BFI London Film Festival’s Slate Of World Premieres Includes Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Pinocchio’

Outside of Cannes, which still has big problems with showing Netflix content in-competition, most major film festivals are littered with premieres from the world’s biggest streamer. And this year, Netflix is spreading the wealth to even include the BFI London Film Festival, which is getting the honor of being the world premiere event for Guillermo del Toro’s highly-anticipated animated feature, “Pinocchio.”

Today, the BFI London Film Festival announced a slate of world premieres coming to the event. Highlighting the announcement is the aforementioned “Pinocchio,” which is Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion animated reimagining of the popular fairy tale. And before it drops later this year on Netflix, it’s going to get a big debut in October at the LFF. Also making their world premieres are “Creature” by filmmaker Asif Kapadia, “Klokkenluider” by actor-turned-filmmaker Neil Maskell, and more. 

READ MORE: Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Pinocchio’ Teaser: Netflix’s Latest Fable Arrives In December

“Galas, competitive features, short films – across all sections of the program, this is perhaps the richest overall selection of world premieres we have had the privilege of hosting at BFI London Film Festival, and we want to give these artists a moment in the sun before the full program launch,” Tricia Tuttle, BFI London Film Festival Director, said. “Securing world premieres for their own sake is never an aim of our audience-facing Festival, but it is an honor that these filmmakers and artists entrust us help them to launch their beautiful work. And this is, at least in part, down to the passion and commitment of our audiences!”

The BFI London Film Festival begins on October 5 and runs until October 16. You can see the full list of new additions to the festival below:

FEATURE FILMS

GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO (dirs. Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson, USA) – Carlo Collodi’s dark fable about a naive wooden puppet Pinocchio is presented in dazzling stop-motion animation by Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro and award-winning director Mark Gustafson.

CREATURE (dir. Asif Kapadia, UK) – Acclaimed choreographer Akram Khan’s new creation is captured by Academy Award winner Asif Kapadia in the immersive and visceral CREATURE.

THE ESTATE (dir/scr. Dean Craig, USA) – Anna Faris and Toni Collette’s sisters plot to win the inheritance of Kathleen Turner’s cantankerous, terminally ill aunt, but find other relatives have equally devious designs on the family fortune. Crack ensemble also features Rosemarie DeWitt, Ron Livingston and David Duchovny. .

BECOMING PLANT (dir. Grace Ndiritu, UK-Denmark-Norway) – the debut feature-length from artist Grace Ndiritu presents an inquisitive choreographic and therapeutic group experiment with psychedelics augmented by the soundtrack from multi-talented artist and musician GAIKA.

BLUE BAG LIFE (dir. Lisa Selby, Rebecca Hirsch Lloyd-Evans, Alex Fry) – Artist Lisa Selby’s audacious and deeply personal odyssey through love, artistry and selfhood illuminates the uncompromising and powerful BLUE BAG LIFE, a documentary portrait of a life touched by addiction.

IF THE STREETS WERE ON FIRE (dir. Alice Russell, UK) – Russell shows London from an exhilarating, rarely seen perspective. While knife violence rises, BikeStormz is a space of liberation and creative freedom for young people across the city to be free and express themselves

INLAND (dir/scr. Fridjof Ryder, UK) – Ryder makes a striking, boldly cinematic debut with this intense puzzle piece, an intense thriller recalling Roeg and Lynch, and starring Mark Rylance in a story of a young man returning to his hometown in the wake of his mother’s disappearance.

KLOKKENLUIDER (dir/scr. Neil Maskell) – Combining pitch-black gallows humour, sharply amusing dialogue and perceptive characterisation, Maskell’s debut is an edgy and claustrophobic comic thriller in which a hapless government whistleblower and his partner hide out in a remote Belgian cottage, accompanied by two eccentric bodyguards.

NAME ME LEWAND (dir. Edward Lovelace) – Lovelace returns to LFF following 2014’s THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS, here exploring the power of communication and community with a rapturous coming of age story about a young deaf Kurdish boy living in Derby in the UK .

