Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s ‘Evil Does Not Exist’ Wins Best Film at BFI London Film Festival Awards

Naman Ramachandran Bangladeshi filmmaker Nuhash Humayun’s “Pett Kata Shaw” won best international feature at the 31st Raindance Film Festival‘s jury awards. British documentary filmmaker Kit Vincent won best U.K.

Japan has dominated this year’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA), with German filmmaker Wim Wenders’ latest Tokyo-set pic and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car follow-up taking the top prizes. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Two films from Japan, Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days” and Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” won the top prizes at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards on Friday. Multiple other honors went to films from Korea and Kazakhstan. The 16th edition of the APSA Awards was held on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia and recognized films from eight countries. “Perfect Days,” a gentle comedy drama about a toilet cleaner in Tokyo finding happiness in the everyday, premiered in Cannes and more recently was selected as Japan’s Oscar contender and as the opening title of the Tokyo International Film Festival.

EXCLUSIVE: Grammy award-winning Afrobeats artist Mr Eazi has signed on to headline the forthcoming fifth season of The Change Africa Podcast from Nexa Media. 

UK director George Amponsah’s thriller Gassed Up has won the London Film Festival (LFF) Audience Award for Best Feature in the 67th edition running from October 4 to 15, as the event also posts record participation.

There’s a soaring ambition but only a modest intent in Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya’s sober debut The Kitchen, a visually impressive depiction of things to come that simmers with all manner of protest but never hits boiling point. On the one hand, it’s a shame, ending on a quiet moment of understanding just as all hell is about to break loose. But on the other, it’s refreshing to see two young filmmakers trying to hone their storytelling skills rather than pour everything into a spectacular calling card. If Attack the Block hadn’t been so slavish in trying to siphon inspiration from much better cult movies to become a cult movie in its own right, it might have looked like this: a genuine vision of a nightmarish, dystopian future that will ring alarm bells for any city-dweller familiar with the depressing effects of gentrification.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief No Maori Allowed, directed by Corinna Hunziger was named the winner of the Pasifika Award and recipient of a $5,000 cash prize at the Hawaii International Film Festival. It recounts the story of a teacher who unearths a secret past in the town of Pukekohe. Thet causes M?ori community figures to come forward to share personal stories that shaped their lives.

Nigeria has submitted CJ Obasi’s Sundance title Mami Wata as its candidate for the Best International Feature Film in the 96th 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.

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.”

Three filmmakers assessing the impact of 2023’s dual strikes took a less-than-upbeat tone, citing uncertainty about the state of SAG-AFTRA negotiations with the AMPTP and the ongoing threat posed by artificial intelligence.

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.