Festive 50

Gareth Evans looks beyond the big hitters at this year's LFF and finds some hidden gems.

Oct 20 2006

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life…' Samuel Johnson, favoured ad-man for the capital city experience, on the perennial pleasures of the metropolis. Several hundred years on, and London can make the claim more confidently. It is a city of the world. And it is such a city not because, as in Johnson's time, it sought to own most of the planet, but because most nations can boast a slice of its population. This is all good, and it is only fitting that its festivals reflect such diversity.

The London Film Festival surely does. In the 50 years since its creation it has sought to bring to audiences the very best of the year's global production in features, shorts and documentary. Charting the ebb and flow of national cinemas, of director profiles and emergent talents, the festival provides a benchmark, both for filmic innovation and, perhaps more importantly, for issues of concern to ourselves as a species and as individuals in a period of great and often turbulent change.

Many of these trends are explored in the conversations and panel debates surrounding the festival's core programming. In this 50th year, the line-up of 'supporting' business is richer than ever. Moving past the high-profile talking heads – Forest Whitaker, Richard Linklater, Dustin Hoffman – the Script Factory/ NFTS masterclasses find provocateurs old (Paul Verhoeven) and new (John Cameron Mitchell) sharing their tricks of the storytelling trade. Kenneth Anger, too, is the special guest of the Experimenta strand this year.

Elsewhere, film magazine Sight and Sound pairs up with charity Christian Aid in a sadly all-too-necessary examination of international responses to the 'problem' of Africa, prompted by Abderrahmane Sissako's remarkable new film 'Bamako'. This work examines questions of international funding and ongoing economic and social stability without sacrificing narrative and character empathy. It's a prime candidate for consideration by the 'Fiction Attacks!' panel. Subtitled 'Narrative Film and Social Criticism', it looks at the way new features have sought to take back some of the politically committed territory so successfully captured by the hard-hitting documentaries of recent years. That wonderful Italian, Nanni Moretti, will be on hand.

Time Out of course, has not been idle either. Back with its slate of free Platform events, subjects covered this time around include 'Is this England?', speculating on national and regional identities; 'Cinema: What Is It Good For?', pitching necessity against luxury; 'Food for Thought', on cinema and cuisine; and 'Based on a True Story', about film and history. Directors aplenty will be loitering with intent.

And there will be much similar assembling with anticipation in the festival's two flagship birthday celebrations. 'A Portrait of London', a major public screening in Trafalgar Square on October 27, will pay homage to the capital and provide a vigorous display of the possibilities of digital filmmaking by a fine handful from London's creative community. Renowned image maestro Mike Figgis is Artistic Director, working alongside John Boorman, photographer Nick Knight, promo director Sophie Muller and filmmakers Jes Benstock and Ngozi Onwura, who have been asked to write their own moving image postcards from and to the city. Two days later, the festival's regular 'Surprise Film' slot hits the ground running by going simultaneously to 50 screens, from regular auditoria to the likes of Holloway Prison and St Thomas' Hospital.

Festivals must never stand still, and such initiatives keep the blood flowing in the veins and open up the encounters an audience has with film and all it can do. After all, if one becomes tired of the cinema curtains opening, then surely one is truly tired of life. Hey, Johnson, come back from the bar, the movie's about to start…

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