PRETTY RED DRESS (dir/scr. Dionne Edwards, UK) – BRIT Award-nominated singer and West End stage star, Alexandra Burke, stars this charmer that sees one dress change everything for a family in Edwards’ spirited, heart-warming debut.

SHE IS LOVE (dir/scr. Jamie Adams, UK) – Sam Riley and Haley Bennett shine as estranged lovers meeting a decade after their split in this intense and involving drama, from prolific Welsh filmmaker Jamie Adams’ (Black Mountain Poets, Bittersweet Symphony).

SUPER EAGLES ’96 (dir. Yemi Bamiro, UK-Nigeria) – Bamiro follows up 2020’s One Man and His Shoes with this engrossing history of the Nigerian national football team and its importance in the country’s political and cultural landscape..

THE ORIGIN (dir. Andrew Cumming, UK) – Bringing a whole new meaning to the term ‘period film’, Cumming’s Paleolithic low budget horror, THE ORIGIN, is a true original. Shot in the Scottish Highlands during the pandemic, this visionary survival horror is a masterclass in expansive world-building.

THE BLUE ROSE OF FORGETFULNESS (dir. Lewis Klahr, USA) – an exquisite collage film which manipulates fragments of comics, creating a narrative of unfulfilled romantic longing.

THE GIRL FROM TOMORROW (dir. Scr. Marta Savina, Italy-France) – Savina’s impressive debut is based on the true story of a young woman violently forced into marriage fighting for justice in 1960s Sicily.

THE BLAZE (dir. Quentin Raynaud, France) – a man and his father flee from a wildfire in this French eco-thriller that could have been ripped from the charred pages of this year’s headlines.

KANAVAL: A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF HAITI IN SIX CHAPTERS (dirs. Lean Gordon, Eddie Hutton Mills, Haiti-UK) – Haitian history is presented through an explosion of colour, dance and music, as the country prepares for its legendary carnival. .

MY FATHER’S DRAGON (dir. Nora Twomey, Ireland) – an irresistible animated fable from the award-winning director Nora Twomey and acclaimed Irish animation Studio Cartoon Saloon, about a boy and a young dragon stranded on an island full of untamed beasts.

XALÉ (dir. Moussa Sene Absa, Senegal-Ivory Coast) – Artist, musician and filmmaker, Moussa Sene Absa (Yoole, The Sacrifice) deliver a powerful female-centred revenge drama, XALÉ , which unfolds across two time frames and details the fallout of a devastating incident

THE STORE (dir/scr. Ami-ro Sköld, Sweden-Italy) – this inventive and provocative social realist drama boldly uses live-action and stop-motion animation to explore what living in our zero-hours-contract, consumer society might look like in the very near future.

SHTTL (dir/scr. Ady Walter, Ukraine-France) – set in a Jewish village prior to the Nazi invasion of Ukraine in 1941, a filmmaker returns from Kyiv in search of his intended Bride.Walter’s striking debut, crafted as a stunning black and white ‘single-shot’ drama is in Yiddish and stars Saul Rubinek, Moshe Lobel and Antoine Millet.

EPISODIC

THE ENGLISH (Dir/Scr/Series Creator, Hugo Blick, UK-Spain) – Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer lead an all-star ensemble in this  sweeping tale of romance and revenge, a sharply crafted western series from award-winning television auteur Blick, made for BBC One and Amazon Studios.

A SPY AMONG FRIENDS (Scr/Series Creator Alexander Cary and Dir. Nick Murphy, UK) – this stylish new series from ITVX explores the events in 1963 following  MI6 agent Kim Philby (Guy Pearce) exposure as a KGB spy in one of the most humiliating chapters of Britain’s involvement in the Cold War. Pearce stars alongside Damian Lewis (reunited with Cary after Homeland) and Anna Maxwell Martin.

MAMMALS (Scr. Jez Butterworth and Dir. Stephanie Laing, UK) – James Corden and Sally Hawkins star this a clever dissection of monogamy and marriage, written by Olivier and Tony award-winning playwright and screenwriter Jez Butterworth made for Amazon Studios