As film festival season gathers pace, the 68th BFI London Film Festival (LFF) has announced its full 2024 programme, featuring a whopping 39 world premieres.
Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig and Sir Elton John are among the stars to head up the 255-strong collection of movies from around the world.
Here are seven LFF films to look out for – with some hotly tipped for the coming awards season.
Blitz
London-born director Steve McQueen opens the festival for the third time, with the world premiere of his World War Two drama Blitz. The movie re-creates a war-torn London, bombarded by nightly air raids, as battle rages all around.
Saoirse Ronan stars as Rita, an East End mother who makes the heartbreaking decision to send her young son George, played by newcomer Elliott Heffernan, to safety in the countryside. But, George has other ideas, and is determined to return home despite the many dangers ahead.
The ensemble cast includes Kathy Burke, Benjamin Clementine, Harris Dickinson and Stephen Graham, with a score by Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer.
More on Amy Adams
Related Topics:
Maria
Angelina Jolie makes a return to the big screen after several years away, starring in the biopic about famed opera singer Maria Callas, one of the greatest sopranos of all time.
Advertisement
While the majority of the vocals we hear in the movie are from original recordings of Callas in her prime, the depictions of singing at the end of her life are mostly Jolie’s own voice. The Oscar-winning actress, who spent seven months training for the role, has called it the most demanding of her career.
Directed by Pablo Larrain, it depicts Callas’s final days in Paris when she was addicted to anti-anxiety drugs, looking back to the peak of her career when she wowed audiences around the world. Larrain has said he hopes it will encourage people to listen to more opera.
Queer
Bond star Daniel Craig plays a drug-addicted American living in 1950s Mexico, in the historical drama Queer.
Based on the 1985 semi-autobiographical novel by Beat Generation author William Burroughs, the film delves into the nightlife of Mexico City, in an immersive flood of colour, and doesn’t shy away from full-on sex scenes.
With some reviewers praising it as Craig’s best performance to date, it also stars Jason Schwartzman, Lesley Manville and newcomer Drew Starkey.
Nightbitch
A comedy horror starring the ever-adaptable Amy Adams as a stay-at-home mother who slowly thinks she may be turning into a dog.
Based on the 2021 novel by Rachel Yoder, it’s pitched as a modern feminist fable, examining a society in which women are told they can “have it all”.
The movie is directed by Marielle Heller, who in 2020 was one of the female filmmakers many felt were snubbed by the Oscars and Golden Globes when she failed to get a nomination for her movie A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood. Heller will no doubt be hoping this film – as offbeat as it is – is a different story.
The Apprentice
One of the most polarizing political figures of the 21st century, this film unpacks the young Donald Trump, examining his life before politics, and his career in real estate in New York in the 1970s and 1980s.
Directed by Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi, it stars Sebastian Stan stars as Trump, with Succession actor Jeremy Strong (aka Kendall Roy) playing attorney Roy Cohn.
Possibly the most controversial film of the year, it’s been beset with legal issues, not least of which include a cease-and-desist letter from Mr Trump’s legal team.
With a US election due in November, this one will at least be topical when it finally makes it to cinemas.
Twiggy
This is the first fully approved documentary to tell British model Twiggy’s life story.
Directed by actor-turned-director Sadie Frost it tells the story of the fashion icon – whose real name is Lesley Lawson – going back to her working-class childhood in northwest London, through to her international stardom as a celebrity model, and her career as an actor, singer, fashion designer, writer and TV presenter.
Other noteworthy documentaries screening at LFF include Elton John: Never Too Late, about the singer’s final US live shows, and Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which looks back at the late actor’s rise to fame as the superhero and his life following a horse-riding accident that left him paralysed from the neck down.
Piece By Piece
A movie about the life of musician Pharrell Williams will close the festival – but told entirely using Lego.
Directed by Morgan Neville, and produced by Williams himself, it depicts the Happy singer’s early life in Virginia, through to his rise to fame as he tops the charts.
Williams recorded five new songs for the soundtrack, and many think it’s a likely contender for best animated feature and best original song come awards season.
LFF takes place from Wednesday 9 October to Sunday 20 October.
The voice actor behind Milhouse Van Houten – Bart Simpson’s very uncool friend – is stepping away after 35 years on the show.
Pamela Hayden, who also voiced Jimbo Jones, Rod Flanders, Janey and Malibu Stacy, will sign off from The Simpsons on 24 November in a Treehouse of Horror episode.
“It’s been an honour and a joy to have worked on such a funny, witty, and groundbreaking show,” the 70-year-old said in a statement.
Show creator Matt Groening said: “Pamela gave us tons of laughs with Milhouse, the hapless kid with the biggest nose in Springfield.
“She made Milhouse hilarious and real, and we will miss her.”
Tulisa Contostavlos has opened up about the moment she says her life “fell apart” after being “set up by a British newspaper” and charged with supplying drugs.
