Fest puts focus on women, onscreen and off
By Jill Lawless
LONDON (AP) --The London Film Festival opens Wednesday with "Suffragette," the story of British women who fought for the right to vote — a milestone on a journey to equality that many believe is still unfinished.
It's a fitting choice for a festival determined to champion women on both sides of the camera.
Starring Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter and Meryl Streep, the gritty early 20th-century drama — think blood and sweat, not "Downton Abbey" — is directed by Sarah Gavron ("Brick Lane") and written by Abi Morgan ("The Iron Lady.")
"'Suffragette' is a film directed by British women about British women who changed the course of history," said festival director Clare Stewart.
Stewart said its selection as opener signals the festival's desire to ask "what can we be doing to break down the barriers for women directors and how can we be ensuring that the debate is front and center for the film industry?"
While festivals including Cannes have been criticized for choosing few works by female filmmakers, 46 of the 238 features in the London lineup are by women, including Deepa Mehta's Indian-Canadian gangster movie "Beeba Boys" and Ondi Timoner's Russell Brand documentary "Brand: A Second Coming."
Stewart said the figure "sounds fantastic when you say it like that, and then you realize it's still only 20 percent of the program."
Festival organizers have also invited actress Geena Davis, founder of an institute on gender in media, to host a symposium during the event. And Cate Blanchett — star of two festival entries, lesbian romance "Carol" and journalism drama "Truth" — will receive the British Film Institute Fellowship, a career honor.
Founded in 1957 to show the best of the year's world cinema to a British audience, the London festival has boosted its profile in recent years with bigger movies, more glittering stars and prizes positioned to boost emerging awards-season contenders.
This year's lineup includes prize-winners from the Berlin, Cannes, Toronto and Venice festivals, as well as high-profile fall releases including gangster thriller "Black Mass," with Johnny Depp, and McCarthy-era drama "Trumbo," starring Bryan Cranston.
Gala presentations include Nicholas Hytner's "The Lady in the Van," starring Maggie Smith as a redoubtable eccentric; John Crowley's Irish-American journey "Brooklyn"; Lenny Abrahamson's mother-son story "Room:" and Davis Guggenheim's documentary "He Named Me Malala."
On Oct. 17 a jury led by Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski will award the prize for best film, from a list of nominees that includes Cary Fukunaga's child-soldier saga "Beasts of No Nation" and Laszlo Nemes' searing Holocaust drama "Son of Saul."
The 59th London Film Festival wraps up Oct. 18 with Danny Boyle's "Steve Jobs," starring Michael Fassbender as the Apple founder.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More