul-Julien Robert)
• Pipeline (Vitaly Mansky)
• Teenage (Matt Wolf)
• Ukraine Is Not a Brothel (Kitty Green)

Love Pathway

• Adore (Anne Fontaine)
• Blue Is the Warmest Colour (Abdellatif Kechiche) (Gala)
• Child's Pose (Calin Peter Netzer)
• Gloria (Sebastian Lelio)
• Grand Central (Rebecca Zlotowski)
• The Past (Asghar Farhadi)
• The Spectacular Now (James Ponsoldt)

Debate Pathway

• Closed Curtain (Jafar Panahi and Kambuzia Partovi)
• Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia (Nicholas Wrathall)
• Leave to Remain (Bruce Goodison)
• Manuscripts Don't Burn (Mohammad Rasoulof)
• Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt) (Gala)
• The Rooftops (Merzak Allouache)
• Walesa: Man of Hope (Andrzej Wajda)

Dare Pathway

• As I Lay Dying (James Franco)
• An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker (Danis Tanovic)
• Exhibition (Joanna Hogg)
• Half of a Yellow Sun (Biyi Bandele)
• La Jaula de Oro (Diego Quemada-Diez)
• Let the Fire Burn (Jason Osder)
• Stranger by the Lake (Alain Guiraudie) (Gala)
• A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhang Ke)
• Young & Beautiful (Francois Ozon)

Laugh Pathway

• Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski)
• Doll & Em (Emily Mortimer and Dolly Wells)
• Don Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) (Gala)
• Drinking Buddies (Joe Swanberg)
• Enough Said (Nicole Holofcener)
• Hello Carter (Anthony Wilcox)

Thrill Pathway

• 1 (Paul Crowder)
• All Is Lost (J.C. Chandor)
• Durban Poison (Andrew Worsdale)
• Heli (Amat Escalante)
• Kon-Tiki (Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg)
• Mystery Road (Ivan Sen) (Gala)
• Northwest (Michael Noer)
• Omar (Hany Abu-Assad)

Cult Pathway

• Blackwood (Adam Winpenny)
• The Congress (Ari Folman)
• Jodorowsky's Dune (Frank Pavich)
• Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch) (Gala)
• The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears (Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani)
• The Zero Theorem (Terry Gilliam)

Journey Pathway

• Late at Night: Voices of Ordinary Madness (Xiao Lu Guo)
• Locke (Steven Knight)
• Mother of George (Andrew Dosunmu)
• Nebraska (Alexander Payne (Gala)
• Short Term 12 (Destin Cretton)
• Sniffer (Buddhadeb Dasgupta)

Sonic Pathway

• 20 Feet from Stardom (Morgan Neville)
• Becoming Traviata (Philippe Beziat)
• Broadway Idiot (Doug Hamilton)
• Good Ol' Freda (Ryan White)
• Marvin Hamlisch: The Way He Was (Dori Bernstein)
• Mistaken for Strangers (Tom Berninger)
• The Punk Singer (Sini Anderson)
• We Are the Best! (Lukas Moodysson) (Gala)

Family Pathway

• Anina (Alfredo Soderguit)
• Antboy (Ask Hasselbalch)
• Felix (Roberto Durrant)
• Foosball 3D (Juan Jose Campanella) (Gala)
• Side By Side (Arthur Landon)