London Indian Film Festival Sets UK-Wide Expansion With 2023 Edition

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.

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. 

The Wrestler, directed by Bangladeshi-Canadian filmmaker Iqbal H. Chowdhury, and September 1923, from Japan’s Tatsuya Mori, picked up the New Currents Awards as Busan International Film Festival wrapped a busy 28th edition on October 13. 

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

The co-heads of Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival, which was rescheduled at the eleventh hour this week due to the Israel-Gaza crisis, have vowed that the event will go ahead in some shape or form.

Monsoon Wedding and A Suitable Boy filmmaker Mira Nair has been announced as the Head of Jury for the South Asia Competition at this year’s Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival (October 27-November 5). 

Naman Ramachandran After a three-year hiatus, the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival is returning with a larger lineup and an expanded focus on South Asian cinema. The festival will feature 250 films including 40 world premieres, 45 Asia premieres and 70 South Asia Premieres.

Mumbai Film Festival has announced a packed line-up of 250 films, including the 14 titles selected for its inaugural South Asia Competition, part of an expansion of the festival’s vision to become a hub for works from South Asia and South Asian diaspora talent. 

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. 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The Berlin Film Festival has created a new scouting role to curate a rising generation of German filmmakers. The next edition, which is set to take place from Feb. 15-25, will see its section dedicated to newcomer German films merged into the main program.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The Berlin Film Festival will be launching a new section, called Newcomer German Films, during its next edition taking place from Feb. 15-25. The section will highlight emerging German filmmakers, and will be part of the main program alongside the Competition, Encounters, Panorama, Generation and Forum sections.

“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.   

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.

Naman Ramachandran Shah Rukh Khan has beaten Shah Rukh Khan at the box office. The Bollywood star’s “Jawan” has sped past his own “Pathaan” to occupy the box office top spot among the Indian films of 2023. “Jawan,” featuring Khan in a dual role as a father and son who set out to rectify corruption in Indian society, opened on Sept.

The San Sebastian Film Festival awarded O Corno (The Rye Horn) with the Golden Shell for Best Film. San Sebastián native Jaione Camborda took the top prize of the night for the feature she directed.

“A lot of very impressive people have led this festival and what connects them is a love for movies and culture and what that can achieve,” Kristy Matheson told Deadline of her new job as Director of the British Film Institute’s London Film Festival.

The BFI London Film Festival will present five feature films and documentaries by UK-based filmmakers at its fourth annual Works-in-Progress showcase. Scroll down for the lineup.

EXCLUSIVE: The UK Jewish Film Festival (November 9 – 22) has revealed its lineup of 2023 gala screenings and premieres, including special presentations of the Anthony Hopkins pic One Life and Mario Bellochi’s Cannes competition title Kidnapped.