Breaking Baz at London Film Festival: Emerald Fennell On Why LFF Opener ‘Saltburn’ Is Like “Prodding Something Uncomfortable” But “That’s What Movies Are For”

The world premiere of “Promising Young Woman” at Sundance in 2020 instantly made Emerald Fennell a female director to keep an eye on. And while the COVID-19 pandemic may have delayed its arrival to audiences a bit, the film still racked up the accolades, winning Best Original Screenplay at the 93rd Academy Awards.

Ellise Shafer Daniel Kaluuya world premiered his feature directorial debut, “The Kitchen,” at the BFI London Film Festival on Sunday night, calling it “one of the best days of my life.” Kaluuya was on hand alongside his co-director Kibwe Tavares, producer Daniel Emmerson and several of the film’s actors, including “Top Boy” star Kane Robinson and newcomer Jedaiah Bannerman. Set in a dystopian London where all social housing has been banned, the film follows the residents of a community called the Kitchen who must fight to save their home. Speaking before the premiere, Kaluuya and Tavares explained that it’s taken nearly a decade to bring the Netflix film to the screen.

Ellise Shafer Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist” was named the best film in the official competition at this year’s BFI London Film Festival Awards. “Paradise Is Burning” by Mika Gustafson received the Sutherland Award in the first feature competition, while Lina Soualem’s “Bye Bye Tiberias” took home the Grierson Award in the documentary competition and “The Archive: Queer Nigerians” directed by Simisolaoluwa Akande won the short film competition. The jury presidents for this year’s awards included Amat Escalante (official competition), Raine Allen-Miller (first feature competition), Rubika Shah (documentary competition) and Charlotte Regan (short film competition).

Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi has clinched the best film award in the main official competition of the 67th London Film Festival with his latest feature, Evil Does Not Exist. 

EXCLUSIVE: The BFI London Film Festival closes Sunday with the world premiere of The Kitchen, a movie set in a dystopian London where an impoverished community is forced to fend for themselves in ramshackle apartment blocks. It marks the feature directorial debut of Oscar- winning actor Daniel Kaluuya and architect-turned-filmmaker Kibwe Tavares.

Kit Connor is enjoying a movie screening in London!

By any metric, 23 years is a long time to wait for a sequel to Chicken Run, even when you factor in the fiendishly slow gestation of Aardman Animations’ meticulous stop-motion process. Surprisingly, it still feels fresh, not just because of the spring-clean of the core voice cast — Mel Gibson being the highest-profile casualty, lopped off as the “lone free-ranger” Rocky — but because, in the hands of director Sam Fell and his writing team, Dawn of The Nugget delivers a cleverly modern kind of family entertainment that, while it works to a formula, never feels written by committee.

Todd Haynes tells me that May December, his gripping melodrama starring Oscar winners Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, “aggressively disturbs our moral moorings.”

It’s not every day that a filmmaker will rise up during an interview and recite Old Testament tales and sing out their favorite hymn. Well, hallelujah, brother Jeymes Samuel for spreading the gospel’s good news.

Cailee Spaeny dazzles while promoting her new film Priscilla at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival on Monday (October 9).

Dear Jassi arrives with echoes of Madonna’s 1989 hit “Dear Jessie” and its sugary promise of pink elephants and lemonade, but none of that turns out to be forthcoming in Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s beautiful and brutal sixth feature. Instead, we have perhaps the most disturbing bait-and-switch since George Sluizer’s original iteration of The Vanishing, a Punjabi Juliet-meets-Romeo story that’s much harsher that any so-far-filmed version of West Side Story and a whole lot funnier. This dissonance takes a while to reveal itself, but when it does, the shock is visceral. The fact that almost everything is true is the killer blow, and the shockwave of that reverberates through the poignant final credits, a static shot that forces the audience, or maybe just simply dares them, to think about what they’ve just seen.  

The first week of the British Film Institute’s (BFI) London Film Festival wrapped this evening with a rapturous onstage Q&A session with writer-director Greta Gerwig.

Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall irrupted into a flurry of cheers this afternoon as filmmaker Martin Scorsese strolled on stage to take part in a career Q&A at the London Film Festival. 

Caroline Brew editor The Savannah College of Art and Design’s 26th annual SCAD Savannah Film Festival, which will run from Oct. 21-28, has announced its film lineup. “Nyad,” a film based on the life of world-class athlete Diana Nyad, will open the festival on Oct.

Jennifer Lee, Chief Creative Officer at Disney Animation, confirmed this afternoon that work has quietly begun on a third edition in the company’s Frozen film franchise during a keynote session at the London Film Festival (LFF). 

“Theatres and streamers need to coexist,” Bill Kramer, CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts, concluded during a keynote this morning in London when quizzed on his opinions about the future of cinema.   

After sitting it out last year, Deadline’s Contenders film series returns to London this weekend with a strong lineup featuring Ridley Scott, Emerald Fennell, Todd Haynes and Michael Mann among the panelists on tap to attend the awards-season event.

K.J. Yossman Kristy Matheson had big shoes to fill when she took over from Tricia Tuttle as director of the BFI London Film Festival (LFF) earlier this year. Over the course of a decade, Tuttle transformed LFF into a highlight of the fall festival calendar, drawing some of the biggest names in entertainment to the English capital each October including, memorably, Ted Sarandos and Beyoncé, who flew in to celebrate the world premiere of “The Harder They Fall” in 2021.

EXCLUSIVE: Rock icon Bob Geldof is collaborating on a stage musical about the global phenomenon that was Live Aid. The show, called Just For One Day, devised and directed by Luke Sheppard (& Juliet), will have its world premiere at the Old Vic Theatre in London early next year.

Angelique Jackson Despite heavy rains which have closed some New York City subway lines, schools and movie theaters — including Alamo Drafthouse locations — the New York Film Festival plans to move forward with its opening night screening of Netflix’s “May December” on Friday. The soapy drama is scheduled for a 6 p.m. showing at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall to kick off the 61st annual festival, followed by a second showing at 9 p.m.