The festival opens on 6 October with the world premiere of “The Harder They Fall,” a Western from British director James Samuel with a black-lead cast.
Films from 77 countries will be screened at the 2021 London Film Festival as Britain’s premier cinema show welcomes mass audiences into cinemas after a pandemic-disrupted year.
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The festive schedule announced on Tuesday includes 158 features in 2019, down from 225 during its last pre-pandemic edition. The 2020 festival was a small collection of 58 films, the most screened online.
This year, mask-wearing, full-capacity audiences will be able to attend a gala screening at London’s Riverside Southbank Centre, with several premieres screened simultaneously in movie theaters across the UK.
About 37% of the features are directed by women – not yet parity, but up from a quarter four years ago and “moving in the right direction,” said festival director Tricia Tuttle.
The festival opens with the world premiere of “The Harder They Fall” on 6 October – a western with a black-headed cast from British director James Samuel – and the European premiere of Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth” on 17 October. closes with. Starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand as Shakespeare’s murdered Scottish royals.
The lineup includes 21 world premieres with award-winners and title-grabbers from the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals, including Jane Campion’s Montana-set western “The Power of the Dog” and Edgar Wright’s swinging ’60s horror Romp “Last Night in Soho”. Both premiered this month in Venice.
Also on schedule are French director Julia Ducournau’s techno-sexual thriller “Titan”—winner of Cannes’ top prize, the Palme d’Or—both Paul Verhoeven’s lesbian nun drama “Benedetta” and Wes Anderson’s whimsical “The French Dispatch”. . Which also premiered at the French Riviera festival.
The London festival will also feature Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Elena Ferrante adaptation of “The Lost Daughter”; Reynaldo Marcus Greene’s “King Richard”, starring Will Smith as Venus and Serena Williams’ father; Kenneth Branagh’s tribute to his hometown, “Belfast”; Jacques Ouard’s “Paris, 13th District” and Todd Haynes’ music documentary “The Velvet Underground.” Another highlight is Chilean director Pablo Lahren’s “Spencer”—a film whose first promotional shot of Kristin Stewart as Princess Diana was enough to set off a frenzy of anticipation.
“I don’t think there’s a movie fan alive who doesn’t want to see this movie after it’s released,” Tuttle said.
Embracing television as well as cinema, the festival is also screening the first two episodes of the third series of the media-dynastic drama “Succession”. Festival organizers are still unsure how the coronavirus pandemic will affect plans for red-carpet premieres and parties. Four-fifths of British adults are fully vaccinated, and there are few restrictions on social life. But infections remain high, and children are expected to return to school.
Tuttle says some of the films in the lineup explicitly deal with the pandemic, including Matthew Heineman’s documentary “The First Wave” and “7 Days,” a coronavirus romcom about a couple dating back after a disastrous first date. closed together.
“We were wary of going too high in the pandemic,” Tuttle said. “We’ve just picked out films that left us mesmerized or felt very urgent not to be on the show.”
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