Leeds festival to open with Gravity

The 27th Leeds International Film Festival (Nov 6-21) will open with Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity.

The festival programme includes 163 films in 250 screenings at four main venues: Leeds Town Hall, Hyde Park Picture House, Vue Leeds at the Light and the Everyman.

The official selection includes festival hit such as Blue is the Warmest Colour, Child’s Pose, Nebraska and Stranger By The Lake; plus discovery titles including Harmony Lessons, The Strange Little Cat and the UK premiere of Finnish veteran Pirjo Honkasalo’s Concrete Night.

Leeds’ cult cinema section Fanomenon will include the UK premiere of Korea’s Cold Eyes, a Batman offering with a new documentary about Frank Miller, and the Night of the Dead and Day of the Dead series with films such as 100 Bloody Acres and Big Bad Wolves. Cult classics to screen include Deadlock, Wake in Fright, and Ikarie XB-1.

The Cinema Versa strand includes a Music on Film strand with selections including Tom Berninger’s Mistaken For Strangers about The National, Simeon Hutner and Trevor Laurence’s Harlem Street Singer about Reverend Gary Davis, and Joe Angio’s Revenge of the Mekons [pictured].

The festival will close with Gyorgy Palfi’s acclaimed tribute to cinema, Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen.

Retrospectives will be devoted to Polish animator Walerian Borowczyk and Japanese filmmaker Masaki Kobayashi. The European Catalyst section will include films such as Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione, Claude Chabrol’s Le Beau Serge and Cristi Puiu’s Stuff and Dough.

In addiiton, more than 80 short films will screen in competition in the Short Film City.