In this blog, the ICO team highlight some of their favourite titles from this year’s 68th BFI London Film Festival, including new work by some familiar faces, as well as several exciting debuts.
Mikaela Smith, Film Programmer
To a Land Unknown (dir. Mahdi Fleifel)
Following two Palestinian refugees in Athens as they try to raise enough money to get into Germany, To a Land Unknown is a morally complex tale told with incredible assurance by Palestinian-Danish director Mahdi Fleifel. Having made a name for himself in documentary, this is Fliefel’s first foray into fiction, but he retains a laser-focussed, unflinching lens on his subjects. Cousins Reda and Chatila spend their time in the local parks, trying to figure out how to generate the cash they need to get forged passports that will get them where they need to be. In the beginning, this is largely petty crime; a snatched purse here, flogging some stolen trainers there. However, as time goes on, the pair get more desperate – Reda’s affinity for heroin makes it harder to hold onto cash, and Chatlia has a wife and child waiting in a camp in Lebanon. Their desperation leads them down an increasingly dark path, in what becomes a knife-edge thriller with victims on all sides.
The film isn’t interested in tropes of the ‘good immigrant’, and instead spends its time squatting in the moral grey areas, challenging the viewer to stay on Reda & Chatila’s side as their situation gets more and more extreme. It’s not interested in finding heroes, instead making an assured statement about what people need to do to survive when they’re pushed to the edge.
This is a refreshing, confident approach to an otherwise familiar story that is incredible to see on a big screen. Deeply affecting, with lots for audiences to consider and unpick after viewing, it should find a good home in independent cinemas with its UK distributor Conic Films.
To a Land Unknown will be released by Conic Films.
Jade Turner, Film Programmer
Memoir of a Snail (dir. Adam Elliot)
Adam Elliot’s long-awaited follow-up to the beloved Mary and Max continues the animator’s enthralling stop-motion style and is a deeply moving, darkly funny and piercingly human portrait of a young girl overcoming loneliness and trauma to embrace the fullness of life. Premiering at Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June, where it won the coveted top prize, Memoir of a Snail has gone from strength to strength on the festival circuit – picking up Best Animated Feature at Sitges and is now the first animated feature to win the Best Film Award at the London Film Festival.
The adult animation is set in Australia during the 1970s, with Sarah Snook providing the dulcet vocalisation of misfit Grace Pudel, the gentle, introverted twin of Gilbert Pudel (Kodi Smit-McPhee). The pair love reading, taking care of animals and spending time together, but despite their joy in simple pleasures, their entire lives have been plagued by hardships. Their mother died during childbirth and their father heartbreakingly passes away when they are too young to care for themselves. His death tears Grace and Gilbert apart and they are sent to uncaring foster families on opposite sides of the country. Separated from her best friend and protector, Grace retreats from the world, cocooning herself in her snail alter-ego and hoarding snail knickknacks, until she meets the larger-than-life Pinky (Jacki Weaver) who becomes her surrogate family.
Memoir of a Snail refuses to shy away from the darker aspects of Grace and Gilbert’s lives, but it remains resolutely empathetic throughout, with an eye for silver linings and an unwavering streak of pitch-black humour. It is hard to imagine how the film would strike this perfectly balanced tone in another medium and it leans masterfully into the clay’s plasticity to emphasise both the comedy and tragedy. It has been a long time since there has been such a complex, poignant and enjoyable adult animation destined for cinemas and it’s sure to delight audiences on release.
Memoir of a Snail will be released by Modern Films on 14 February, 2025.
James Calver, Projects and Events Officer
Witches (dir. Elizabeth Sankey)
By weaving together a curated collection of scenes and clips of witches on screen with the testimonies of women sharing their experiences of post-natal depression or psychosis, director Elizabeth Sankey has created an essential piece of documentary filmmaking with Witches, their second feature. There’s a level of care and respect in how this portrait of perinatal mental health has been assembled. Within the darkness, several moments of light show how human these stories are, which is integral as the primary goal here is destigmatisation. For many, like myself, this will be the first time they’ve seen this conversation represented on screen from such a personal space and there’s poignancy in that.
As the film develops, the comparison between the reality that the women contributing to the film have faced and how women in the occult have been represented on screen draws closer and closer. Whilst there are several calls to action within the narrative, the key underlying theme is the importance of giving women the opportunity to find their own support network in whatever form they need when they need it. For some, this may even take the form of a coven.
MUBI have the rights to this one and it will be available to stream towards the end of November. I hope that the film will start a conversation around our collective responsibility to better provide for our primary caregivers.
