Back from a week at London Film Festival and looking forward to a packed November programme.
LFF always sounds like fun to people who don’t go but when every day starts with a tube ride at 7am to get to a queue in a cinema by 7.30am for a first screening of the day at 8am while simultaneously trying to access the Industry booking portal which also opens at 8am (so you can book tickets to screenings 48 hours later), you get some idea of the Groundhog Day feeling. The excitement of being at the first UK screening of something soon wears off when you and every other person in the audience misses the first 10 minutes because the portal has crashed and we all need to stay glued to our phone screens or we will miss out on tickets. There are certainly bigger problems in the world right now but try telling that to an over-caffeinated, adrenalin-burned-out film programmer on what feels like day 700 of a festival.
This year I managed to catch 19 films, two industry panels, a screening at BAFTA (very posh toilets!), two after parties, meeting up with colleagues from all over the country and squeezed in two exihibition visits between everything. It’s strange how, after all of that, I still came away worried that I missed some great films because I just couldn’t be in three places at once.
But enough of the moaning. The absolute best thing about LFF is seeing a film which just catches fire in your imagination and knowing you will be able to programme it and share that joy with an audience back home. We already have some festival films in November’s PAC programme and I know how much people are going to love Hedda (powerful, driven, masterful update of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler), The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt’s incredible 70’s set, art-heist film starring Josh O’Connor which uses the director’s signature deft, understated atmosphere to perfect create tension. And which, accidentally, has had a marketing boost that no distributor could afford to buy with the Louvre jewel theft – a much more professional operation than the one in the film btw!), After the Hunt (muscular, grown-up, complex and with a career-best performance from Julia Roberts), Bugonia (brilliant, bonkers and, no spoilers but an ending that was stunningly realised), The Thing With Feathers, The Choral, Palestine 36, Die My Love and the bonus French Film Festival screening of The Stranger which isn’t on general UK release until 2026!
There are so many more to look forward to in the coming months (hello It Was Just An Accident, Rose of Nevada, Hamnet, H is for Hawk) and it feels great to know that, from what we all saw at LFF, the UK film industry is strong. There is clearly some great investment in writers, producers and directors so the film pipeline keeps flowing and supporting the incredible talent that keeps British film on a world stage. More than that though, a big international festival shows just how inclusive, diverse and powerful cinema can be. There are voices to be heard and stories to watch from every corner of the globe and we are all the richer for that.
By Anna Navas, PAC Programmer and Director
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