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Another year, another LFF over. These are some notes for myself ✿
Directors: Radu Jude, Christian Ferencz-Flatz
Radu Jude’s fascinating experimental documentary uses found footage assembled solely out of post-Socialist Romania advertisements.
Very silly. This was clearly a labour-intensive work of scholarship, tracking down and adding metadata to all of these clips. I was glad to hear that it has become an actual funded academic project.
Directors: Kyle Thiele, Eli Thiele, Cole Thiele
Two cousins’ attempts to move a second-hand sofa across Dayton, Ohio, turns into an absurdist odyssey in this boldly original, delightfully weird US indie comedy.
I was actually low-key shocked when the filmmakers came out at the screening and I saw they were white, considering that the film is centred on two black men. The film felt very much like a debut: fine but I wish I had picked the other film that it clashed with on the schedule.
Director: Adam Wong Sau-Ping
Known for his popular films on youth culture, Adam Wong Sau-Ping brings us close to the lives of three deaf twenty-somethings finding their feet. We learn from each distinct perspective about the nuances of ‘deaf identity’, while the film also interrogates societal norms and reimagines possible alternative linguistic identities.
One of the highlights of the festival for me. This was just a really well-made film that was clearly created with care. It had a lot to say about disability and the choices that ultimately are personal – whether you fight for your identity and your way of life or whether you just want an easy life, both paths are valid. I also really appreciated the sound design which vividly shows what it's like to hear through a cochlear implant.
Director: Giovanni Tortorici
Palermo native Leonardo arrives in London to attend business school. As the novelty of his new surroundings wears off, he moves on to Siena to study his true passion: literature. Though enamoured with the city, Leonardo clashes with his teachers and retreats into his own world – the beginning of an introspective odyssey of self-realisation.
This was another gem. Apparently autobiographical and full of groan-worthy comic moments. I liked the very light-touch queer undercurrent.
Directors: Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson
During a G7 summit, world leaders are hard at work trying to draft a joint statement on the latest global crisis. Such is the intensity of their toil that they fail to notice signs of a potential apocalypse heading their way. Suddenly, alone in the woods, they must scramble to save humanity or, at the very minimum, themselves.
I was actually rather disappointed by this even though it's great to see a Guy Maddin film get such a high-profile release. It was funny but not as dreamlike or melancholy as my favourite of his works. However, it was nice to see Guy Maddin (and Cate Blanchett) in person at the screening Q&A.
Director: Matthew Rankin
Cultural identities and spaces blend in this deadpan, surreal comedy that channels classic Iranian cinematic universes to achieve something unique: unity through the shared language of film.
My favourite film of the festival. Funny, sad, haunting, beautiful – a Canadian love poem to Iranian cinema.
Director: Miguel Gomes
Molly and Edward, her British diplomat fiancé, are in love. But he seems nervous of commitment. Every possibility of an encounter at one location sees him charging off to another. Gomes’ sublime, lightly comic, formally inventive time-travelling journey, follows the lovers across Asia.
I loved Miguel Gomes's *Arabian Nights* but found this film a bit of an odd disappointment. It was hard to work out what he was trying to say and I thought all the images of East and Southeast Asian people presented without context was somewhat exoticising. If the Asian characters or people that were filmed were allowed to speak for themselves, this may have been a really interesting film.
Director: François Ozon
Michelle is enjoying rural retirement close to old friend Marie-Claude. Relations with her daughter are strained, but then Marie-Claude’s son enters the picture… At once character portrait, study of generational tensions and tense drama with a thriller tangent, this is one of Ozon’s more realist films – until it isn’t.
Like all François Ozon films, this is about storytelling: the stories we tell others, the stories we tell about others and the stories we tell ourselves. It had quite a Ruth Rendell vibe, with Ozon's sly touches, and was pleasingly autumnal.