BFI 63rd London Film Festival Part 2 Review by Helen M Jerome

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BFI 63rd London Film Festival Part 2 Review: Hope you enjoyed reading about the towering masterpieces and headline releases at the 2019 London Film Festival in Part 1 of our customary annual round-up.

Now in Part 2 we look at the very best of the rest – some in detail, some in brief – plus we explain why you might want to avoid some of the others. And we give you the lowdown on the competition winners (and also-rans) in the festival’s prestigious Debut and Documentary contests. These films may not get the same number of column inches elsewhere, but here we’ll make sure you’re in the know about all of them. We are very equal opportunities here.

Starters

There was a refreshing feel to this year’s festival – especially as the odd debut filmmaker made it into the main competition shortlist. And lots of women featured both behind and in front of the camera. At DVDfever, we pride ourselves in spotting new talent, so the First Feature Competition is understandably one of our favourite slots. Watch out, these people are going places.

Winner of the main First Feature prize was Mati Diop’s Atlantics (above), which grabbed me for the first half, with its dreamy, yet gritty portrait of work, life and love in Dakar, Senegal. It looks sensational, but then it becomes another zombie-esque movie, which feels like something of a cop-out. Lots of promise nevertheless.

I simply loved the German movie Relativity, from Mariko Minoguchi, cleverly flipping back and forth with time, yet romantic at its core. There’s a shocking start, and charming performances from Edin Hasanovic, Julius Feldmeier, and especially Saskia Rosendahl as Nora, who was so fabulous in Lore at LFF 2012, in fact, at the time we said: “this is very much Saskia Rosendahl’s film in the title role”. Stories converge and the audience must put the pieces of the plot together themselves – much like the ‘Schrödinger’ pre-broken plates balancing in the cabinet. No more spoilers here though, apart from that I wouldn’t have minded if Minoguchi had won the top prize!

Watching Claire Oakley’s debut as writer and director, Make Up, was hugely nostalgic for me, as it’s set in my homeland of Cornwall, out of season among the windy sand dunes of a neglected holiday resort on the Atlantic north coast. Molly Windsor is the naïve young visitor, Ruth, all at sea when she arrives in the midst of a tight community of workers in the holiday park, just as it’s being put under wraps for the winter. Supposedly idyllic, the mothballed resort is actually swimming with secrets and intrigue, rivalries and toxic masculinity. Ruth is frightened by the noises of foxes and sudden bangs, and drawn to all the wrong people as she tries to navigate the claustrophobic location, and Oakley creates an intense atmosphere.

Along with those in competition, there were plenty of other assured debuts around, including Billie Piper directing and starring in Rare Beasts (above). Probably her wisest decision is casting first-rate child actor, Toby Woolf (from Summer of Rockets) to play her son, Larch, with Kerry Fox and David Thewlis as her indulgent, embarrassing parents. By night she’s hedonistic and almost nihilistic, and her day job is TV development, and I’m sure I recognised some familiar scenes of pitching far-fetched concepts. The truest sections of the film, however, are those where Piper and her female friends just drink and gossip and it almost feels like eavesdropping. Hard to see how her character falls for Leo Bill’s character though, a rather needy guy who comes from a religious and altogether nutty family. Also fun playing spot-the-locations, with the South Bank and Ally Pally dominating proceedings. Again, much promise, and it’ll be great to see what Piper comes up with for TV in league with her pal, feted playwright Lucy Prebble.

Belen Funes’ debut, Thief’s Daughter has the grafting Sara (Greta Fernandez, superb) juggling her brother, who is in care, her ex-con father (played by her own dad), and just getting by as a single mum. Sara pulls the viewer through the daily grind of her existence towards the hope that’s just out of reach. And it’s aptly filmed in the style of a fly-on-the-wall doc, with zero music. Yet another impressive Spanish director to watch.

