'Fingernails'

Source: SSIFF

‘Fingernails’

BFI London Film Festival (LFF, October 4-15) has unveiled the competition line-ups for best film, best first feature and best documentary.

The 11 films competing for best film include Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist; Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel; Daniel Kokotajlo’s Starve Acre and Christos Nikou’s Fingernails. 

Christine Molloy returns to the competition after 2019’s Rose Plays Julie. This time she has co-directed Baltimore with frequent collaborator and partner Joe Lawlor. The pair recently directed The Future Tense which premiered at Dublin earlier this year. 

The best first feature strand includes several titles from former Screen Stars Of Tomorrow – Luna Carmoon (2022) competes with Hoard, which first premieres in Venice; George Jaques with Black Dog starring Jamie Flatters (2022) and Ruby Stokes (2023); Moin Hussain (2018) with Sky Peals, also in Venice first; and Naqqash Khalid (2020) with In Camera. The first features are competing for the Sutherland trophy. 

The documentary competition, or the Grierson award, includes Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberias and Paloma Schachmann’s The Klemzer Project.

The winners of each competition will be selected by a jury and announced at the festival’s closing ceremony on October 15 in addition to audience awards.

The full LFF line-up will be announced on Thursday, August 31. 

LFF Official Competition 2023 

Best film

Baltimore (Ire-UK)
Dirs. Christine Molloy, Joe Lawlor

Dear Jassi (Ind)
Dir. Tarsem Singh Dhandwar

Europa (Austria-UK) 
Dir. Sudabeh Mortezai

Evil Does Not Exist (Jap)
Dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Fingernails (US)
Dir. Christos Nikou

Gasoline Rainbow (US)
Dir. Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross

I Am Sirat (Can)
Dir. a collaboration between Deepa Mehta and Sirat Taneja 

The Royal Hotel (Australia)
Dir. Kitty Green

Self Portrait: 47 KM 2020 (China)
Dir. Zhang Mengqi

Starve Acre (UK)
Dir. Daniel Kokotajlo

Together 99 (Swe-Den)
Dir. Lukas Moodysson

Best first feature 

Black Dog (UK)
Dir. George Jaques

Earth Mama (US-UK)
Dir. Savanah Leaf

Hoard (UK)
Dir. Luna Carmoon

In Camera (UK)
Dir. Naqqash Khalid

Mambar Pierrette (Bel-Cameroon)
Dir. Rosine Mbakam

Paradise Is Burning (Swe-It-Den-Fin)
Dir. Mika Gustafson

Prison In The Andes (Chile-Bra)
Dir. Felipe Carmona

The Queen Of My Dreams (Can)
Dir. Fawzia Mirza

Sky Peals (UK)
Dir. Moin Hussain

Tiger Stripes (Malay-Tai-Sing-Fr-Ger-Neth-Indonesia-Qat)
Dir. Amanda Nell Eu

Tuesday (UK-US) 
Dir. Daina O. Pusić

Best documentary

Bye Bye Tiberias (Fr-Palestine-Bel-Qat)
Dir. Lina Soualem

Celluloid Underground (UK-Iran)
Dir. Ehsan Khoshbakht

Chasing Chasing Amy (US)
Dir. Sav Rodgers

A Common Sequence (US-Mex)
Dirs. Mary Helena Clark, Mike Gibisser

Dancing On The Edge Of A Volcano (Ger-Leb)
Dir. Cyril Aris

The Klezmer Project (Austria-Argentina)
Dirs. Leandro Koch, Paloma Schachmann

Queendom (Fr-US)
Dir. Agniia Galdanova

The Taste Of Mango (UK-US)
Dir. Chloe Abrahams

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