The 65th BFI London Film Festival (LFF, October 6-17) has revealed the eight films selected for its 2021 official competition.
Among the titles selected are Mamoru Hosoda’s Japanese animation Belle, Justin Kurzel’s Nitram, Iranian filmmaker Panah Panahi’s Hit The Road and Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Lingui, The Sacred Bonds. All four films premiered at Cannes Film Festival in July.
UK writer/director Harry Wootliff also returns to the festival following her LFF debut in 2018 with Only You. Wootliff is in LFF competition with her second feature True Things, a psychological drama starring Ruth Wilson about a woman who becomes entangled with a mysterious stranger after a quickie in a car park.
Other titles include Sundown, directed by Michel Franco, reuniting with actor Tim Roth after 2015’s Chronic, and Paolo Sorrentino’s semi-autobiographical The Hand Of God, set during the Maradona-obsessed Naples of the 1980s. Both films are premiering at the Venice Film Festival this week.
The winner will be chosen by the official competition jury, which will be revealed in the coming weeks, and announced at a virtual LFF awards ceremony on October 17.
The full LFF programme launch is scheduled for September 7.
LFF Best Film Award nominations
Belle (Jap)
Dir. Mamoru Hosoda
Il Buco (It-Ger-Fr)
Dir. Michelangelo Frammartino
The Hand Of God (It)
Dir. Paolo Sorrentino
Nitram (Aus)
Dir. Justin Kurzel
Hit The Road (Iran)
Dir. Panah Panahi
Sundown (Mex-Fr-Swe)
Dir. Michel Franco
Lingui, The Sacred Bonds (Chad-Fr-Ger-Bel)
Dir. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
True Things (UK)
Dir. Harry Wootliff
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