Pick of the Docs

A solid bunch of documentaries were vying for the top prize at the festival this year – and any of them would have been a worthy winner. But in terms of the music, the quality of archive and access, plus the urgent timeliness of the politics, it’s hard to argue with White Riot (above) grabbing the top spot. “We are black, we are white, we are dynamite!” it declares. Rubika Shah’s film has a handmade feel, much like the fanzine it’s based around, taking us on a heady journey into the movement that countered the racism of Enoch Powell and the likes of Eric Clapton – with activism, organisation and sweet, sweet music from black and white youths against the National Front. Tom Robinson, X-Ray Spex, the Clash and Steel Pulse are all here, as the film builds to the climax of their big gig in Victoria Park. Do try to see it.

Overseas, from Sung-A Yoon, is an eye-opening, slow-burn doc that shows exiled Filipino domestic workers toiling away, crying as they clean bathrooms, quietly and dispassionately observed. It also includes set pieces where they’re taught how to lay tables, bathe a baby and behave with aggressive employers – the take-away advice being “never cry in front of them”.

Three of my other favourite docs in competition are all remarkable for revealing secrets that might have stayed under the radar if their makers hadn’t stumbled up on them. No big spoilers here, though. The Kingmaker is Lauren Greenfield’s follow-up to Generation Wealth and The Queen of Versailles, and is ostensibly a study of another material girl, Imelda Marcos. Opening with a scene of her giving out banknotes to poor Filipino citizens, like a modern-day Marie Antoinette, it gradually reveals the rampant narcissism, money and power-grabbing of Imelda. She pushes her offspring into the limelight, most notably her son Bongbong, especially once they approach the election that propelled ‘strong man’ Duterte to the presidency. Her jewellery is hidden in diapers, valuable paintings on the wall are replaced with photos of herself with her late, unfaithful husband Ferdinand when an inventory is carried out. More light and shade comes from interviews with those who were cast out and tortured under the past regimes, but Greenfield’s most effective technique to tell the story is placing Imelda front and centre as the unreliable narrator and subject. Job done. Absolutely jaw-dropping and a must-watch for your list.

Cold Case Hammerskjold is another Russian doll of a doc, with each revelation more staggering than its predecessor, including sabotage, corruption, and destabilisation methods at the highest levels of government. Made by and featuring Mads Brügger, with his distinctive, dry, matter-of-fact voiceover, it’s a technique familiar from many Werner Herzog documentaries. So emotionless is it, that the viewer and participants and witnesses are forced to do the heavy lifting to make their own interpretation of events. The bald fact is that UN Secretary General Dag Hammerkjold’s plane crashed back in 1961. But was it plotted by those who wanted to bring down the progressive, anti-apartheid, anti-colonialism leader? Or is this entire thing a strung-out, mad conspiracy theory? By the end, Brügger has stumbled across some massive revelations of what was really going on and who was implicated. Gripping stuff.

In Mystify: Michael Hutchence, we get a proper, in-depth picture of what the charismatic, shy yet outgoing lead singer of INXS was really like. His demons, his family, friends and lovers, and his fellow band members all speak up, and it’s also a reminder of what a charismatic live performer he was. Nudging away throughout is the realisation that his life ended abruptly in tragedy, but even this is confronted, and there are revelations about the cause of his deteriorating health. Makes a great companion-piece to the INXS: Live Baby Live Wembley Stadium remastered film, where you can witness Hutchence in full flow.

Not in competition, but three more music documentaries are wonderful gifts for their fans. Western Stars follows the making of Bruce Springsteen’s 16th album, where the Boss admits “I’m still writing about cars. They’re a powerful metaphor for me.” He speaks directly to camera, explaining his mythic music and the landscapes it’s set within, with open roads and freedom beckoning. Evoking the image of a fading western star, his country-flavoured album is brought to life when Springsteen, his wife Patti Scialfa, and their band, complete with string and brass sections, perform the entire record in their magically lit barn, before an invited audience.

