The BFI London Film Festival is the biggest film festival the UK has to offer, and one of the most prestigious and well-recognised festivals across the globe. This year, the festival is celebrating its 55th run, and it has an absolutely fantastic line-up of films scheduled to play through the festival, from 12th – 27th October.
We’re now able to share with you the shortlists for the festival’s various awards, along with the juries for each of those awards. More excellent news also comes with the announcement that the BFI will be honouring both writer-director David Cronenberg, who is bringing his film A Dangerous Method to the festival this year, and actor-director Ralph Fiennes, who will be bringing his directorial debut Coriolanus to the festival, with its highest honour, in the form of the BFI Fellowship.
On receiving the award, Cronenberg has said,
“This is a monumental, in fact overwhelming, honour, and my being the first Canadian to receive it makes it all the sweeter. British cinema has been a potent inspiration for me, and to be associated with this particular group of filmmakers is tremendously exhilarating.”
And Fiennes, too, is just as humbled by the announcement,
“I’m extremely honoured and delighted to be given this fellowship by the BFI”
The festival’s awards are divided into four categories: the Best Film Award, the Best British Newcomer Award, the Sutherland Award (for most original directorial debut), and the Grierson Award for Best Documentary.
You can catch up on our coverage of the festival here, which we’ll be updating throughout the course of the two weeks this month as we go to the festival ourselves, something I’m really looking forward to.
The 55th BFI London Film Festival (in partnership with American Express) will be running from 12th – 27th October, and you can find details about screenings and getting tickets right here. It’s going to be great. If you’re planning on coming to any of the films running at the festival too, do let us know in the comments below.
Without further ado, here are the four shortlists for the awards, each followed by the jury that will be judging them. The awards will be taking place on the penultimate day of the festival, 26th October, and we’ll be sure to bring you the results as soon as we get them.
Best Film Award
- 360, Fernando Meirelles, UK/Austria/France/Brazil
- THE ARTIST, Michel Hazanavicius, France
- THE DEEP BLUE SEA, Terence Davies, UK
- THE DESCENDANTS, Alexander Payne, USA
- FAUST, Aleksandr Sukurov, Russia
- THE KID WITH A BIKE, Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Belgium/France/Italy
- SHAME, Steve McQueen, UK
- TRISHNA, Michael Winterbottom, UK
- WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, Lynne Ramsay, UK/USA
The jury for this award will include the brilliant director John Madden (Shakespeare In Love), Gillian Anderson (The X-Files), writer-director Asif Kapadia (Senna), producer Tracey Seaward (The Constant Gardener), novelist Andrew O’Hagan, and director Sam Taylor-Wood, OBE (Nowhere Boy).
Best British Newcomer Award
- Nick Murphy, Director, THE AWAKENING
- Tinge Krishnan, Director, JUNKHEARTS
- Candese Reid, Actress, JUNKHEARTS
- Nirpal Bgohal, Writer/Director, SKET
- Aimee Kelly, Actress, SKET
- Tom Cullen, Actor, WEEKEND
- Chris New, Actor, WEEKEND
- D.R. Hood, Writer/Director, WRECKERS
The jury for this award will include actress Anne-Marie Duff (Nowhere Boy), actor Tom Hollander (Hanna), director of the National Film and Television School Nik Powell, producer Andy Harries (the upcoming The Lady), Radio 1 presenter Edith Bowman, and producer Stephen Woolley (Interview with the Vampire).
Sutherland Award
- CORPO CELESTE, Alice Rohrwacher, Italy/Switzerland/France
- ETERNITY, Sivaroj Kongsakul, Thailand
- HERE, Braden King, USA
- THE HOUSE, Zuzana Liová, Czech Republic
- LAS ACACIAS, Pablo Giorgelli, Argentina/Spain
- LAST WINTER, John Shank, Belgium/France
- MICHAEL, Markus Schleinzer, Austria
- MOURNING, Morteza Farshbaf, Iran
- SHE MONKEYS, Lisa Aschan, Sweden
- SNOWTOWN, Justin Kurzel, Australia
- THE SUN-BEATEN PATH, Sonthar Gyal, China
- WITHOUT, Mark Jackson, USA
The jury for this award will include Phil Collins, producer Andrew Eaton (The Killer Inside Me), director Joanna Hogg (Archipelago), director Peter Kosminsky (White Oleander), actress Saskia Reeves (Page Eight), managing director of Icon UK Group Hugo Grumbar, and film journalist Tom Robey.
Grierson Award for Best Documentary
- BERNADETTE: NOTES ON A POLITICAL JOURNEY, Lelia Doolan, Ireland
- BETTER THIS WORLD, Katie Galloway, Kelly Duane de la Vega, USA
- THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975, Goran Hugo Olsson, Sweden/USA
- DRAGONSLAYER, Tristan Patterson
- DREAMS OF A LIFE, Carol Moley, UK/Ireland
- INTO THE ABYSS: A TALE OF DEATH, A TALE OF LIFE, Werner Herzog
- LAST DAYS HERE, Don Argott & Demian Fenton, USA
- WHORE’S GLORY, Michael Glawogger, Austria/Germany
The jury for this award will include documentarian Adam Curtis (All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace), documentarian Kim Longinotto (Rough Aunties), the Grierson Trust’s Mandy Chong, and the BBC’s Head of Documentary Commissioning Charlotte Moore.
