London Film Festival 2006

The LFF hits town this week. Here's our pick of the strange, the spectacular and the simply unmissable

'Climates'

Our pick
Each year, we single out one film at the festival for a Time Out Critics’ Choice screening. This year, we’ve picked a Turkish film, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s ‘Climates’ (‘Iklimer’), which missed out on a prize at Cannes but remains one of the most assured offerings of the year and is a superb meditation on love, commitment and loneliness in the modern city. Ceylan is best known for his third feature, ‘Uzak’ (‘Distant’).

‘Climates’ offers a similar urban landscape of alienation and longing. Ceylan himself plays Bahar, a university lecturer and Istanbul resident whom we first meet on holiday somewhere in Turkey not long before his girlfriend Isa, a TV art director (played by Ceylan’s wife, Ebru) suggests they should split. From there, Ceylan explores with acute observation and stunning photography Isa’s mixed, complex and familiar reaction to the separation. We’re giving away 25 pairs of tickets to the screening on October 23. Simply visit www.timeout.com/competitions to claim yours.

We will also be working again with the festival to present a series of panel discussions that will take place at the National Film Theatre throughout the 14-day event. These Time Out Platform Events will bring together speakers including Terence Davies, Nick Broomfield, Don Boyd, Eric Schlosser and Simon McBurney to discuss British cinema (October 23), the importance of film in our culture (October 26), the rising interest in the cruelties of the food industry (October 30), and the challenge of depicting the past on screen (November 1). See you there.

Special events
Celluloid apart, there’s no shortage of flesh-and-blood attractions at this year’s fest. Kenneth Anger is a one-man alternative history of American movies: experimental pioneer, gossip-hound extraordinaire, devotee of Crowley and friend of Kinsey. Now almost 80, he began making films – extraordinary essays in colour, form, homoeroticism, art and death – as a pre-teen. Don’t miss the chance to see a selection on 35mm (some for the first time) introduced by the man himself, or Elio Gelmini’s bio-doc ‘Anger Me’. Anger fans would also do well to check out ‘Jack Smith & the Destruction of Atlantis’, Mary Jordan’s kaleidoscopic portrait of the anti-establishment artist who helped define pop culture as we know it.

Other guests lined up for talks and masterclasses include John Cameron Mitchell – whose fêted hardcore/soft-centre ensemble piece ‘Shortbus’ is a must-see – and groundbreaking producer Christine Vachon, whose work with Todd Haynes, Mary Harron, Larry Clark and others makes her one of the industry’s most successful champions of alternative sensibilities.

Other directors attending include Paul Verhoeven (always good value), Richard Linklater (seemingly the hardest-working helmer around, if his output is any indication) and Tim Burton (whose ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ is getting the 3D treatment). Ace indie film scorers Yo La Tengo will also be talking, while front-of-camera names include Dustin Hoffman and Forest Whitaker.