The extra special part in Stanley Nelson’s film, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, isn’t just the access to the jazz greats and other players in Miles’ shadow, and the fabulous archive, gorgeous stills and insight that put you right there in the hub of something genuinely fresh as it’s being created (and his addictions aren’t glossed over either). It’s the previously unheard stories of his romantic entanglements in all their warm and messy detail, recounted by the women themselves to camera, that make the legend of Miles seem more human and authentic.

In the wake of Renée Zellweger’s triumphant turn as Judy Garland in the movie drama, Judy, we now have another part of the story in the documentary, Sid and Judy. Where original tapes don’t exist, Jennifer Jason Leigh narrates Garland’s words, and Jon Hamm reads those of her husband, Sid Luft. There’s excellent archive, both black and white and colourised, supplemented by pen and ink drawings and stills, plunging us into the heart of the story of Garland and her third husband. There’s a great feel for the glamour, pressure and stress, with odd shafts of light occasionally breaking through. And as a bonus, we learn about the unique difficulties of filming A Star Is Born.

Right up there with the top docs this year is the extraordinary Tell Me Who I Am (above), from Ed Perkins. This is the mesmerising, haunting, unforgettable and true account of a twin who wakes up from a coma and only recognises his twin brother. As the years go by, he remembers bits and pieces of his past, and like Capturing The Friedmans, this turns into another, far darker story.

Matt Wolf’s film, Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, seems to be focusing superficially on the story of a woman who obsessively accumulated thousands of hours of videotaped footage from her multiple TVs, getting family and staff to help her. It also tells of an African American woman who was an outlier, an intellectual and socialist who found her soul mate, then lived as a virtual recluse when she focused on her taping project. But this is much more than a simple look at the legacy she left behind – which nobody initially wanted to preserve – as it forces us to stare at how history is conveniently erased and then rewritten, and how incessant 24/7 media has become our norm.

Lost Lives, from Dermott Lavery and Michael Hewitt, is about those who have died in the Troubles, as documented in one book of the same name, which has the stories of every single one of the 3,700 to have perished. It starts with nine-year-old Patrick Rooney, the very first victim, and through archive, stills, plus new footage, each story is coolly related, then updated. Voices of famous actors from the region – including Branagh, Neeson, Rea, Brennan and Gleeson – narrate crisply and unemotionally, making it all feel both haunted and haunting. Underpinned by strings and piano, this is enormously affecting filmmaking, and the stories seep into your bones.

Making Waves: The Art Of Cinematic Sound is a total joy for those who yearn to know the secrets of the great filmmakers, in this case the audio wizards. And the gang’s all here: Walter Murch, Ben Burtt, and Barbra Streisand, who insisted on stereo sound for A Star Is Born, plus pioneering directors, from Lucas and Spielberg to David Lynch and Ryan Coogler. You must experience this Midge Costin doc with surround sound though!

Hope Frozen, from writer-director Pailin Wedel, shows a Buddhist Bangkok family who believe that we are heading towards ‘deathlessness’ and wish to preserve their beloved daughter’s brain, so she will awake into a future world without diseases. Her rare brain disease has put her in a coma, and their quest takes them to Arizona where she is cryogenically frozen. Numerous questions, moral, ethical and medical are raised, as science and emotion clash, and we also watch their very-much-alive teenage son going along with the plan, and starting on his own journey of discovery. Fascinating.

Not quite a doc, but close, is Family Romance LLC from Werner Herzog. Nothing is quite as it seems in his retelling of a genuine Japanese phenomenon, where individuals from a dedicated ‘rent-a-relative’ agency are hired to pretend to be family members to encourage reconciliation. Family secrets emerge, of course, and everything feels morally askew, especially the main man pretending to be an estranged father of a vulnerable girl. Even though they’re providing a service, the nagging question remains: what if it all goes too far?

Go to page 2 for more from the BFI 63rd London Film Festival Part 2!

