London Film Festival

What to Watch From the

I just got back from an excellent run of fi lms at the London Film Festival. Festivals are great in that you can see many fi lms that you wouldn’t have the chance to see, or wouldn’t have heard about otherwise. Th ey’re one of the few cinematic venues where you are still able to see short fi lms on the big screen. Here are my recommendations, along with their current Irish release dates:

Portrait of a Lady on Fire/Portrait de la jeune fi lle en feu (Céline Sciamma): won big with the Queer Palm and Best Screenplay awards at Cannes, and deservedly so. Exquisitely shot, this lesbian love story is tender, sexy, sensitive, and devastatingly human. Wednesday 13 November at the IFI for the IFI French Film Festival.

Knives Out (Rian Johnson): an utter delight to watch the excellent performances of this all-star cast. Johnson’s follow-up to Th e Last Jedi (2018) does not disappoint. 27 November.

I Lost My Body/J’ai perdu mon corps (Jérémy Clapin): utterly bizarre, but brilliant animation (looks like anime, but it’s French) about a severed hand trying to return to its body. As with another fi lm at LFF, Relativity, it plays with non-linear narrative in a very engaging way. 29 November on Netfl ix.

Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach): Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson star in this funny and heart-breaking fi lm that premiered at Venice. Very likely it’ll receive a Best Picture nomination. 6 December on Netfl ix.

Calm with Horses (Nick Rowland): gangsters rule the West Cork setting of this thriller, capturing the cruel beauty of the rugged landscape and the intense isolation of its community. 6 March, 2020.

Vivarium (Lorcan Finnegan): this bizarre Irish co-production is a real treat, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots as a young couple stuck in the suburbs. Unannounced.

Th e Painted Bird (Václav Marhoul): a young boy roams the cruel landscape of eastern Europe during Nazi occupation and the Holocaust. A completely unforgiving, unrelenting watch that led to mass walkouts from critics at its premiere in Venice. However, its portrayal of the wider trauma of the Holocaust beyond the barbed boundaries of the concentration camp is something I’ve never seen onscreen before, and never want to again. Unannounced.

Adoration (Fabrice du Welz): a twist on the teen-romance-on-the-run narrative. A very disturbing portrayal of the dangers of teenage infatuation that oft en comes with fi rst love. One of my favourites from the festival. Unannounced.

Films I didn’t get to see, but generated a lot of buzz in the press and industry queues

Offi cial Secrets (Gavin Hood): Out Now

Peanut Butter Falcon (Michael Schwartz and Tyler Nilson): Out Now

Th e Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot): Out Now

JoJo Rabbit (Taika Waititi): 1 January, 2020.

Th e Personal History of David Copperfi eld (Armando Iannucci): 24 January, 2020.

Th e Lighthouse (Robert Eggers): 31 January, 2020.

Rocks (Sarah Gavron): 24 April, 2020.

Colour Out of Space (Richard Stanley): unannounced.

Synchronic (Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson): unannounced.

And one to miss: Earthquake Bird (Wash Westmoreland): Alicia Vikander speaks Japanese for half the movie, which is very impressive. Th at’s the only reason you’d watch this tedious, predictable thriller. Ignore it from 15 November on Netfl ix.