Thirteen productions that contributed to the ScreenSkills Film Skills Fund have been selected to play at this year’s London Film Festival.
Running from 7 - 18 October, the festival brings the best national and international cinema to the capital with films playing across a host of strands and gala screenings.
Screening as the Mayor of London’s Gala is Ink, Danny Boyle’s telling of the acquisition of The Sun newspaper by Australian mogul Rupert Murdoch and its startling new direction under ambitious editor Larry Lamb. Fellow British directors, Andrew Haigh and Mike Leigh, have their latest works, A Long Winter and Tender Loving Care, also playing as part of the festival’s Gala screenings, where they are joined by Wild Horse Nine, Martin McDonagh’s awards-tipped follow-up to The Banshees of Inisherin.
Competing for the First feature award are Olive Nwosu’s Lady, already a winner at the Sundance Film Festival, and Animol, the directorial debut from actor Ashley Walters.
The Slightest Touch and The Story of Documentary Film (the 1990s) are two of the factual films appearing at the festival, alongside cultish horror, Nightborn, starring Rupert Grint. The story of Somali boxer Ramla Ali, In the Shadows, and musically minded Florid, both feature as part of the festival’s Journey strand while Welsh-set mystery Black Church Bay plays as part of the Thrill strand.
There’s also the UK premiere of Clio Barnard’s I See Buildings Fall Like Lightening, an adaptation of Keiran Goddard’s novel and the winner of the Directors’ Fortnight People’s Choice award at this year’s Cannes Film festival.
In addition to contributing to the Film Skills Fund, eight of the films welcomed candidates from Fund-supported training programmes onto production to gain invaluable on-set experience. Ten trainees from ScreenSkills flagship new entrant initiative Trainee Finder received placements across the camera, production, art, sound and accounts departments, enabling those at the beginning of their screen careers to marry hands-on learning with guided training.
Nine further mid-level professionals taking part in the Fund’s Make a Move programme got the taste of working in a more senior position by stepping up via the programme on seven of the screening productions.
We congratulate each of the productions for their selection and thank them for their contribution.