Simply Thrilling

I honestly didn’t think I’d be overwhelmed by a couple of thrilling Guatemalan features, and I certainly didn’t see The Whistlers (above) coming either. When you think of Romanian films you might imagine something gritty, socially aware and even worthy, like Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, or Cristi Puiu’s Death of Mr Lazarescu. Certainly not a thriller like writer/director Corneliu Porumboiu’s The Whistlers.

But this is an outstanding, twisting, turning tale, sometimes dark, sometimes erotic, occasionally political, and always compelling. Initially set in the Canary Islands, where our main protagonist, Cristi (Vlad Ivanov, brilliant) has just landed, it plunges into some fairly dubious and corrupt territory, with a few Hitchcockian plot devices and misdirecting McGuffins along the way. There’s even one scene that takes place on an old movie set, which is very meta, almost Orson Welles-esque. Cristi soon encounters the mysterious and aptly named Gilda (Catrinel Marlon, extraordinary) and he is drawn to her, but neither he nor the audience can decipher if she can be trusted. CCTV monitors them, and mob bosses and their lackeys try to control the duo, who learn to communicate by whistling. The idea being that they’ll be mistaken for birdsong, but will still be able to talk – hence the film title. Another plus is the soundtrack, from Iggy Pop to Mack The Knife and some splendid opera. Definitely want to see much more from Porumboiu and his main stars.

Imagine a junior version of Goodfellas, or Bugsy Malone played straight, with no music, but brutal violence, and you have a good idea of what director Claudio Giovannesi’s feature Piranhas is like. Maybe even Gomorrah, as this drama is also drawn from novel by Roberto Saviano, and similarly set amidst the Camorra. This is a close-up study of budding teenage thugs, who like magpies are drawn to shiny things, and long for the thrill of the chase, the riches and romance of their elders, and the glamour of their criminal enterprises. The narrative revolves around Nicola (Francesco Di Napoli, magnetic) who becomes drawn into a gang, and soon leads them into a world of AK-47s, extortion, bullying, protection rackets and playing both sides. Despite all this, the charisma of Di Napoli as he rides his moped through the narrow Naples streets is so compelling that it almost makes you want him to get away with it. Another young actor to watch.

Revenge thriller A White, White Day, directed by Hlynur Palmason is a remarkable study of a man possessed by grief gnawing away at him, with the unsettling, brooding feeling that he’s going to erupt at any minute. Starring the incredible Ingvar Sigurdsson as Icelandic cop Ingimundur, we see everything through his eyes, and the revelations about his late wife seem to happen in real time, for us as well as him. What keeps him sane and grounded is his young granddaughter, but as the seasons come and go, with Icelandic ponies wandering around in the background, he is jolted into waking up and investigating what really occurred when his wife was killed in a car accident. Endless questions are thrown up, some almost too painful to consider, but the detective in him just won’t let go.

My theory, for what it’s worth, is that Wash Westmoreland’s latest drama, Earthquake Bird, only starts to make sense if you imagine that the main character, Lucy (Alicia Vikander) has an alter-ego, Lily (Riley Keough) who is carrying out her darkest thoughts and deeds. It’s apparently based on a novel by Susanna Jones, and the Japanese setting and co-star/ love interest Teiji (Naoki Kobayashi) do elevate it somewhat. But as it’s already up on Netflix, you can judge for yourselves.

Further Afield

Penultimately, here’s the best of the rest of the film dramas – and hopefully some of them will get a decent release. We’ll flag up the ones you need to badger your local cinema to show, and fingers crossed the rest will pop up on your favourite streaming service(s).