The charges against the singer were later dismissed after prosecution witness “fake sheikh” journalist Mazher Mahmood was found to have tampered with evidence during her 2014 trial.
“2013 was the year I was set up by a British newspaper, for concern in the selling of class A drugs,” she told fellow campmate Oti Mabuse.
“The guy’s name was Mahmood and basically, I was approached by a big movie company and they sent me a tweet or a DM from their official account to audition me for a movie role… I’d dabbled in acting, so this opportunity for me was huge.”
Contostavlos, 36, said the role was offering £3.5m and she was flown out for meetings with producers in Las Vegas but told former Strictly Come Dancing star Mabuse “it was a lie”.
She claimed the team behind the movie encouraged her to take on a real-life role of a “bad girl from London who was constantly up to naughtiness, rolling with gangs, up to all kinds of naughty stuff”.
Contostavlos said “they had me dangling on the end of a string”, claiming every time she met with the team they would tell her “we need some drugs”.
Advertisement
“After months and months, eventually they got a number and it was of someone that wasn’t even a drug dealer, it was an aspiring movie producer and I wanted to make a hook up as well for that person, but I didn’t know anyone that could do that,” she said.
“The long story short is they ended up ordering £800 worth of cocaine from the number that I had given them.
“Then before I knew it, I was being arrested in the concern of the selling of Class A drugs and I was facing four years in prison.”
Contostavlos revealed she lost “all my endorsements” over the incident and “my life fell apart”, she said.
“When it came to the trial, I’d had a conversation with one of their drivers, I was being recorded but I didn’t know, I was saying how anti-drugs I am, so they were very aware of my feelings towards drugs.”
Contostavlos said the driver initially gave a statement confirming she was anti-drugs, however she claimed that as the trial loomed the journalist forced him to change his statement.
In 2016, Mahmood was jailed for 15 months after being found guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice relating to his actions in Tulisa Contostavlos’s court case.
Friends and family of Liam Payne, including his One Direction bandmates, have gathered to say goodbye at his funeral.
Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik were among the family and friends attending the private ceremony.
Simon Cowell, who put the band together on The X Factor, Payne‘s girlfriend Kate Cassidy, and former partner Cheryl were also there.
The 31-year-old died after he fell from a third-floor balcony at the Casa Sur Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 16 October.
Fans from around the world have held their own vigils over the past few weeks, and tributes have been left today in his hometown, Wolverhampton.
Payne’s dark blue coffin, topped with white roses, arrived for the service on a horse-drawn carriage, bearing flowers reading “son” and “daddy” – for his son, Bear, with Cheryl.
Her Girls Aloud bandmates Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh were also among those at the service, along with TV and radio presenters including James Corden, Marvin and Rochelle Humes, Scott Mills, and Adrian Chiles, and former professional footballer Robbie Keane.
US influencer Cassidy, who returned home from Argentina two days before his death, arrived with Damian Hurley, son of Elizabeth Hurley.
As Payne’s mother and father, Geoff and Karen, arrived at the church in the Home Counties, standing next to the carriage, silence fell among mourners outside.
A few locals and fans also gathered nearby, but in the main largely stayed away from the private ceremony.
Payne rose to worldwide fame alongside Styles, Tomlinson, Malik and Horan on The X Factor in 2010, when they were put together to form One Direction. They went on to become one of the most successful UK pop groups of all time.
After the band announced their hiatus, the singer launched his solo career, releasing his debut album LP1 in December 2019.
Prosecutors in Argentina have launched an investigation into Payne’s death and announced earlier this month that three people had been charged in connection with the incident.
One Direction tributes
Payne’s One Direction bandmates all publicly paid tribute following his death.
“His greatest joy was making other people happy and it was an honour to be alongside him as he did it,” said Styles in his statement. “Liam lived wide open, with his heart on his sleeve, he had an energy for life that was infectious.
“He was warm, supportive and incredibly loving. The years we spent together will forever remain among the most cherished years of my life. I will miss him always, my lovely friend.”
Tomlinson said he had “lost a brother” and offered to be an uncle to Payne’s son, Bear, if he “ever needs me”.
Horan, who had been touring in South America and saw Payne at his show in the weeks before his death, said: “I feel so fortunate that I got to see him recently. I sadly didn’t know that after saying goodbye and hugging him that evening, I would be saying goodbye forever. It’s heartbreaking.”
Malik said Payne had supported him “through some of the most difficult times” of his life, and said he always had a “positive outlook and reassuring smile”.
Cowell also paid tribute, saying he was “devastated” and “heartbroken”.
He continued: “I wanted to let you know what I would always say to the thousands of people who would always ask me. What is Liam like? And I would tell them you were kind, funny, sweet, thoughtful, talented, humble, focused. And how much you loved music. And how much love you genuinely had for the fans.”