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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