The contenders for the Best Film Award at the 66th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express have been announced. The eight nominated films celebrate passionate and inspired global filmmaking. This year’s Official Competition selection is presented in association with Sight and Sound.
Established in 2009 and first won by Jacques Audiard for A Prophet, recent winners of the Best Film Award include Sudabeh Mortezai’s Joy, Alejandro Landes’ Monos and, in 2021, Panah Panahi’s Hit the Road.
The judges will be mulling over the course of the Festival, and all will be revealed at the LFF Awards Ceremony on Sun 16 Oct on BFI YouTube and Facebook.
Argentina, 1985
Dir-Scr. Santiago Mitre
Ricardo Darín stars in this uncompromising political drama, thrillingly recreating one of Argentina’s most legendary trials, which sought to bring the country’s military dictatorship to justice.
Brother
Dir-Scr. Clement Virgo
Clement Virgo’s film is a bold and breathtaking story of brotherly love, set over three separate time periods, in Toronto’s West Indian community.
Corsage
Dir-Scr. Marie Kreutzer
Sissi the Empress gets an irreverent make-over in Austrian director Marie Kreutzer’s exhilarating period drama.
Les Damnés ne pleurent pas
Dir-Scr. Fyzal Boulifa
Fyzal Boulifa follows his arresting debut Lynn + Lucy (LFF 2019) with another striking film about the perils of falling foul of community and social expectations.
Enys Men
Dir-Scr. Mark Jenkin
Bait director Mark Jenkin follows up his acclaimed debut with this chilling, endlessly mysterious folk horror tale, beautifully shot on grainy 16mm.
Godland
Dir-Scr. Hlynur Pálmason
With his third feature, Hlynur Pálmason (A White, White Day) delivers a breathtakingly inventive and ambitious historical epic, set in mid-19th-century Iceland.
Nezough
Dir-Scr. Soudade Kaadan
Soudade Kaadan (The Day I Lost My Shadow, LFF 2018) turns to her Syrian roots for this wry, poignant look at a family forced from their home in Damascus.
Saint Omer
Dir. Alice Diop
Alice Diop reinvents the courtroom drama in this concentrated, gripping study of a writer and the young African woman whose fate comes to fascinate her.
For more information about the film festival, please go to: www.bfi.org.uk/bfi-london-film-festival