Germany has excelled at making gripping television recently, with the two Deutschland series (83 and 86, with 89 imminent) plus Babylon Berlin. Now come two very different, but wonderful films: Lara, from Jan-Ole Gerster, and System Crasher (above), from Nora Fingscheidt. With her 60th birthday looming, piano teacher Lara (Corinna Harfouch, fabulous) is a living, breathing example of imposter syndrome – and to add insult to injury, her only son Viktor (Tom Schilling, from Never Look Away and Generation War) is now the feted piano virtuoso she should have been. People from her past and neighbours from her present press in on her thankless existence, until she seizes the initiative and tries to turn her fate around, as the plot builds to a crescendo of Viktor’s concert and the aftermath.

System Crasher is about 9-year-old Benni (Helena Zengel) who doesn’t fit into any boxes and is demanding and hyperactive 24/7. She can be violent and foul-mouthed, and we feel what it’s like to live in her chaos, to hurtle around in her shoes, with lots of point-of-view and deliberately shaky handheld camera work. Her own family can’t cope with her, and wherever she’s placed, she either flees or gets thrown out. She appears fearless, but is afraid of fitting in. An extraordinary, upsetting and challenging film with an amazing central performance.

On A Magical Night (aka Chambre 212) could only be French, such is its bold, liberated overstepping of boundaries in the most personal, se -xual relationships. Directed by Christophe Honoré, it centres on a married, midlife woman with a wandering eye, Maria (Chiara Mastroianni), and opens with a telling scene in which she’s hiding from the girlfriend of one of her student lovers. When her husband discovers her infidelity – and he doesn’t know the half of it – she moves across the road to hotel room 212. At this point the film turns into something far more fantastical, imaginative and comic, as an endless stream of lovers from her past and present turn up with their own stories, each exactly as they would have been at the time she knew them. Plus her husband’s own conquests from the past, and what they might be like now. As their numbers grow, it becomes hectic, but is nevertheless a refreshing role-reversal and still feels very romantic.

There’s another side to late romance in the touching and uplifting Two Of Us (above), directed by Filippo Meneghetti and starring Barbara Sukowa and Martine Chevalier as two older women who are not just neighbours, but have been secret lovers for years. They are about to leave their existing lives behind and escape – when one of them has a stroke before this can happen – but even then they cannot live without each other.

Argentine gay romance End of the Century is set in Barcelona, with memory flashbacks where the two protagonists realise they met two decades earlier. Peter Mackie Burns’ film Rialto

is an altogether less joyous affair. Apart from a tiny chink of hope, this is a gritty and occasionally grim voyage into a man’s dwindling life – as he loses his father, his job and his family – entering into a paying relationship with casual rent boy (Tom Glynn-Carney of Dunkirk and The Ferryman). Monica Dolan is understated and magnificent as the wife of the dwindling Colm (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor), and Dublin provides the raw backdrop to his descent.

The Orphanage transports us to Afghanistan in the late 1980s, when the Russians were in charge of everything, right down to the curriculum in state-run orphanages. Directed by Shahrbanoo Sadat (of Wolf and Sheep fame), the focus is on one teenage petty thief, Qodrat, who is so obsessed with Bollywood movies that even when faced with the most desperate situations he re-imagines these scenes in Bollywood style. And these fantasy sequences are quite something. But what will happen to the country and specifically all these children if the Soviets depart and leave a void? The mix of hindsight and insight wound around Qodrat’s compelling character leaves quite an impact.

Anyone who saw Singapore director Anthony Chen’s unforgettable debut feature, Ilo Ilo at LFF 2013 will be eager to track down his latest, Wet Season (above). This is a December to May love affair, but awkward as it’s between a married female teacher at a boys’ school and one of her students. She’s been trying to get pregnant, with no luck, has to look after her ailing father-in-law and support her needy brother. Then one incredibly rainy day (hence the title), she gives a besotted pupil a lift, he is helpful and attentive, and it all moves up a notch. Metaphor alert: there’s a lot of overripe fruit employed here!

Oliver Laxe’s Fire Will Come from is set in glorious Galicia with Amador Arias playing a convicted arsonist suspected by everyone on his return to his rural home, where his elderly mum lives with her cattle among the stunning landscapes – which look even more amazing when they’re blazing.

