Leeds International Film Festival programme announced
The 30th Leeds International Film Festival to include the new films from Jim Jarmusch, Xavier Dolan and Kelly Reichardt as well as restorations of classics like Blue Velvet and Heat
The programme for the 30th Leeds International Film Festival was released over the weekend and it’s bursting with some of the most anticipated titles of the year along with some classics from cinemas past.
Films from international auteurs heading to LIFF
It all kicks off in grand style with Jim Jarmusch’s latest, Paterson, which follows Adam Driver as a New Jersey bus driver who is secretly a poet. The festival closes with the much-praised German film Toni Erdmann, which manages to be both a boisterous comedy as well as a cutting attack on the neoliberal attitudes of the European Union’s wealthiest nations.
Between these bookends you’ll find plenty of delights, such as The Handmaiden, a sensual interpretation of Sarah Waters' Fingersmith from Korean master Park Chan-wook. There’s also Certain Women, from Meek’s Cutoff director Kelly Reichardt, the knockout cast for which includes Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams and Laura Dern. It’s Only the End of the World, starring Marion Cotillard and Léa Seydoux and directed by Xavier Dolan (Mommy), makes it into the programme too, as does Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation.
Other highlights look to be Graduation from Romanian New Wave hero Cristian Mungiu, fantasy adventure A Monster Calls and the David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike-starring A United Kingdom, which recently opened the London Film Festival.
Genre films at LIFF
Leeds International Film Festival has much more than future art house hits on offer, though. Among the programme is The Autopsy of Jane Doe from Trollhunter director André Øvredal, which sounds like a future cult classic. On 'Day of the Dead', Leeds genre-fans get a whole day of horror, which films such as The Master Cleanse, I Am Not a Serial Killer (starring Back to the Future’s Doc Brown, Christopher Lloyd), psychological thriller Pet (with Dominic Monaghan) and Korean zombie film Train to Busan.
The other themed alldayer is 'Animation Day', which features the dialogue-free The Red Turtle (co-produced by Studio Ghibli), new vampire series Kizumonogatari, ‘70s classic Belladonna of Sadness, moving school drama A Silent Voice and haunting Spanish sci-fi Psychonauts.
Classics films at LIFF
As ever with Leeds International Film Festival, there are also plenty of gems from cinema’s past on offer. There’s a mini-retrospective dedicated to the great Hal Ashby, with The Last Detail, Being There and Harold and Maude all screening, and a celebration to great female new wave filmmakers Vĕra Chytilová (Daisies and A Bagful of Fleas) and Agnès Varda’s (Cleo from 5 to 7). Other classics in the retrospective section are Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining, classic blockbusters Jaws and Aliens, and new digital versions of Michael Mann’s Heat and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet among others.
Leeds International Film Festival takes place 3-17 Nov. Keep an eye on theskinny.co.uk/film for more coverage.