We’ve been busy with six titles at the 68th edition of BFI’s London Film Festival!
With UK premieres of Look Into My Eyes, Endurance, Ernest Cole: Lost & Found and Black Box Diaries. Plus the international premiere of Blink and the world premiere of The Shadow Scholars. Take a look at some of our highlights from the festival below.
LOOK INTO MY EYES
UK PREMIERE
Look Into My Eyes is a cinematic exploration of a group of New York City psychics that captures human beings trying their best to connect with, witness, and heal one another. Beginning with a plunge directly into the most private and raw of psychic sessions, a diverse group of clients ask questions they can’t ask anywhere else - and the psychics themselves gradually become the film's main characters as their own motivations and experiences of loneliness and loss are revealed. Read more here.
Director Lana Wilson (right) with participant Per Erik Borja (left)
Lana Wilson and Per joined for a post screening Q&A.
ENDURANCE
UK PREMIERE
In a legendary feat of leadership and perseverance, polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton kept his crew of 27 men alive for over a year despite the loss of their ship in frigid pack ice. Over a century later, a team of modern-day explorers sets out to find the sunken ship. From National Geographic Documentary Films and directed by Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin and Natalie Hewit, Endurance tells the inspiring stories of these two landmark expeditions, bound by their shared grit and determination.
The filmmaking team including participant and history broadcaster Dan Snow during the Special Presentation Q&A.
Endurance is in cinemas nationwide now. More info here.
ERNEST COLE: LOST & FOUND
UK PREMIERE
Ernest Cole, a South African photographer was the first to expose the horrors of apartheid to a world audience. His book House of Bondage, published in 1967 when he was only 27 years old, led him into exile in NYC and Europe for the rest of his life, never to find his bearings. Raoul Peck recounts his wanderings, his turmoil as an artist and his anger, on a daily basis, at the silence or complicity of the Western world in the face of the horrors of the Apartheid regime. He also recounts how, in 2017, 60,000 negatives of his work were discovered in the safe of a Swedish bank.
Director Raoul Peck joined for an insightful post-screening Q&A. Ernest Cole: Lost & Found is in cinemas from 17 January. Read more here.
BLACK BOX DIARIES
UK premiere
Black Box Diaries follows director and journalist Shiori Ito’s courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender. Unfolding like a thriller and combining secret investigative recordings, vérité shooting and emotional first-person video, Shiori's quest becomes a landmark case in Japan, exposing the country’s desperately outdated judicial and societal systems.
Filmmaker Shiori Ito and producer Hanna Aqvilin joined the screening at the ICA for an intro and Q&A.
Black Box Diaries is in cinemas from 25 October, read more here.
BLINK
InTERNATIONAL premiere
When three of their four children are diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare and incurable disease that leads to severe visual impairment, the Pelletier family’s world changes forever. In the face of this life-altering news, Edith Lemay, Sébastien Pelletier and their children set out on a journey around the world to experience all its beauty while they still can. As they fill their memories with breathtaking destinations and once-in-a-lifetime encounters, the family’s love, resilience and unshakeable sense of wonder ensure that their uncertain future does not define their present.
Co-director Edmund Stenson attended for a Q&A. Director Raoul Peck joined for an insightful post-screening Q&A. Blink is in cinemas from 22 November. Read more here.
THE SHADOW SCHOLARS
WORLD PREMIERE
Patricia Kingori is the youngest woman and Black professor in Oxford’s 925-year history. Captivated by the hidden, multi-billion dollar ‘fake essay’ industry, Patricia enters the world of the ‘shadow scholars’ - an estimated 40,000 highly-educated, underemployed Kenyans making ends meet by writing academic papers for global students. Scholars like Mercy, a single mother, struggling to support her daughter while writing thousands of words every night to help students in wealthy countries graduate and move into lucrative jobs. In the US, a desperate student sells nudes to pay for the promise of a passing grade for her midterms. The tension grows between the demand and the parallel threats of UK and Australian crackdowns and the rise of AI, and Patricia asks: If the world’s elite can pay for degrees they didn’t earn - and educated Kenyans cannot find jobs outside this industry - then what is the real value of education? Read more here.
Director Eloise King (left) and Professor Patricia Kingori (2nd left) were in attendance for a post-screening Q&A.
The shadow Scholars was up for the Grierson Documentary and received a special mention with the jury noting that ‘King's careful and insightful direction makes this work a thought-provoking and vital contribution to the global conversation on education.’.
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