Sister, directed by Svetla Tsotsorkova, centres its story around a struggling Bulgarian mother and her two daughters who compete over everything, while she keeps dark secrets from them. Its heart-crushing opening sequence is all part of the fantasy that teenage Rayna fabricates to elicit sympathy and money as she sells figurines at the side of the road. But when she gets entangled with her own sister’s boyfriend, her stubborn tenacity seems like less of an asset and more of a selfish characteristic. Italian epic drama, Martin Eden is cleverly and carefully directed by Pietro Marcello to appear like a period drama, from format and colour palette to film stock. Based on Jack London’s original story, transplanted to Italy, it stars Luca Marinelli as the eponymous hero of his own life, where our adventurer’s picaresque journey seems almost self-mythologising, even as he strives to leave his previous existence behind.

Korean director Ga-Young Jeong also stars in her quirky relationship comedy Heart, which is very obviously influenced by Hong Sang-soo. Her character is almost totally unfiltered across multiple scenes, and to say she’s forward would be an understatement! From France comes Rebecca Zlotowski’s An Easy Girl, at times verging on soft porn, and set in Cannes where young Naima is lured into the superficially glamorous, but frankly sleazy lifestyle of her visiting cousin, Sofia, with the fallback option of loyal best friend Dodo always being there for Naima when things get out of hand. Hari Sama’s This Is Not Berlin is another coming-of-age drama, set in Mexico when the glamour of the 1986 World Cup and an exciting new music scene explode around a group of youths. After its dreamlike, slow motion opening of fighting schoolboys, it settles down into a darker, but consistently woozy voyage into a club scene of hair gel, eyeliner, Roxy Music and experimentation, with a hugely evocative soundtrack.

Bubbling under at the festival were some promising English language features. Atom Egoyan’s latest, Guest of Honour (above), stars David Thewlis as a food inspector who cannot cope with his daughter’s acceptance of a wrongful conviction. It doesn’t always work, but Thewlis is a strong lead and there are some memorable moments to pull the viewer through. Dabbling in the area of depression and ‘happy pill’ type treatments is Little Joe, confidently directed by Jessica Hausner, with Emily Beecham, Ben Whishaw, Kerry Fox and a whole hothouse full of futuristic floral trouble. The excellent sound design and colour palette are deeply unsettling, and it’s all a bit Day of the Triffids as it asks if we should be playing God – especially if we might potentially create a monster?

Following up his striking film Shell – which launched Chloe Pirrie’s career, is Run from Scott Graham. It doesn’t quite hit the same heights and has been pitched as exploring the protagonists’ love of Springsteen, but I’m guessing there were problems with the music rights, as we only touch on the magic of the Boss in the matching tattoos, opening graphics, and one track over the closing credits. It’s not quite tartan noir and not quite road movie. Although, if the Springsteen rights do come through, it might make the narrative knit together more effectively, as this is very much a town full of losers, with a couple of them pulling out of there to win, as they race souped-up cars around the harbour.

Trey Edward Shults highly-anticipated Waves was a bonus festival feature, boasting pumping soundtrack and dual narratives that might almost stand alone as separate films. The parallel stories are joined because the two protagonists are siblings, hedonistic Tyler and shy Emily (Kelvin Harrison Jr and Taylor Russell, both superb in their Instagram-ready worlds) whose lives and fates are changed and intertwined because of each other’s actions. It’s refreshing to see the world of a middle-class African American family with high achieving teens, even as we witness them losing control and their world turning upside down after an incident at a house party.

NO WAY. NEVER AGAIN. ABSOLUTELY NOT. NOPE.

