News

The 68th edition of the BFI London Film Festival (Lff) is wrapping up Sunday night with Piece by Piece, the animated Lego biopic of Pharrell Williams by Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, 20 Feet From Stardom) following the unveiling of this year’s various competition winners, led by Adam Elliot’s claymation feature Memoir of a Snail.

Set in Australia in the 1970s, the movie, which had already won the animation-focused Annecy Film Festival, stars Succession‘s Sarah Snook as Grace Pudel, a shy girl born with a cleft palate who grows up with her wild and occasionally pyromaniac twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) but eventually becomes a lonely hoarder of ornamental snails. Her only friend is a wild octogenarian named Pinky (Jacki Weaver). Eric Bana, Dominique Pinon, and Nick Cave provide supporting voice work. IFC Films has set an Oct. 25 U.S. release date.

Memoir of a...

Undercover: Exposing the Far Right, a documentary directed by Havana Marking (Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Cyber Attacks, The Kleptocrats) about far-right activists in the U.K., was pulled from the weekend program of the 68th BFI London Film Festival (Lff) at the last minute amid concerns over the safety and wellbeing of staff, security and audience members.

“After exploring all the viable options to screen this film at a public film festival, we took the heartbreaking decision to not present Undercover: Exposing the Far Right at the Lff,” festival director Kristy Matheson said in a statement. “I think the film is exceptional and easily one of the best documentaries I have seen this year. However, festival workers have the right to feel safe and that their mental health and well-being is respected in their workplace.”

She explained: “I took on board the expert opinion of colleagues around the safety...

Exclusive: British filmmaker Havana Marking was set to debut her latest project Undercover: Exposing The Far Right, an undercover documentary about far-right communities in the UK, this evening at the London Film Festival.

However, the doc will now world premiere on Channel 4 on October 21 after the London Film Festival pulled the film from its lineup and informed the filmmakers that it will no longer screen the project due to what was described to us as safety concerns.

The doc, created in collaboration with the UK anti-racist organization Hope not Hate, was extended an invitation to world premiere at Lff in June. Weeks later, on September 27, the filmmakers were contacted by London Film Festival organizers who told them they were considering pulling the film from the schedule. Lff confirmed to the filmmakers on October 3, six days before the festival was set to start, that it would not be showing the film.