Witches will be released by MUBI on 22 November, 2024
Duncan Carson, Projects and Business Manager
Good One (dir. India Donaldson)
While not clearing the high watermark of ‘socially awkward camping trip’ films (that’s Mike Leigh’s evergreen Nuts in May for those wondering), India Donaldson’s Good One is a remarkable debut, carving its own path, while also bearing comparison to the gently whispering devastation of the work of Kelly Reichardt or Céline Sciamma. Seventeen-year-old Sam (Lily Collias) is joining her dad (James Le Gros) on a camping trip before college, along with his long-time buddy Matt (Danny McCarthy). What was supposed to be a father-child trek is made into a trio when Matt’s son, wincing from his parents’ recent divorce, refuses to join the excursion. The dynamic is strained from the off, though no strong words are spoken. Donaldson shows a remarkable facility for cutting deep into long-standing dynamics in just a few terse words. While the film unfolds a sense that this is its ultimate destination, an awkward campfire encounter between Sam and Matt ruptures the trip, casting things in a new, ugly light, but Donaldson has the conviction not to confect the moment into more than it would be in real life.
Justifiably, most attention has been focused on newcomer Lily Collias’s rich, assured performance, at once the centred and wise adult relative to her man-child elders, yet also overwhelmed by the realisation that all her strength is not enough to overturn culture. But both Danny McCarthy and James Le Gros – two character actors given more than their customary couple of scenes to shine – foreground a phenomenal amount of personal history in their performances, the reasons why the two friends are drifting apart as clear as daylight, though placed deliciously beneath the surface. Similar to The Assistant, this is a clear-eyed film about the everyday quality of sexual impropriety, that doesn’t offer easy vindication or moral victory, just a beautifully honest depiction of the mess we’re in. US indies – especially lacking established stars – are an increasingly hard sell in UK distribution, but the lushness of the Catskills setting, the focus on a refreshingly unique young female protagonist and the overall confidence of the filmmaking make this one to consider for a valiant UK distributor.
Good One is currently seeking UK distribution.
Sammy Wong, BFI NETWORK Talent Executive
Viêt and Nam (dir. Trương Minh Quý)
In quiet and intimate moments, we watch two Vietnamese coal miners and lovers (one called Viêt and one called Nam) wrestle with the notion that one of them will risk their lives migrating to Europe. As writer/director Trương Minh Quý reserves loudness for the soundscape than his characters, the lid kept on their emotions bursts quietly in bereft etches on Đào Duy Bảo Định’s and Phạm Thanh Hải’s faces. In another thread we follow one of their mother’s search for her husband’s body – unfound since the Vietnam War, further upholding the national and personal entwinement of grief and a grief not yet known.
There is a deep feeling of tragedy behind each and every life lost in war whilst also encapsulating the emotional response felt towards the victims of the Essex lorry deaths. Trương‘s choices to not distinguish which character is called which and the pronouns the characters use for each other create a togetherness as if they are one person, leading us to an underlying feeling of loss that no words can quite speak to. Paired with Son Doan’s sublime cinematography and Vincent Villa’s sound design throws over us a canopy of beauty that swathes the dance between living and suffering.
Despite a solid premiere in Un Certain Regard at Cannes and TIFF, this has yet to have UK Distribution. It may be one of the most beautiful films shot this year so it deserves the big screen. I can’t wait to see and hear what Trương Minh Quý does next.
Viêt and Nam is currently seeking UK distribution.
Becky Padley, Film Programmer
I’m Still Here (dir. Walter Salles)
Winner of Best Screenplay at Venice, and Brazil’s official selection to the Oscars, Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles returns with a political drama about life under military dictatorship in Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s. Following the Paiva family, the film tells the story of former congressman Rubens Paiva, who was one of the first of many forced disappearances that happened during the gruelling 21 years of military regime. The film is told through the eyes of Ruben’s wife, Eunice Paiva, (an outstanding performance from Fernanda Torres) as she navigates raising her five children and tries to uncover the truth of what happened to her husband.
Despite the dark political undertones, life for the Paiva family is full of love, food, parties, open doors and running down to the beach. It’s a deeply personal film for Walter Salles, who knew the Paiva family in his youth, spending time at their house and growing up beside them. He makes sure to draw the audience into the Paiva family life, immersing us totally so we get to know the family as he did, so much so we start to feel like part of the family. This makes it even more gut-wrenching when the military turn up to arrest Rubens.
Based on Marcelo Paiva’s book, the film is a story of resourcefulness, empathy and love under the most extreme, cruel and unjust set of circumstances. It’s a deeply moving, horrifying yet hopeful film that stayed with me long after the credits rolled.
I’m Still Here will be released by Altitude Films.
Thanks for reading! We aim to update this article with details of UK distribution for each film as they become available. Please get in touch if you have any news regarding the distribution rights for any titles referenced here.