Only a handful of gawdawful features this time out. But what made a couple of them even more scarring, leaving us shell-shocked, was that they were screened back to back. Kind of thought nothing could be worse than Judy and Punch, but then The Other Lamb (above) came along and plunged new misogynist depths. Both were billed as ‘feminist’ films, and that couldn’t be further from the truth, even if you have female directors (Mirrah Foulkes and Malgorzata Szumowska), you can still make a punishingly bad piece of work that sets the cause back decades. And if you are going to show some kind of revenge, then maybe don’t leave it until the final couple of minutes of the film. Just a thought. Anyway, at least the violence in Judy and Punch isn’t confined to the main women in the story; no, there are elderly and frail people – even a baby – who are subject to abuse too. So democratic.

Slapstick echoes of the puppets they wield makes Mia Waskilowska and Damon Herriman rather unusual anyway, even in their slightly eccentric town, but it gets even darker and I wish I’d followed the lead of several others and walked out. However, The Other Lamb is in a different league of awfulness. It thinks it’s The Handmaid’s Tale. It isn’t. Long story short: guy called Shepherd (yes, it really is that subtle) has set up a cult with only female members, each of whom he takes as a wife, which gets to feel rapey pretty quickly. Then when they give birth to their own female offspring, oh yes, he moves on to them. And it’s exactly as oh-please-take-my-eyes terrible as it sounds. One person was so keen to get out of the screening midway through that he fled by actually climbing over the backs of the seats in the cinema. My friends who were there with me still talk of it in hushed tones with PTSD in their eyes, lest we forget.

Styled as an intoxicating, wildly original movie and somehow picking up the festival’s Best Film award, Monos is a glamorised feature about child soldiers who brutalise as they cut a swathe through their wild environment, beating up perceived enemies and rubbing out innocents if they get in their way. It’s all very sub-Lord of the Flies and I hated it from the opening sequences right through to the bitter end, and hope to never see it again. Another stellar bit of overacting from Robert Pattinson – and Johnny Depp too – in Waiting for the Barbarians. It may have visual echoes of John Ford’s The Searchers at one point, and Mark Rylance is as watchable as ever, but this cannot save the movie.

As for French drama, Don’t Look Down, which is pretty pleased with itself and features a group of five friends discussing their romantic travails over a full meal, I can only urge you to avoid it and host your own dinner party yourself.

Go to page 3 for more from the BFI 63rd London Film Festival Part 2!

And now… (cue drum roll), here are those DVDfever Awards for 2019 in full!:

13 Best Films:

Rising Talent:

Jayro Bustamante

Francesco Di Napoli

Bukky Bakray

D’angelou Osei Kissiedu

Roman Griffin Davis

Billie Piper

Rose Glass

Kantemir Balagov

Isabel Sandoval

Helena Zengel

Best Comedy:

Best Thriller:

Best Drama:

Best Director:

Celine Sciamma

Jayro Bustamante

Corneliu Porumboiu

Kantemir Balagov

Best Actress:
Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant – Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Runners-up: Saskia Rosendahl – Relativity; Scarlett Johansson – Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit; Corinna Harfouch – Lara; Viktoria Miroshnichenko – Beanpole

Best Actor:

Timothée Chalamet

Adam Driver

Ingvar Sigurdsson

Best Ensembles:

Our Ladies, Rocks, Knives Out, and David Copperfield.

Best Duo:

Vlad Ivanov

Catrinel Marlon

Martine Chevallier

Barbara Sukowa

Viktoria Miroshnichenko

Vasilisa Perelygina

Best Ending:

The Whistlers, Jojo Rabbit (especially if you like Bowie)

Biggest Labour of Love:

Bombay Dreams (every single frame of Gitanjali Rao’s animation is meticulously hand-painted)

Annual Festival Ubiquity Award (aka the Kristin Scott Thomas Award):

Morfydd Clark

Annette Bening, Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson

David Thewlis

Kerry Fox

Monica Dolan

Lucas Hedges

Hammy Hamster Award:

Robert Pattinson

Most Disappointing:

The Other Lamb, Judy and Punch, Monos

Best Documentaries:

| 1 | 2 | 3 |

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