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London Film Festival 2018 line-up: Suspiria, Little Drummer Girl, new Coen brothers Netflix film to play

Park Chan-wook's BBC John Le Carre adaptation will receive its world premiere

Jacob Stolworthy
Thursday 30 August 2018 12:26 BST
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Trailer for Suspiria from Amazon Studios

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The full line-up for this year’s BFI London Film Festival has been announced with high-profile titles from directors Luca Guadagnino, Ralph Fiennes and the Coen brothers all set to receive their UK premieres in the coming month.

Call Me By Your Name filmmaker Guadagnino’s horror Suspiria will be shown, as will Netflix titles Roma and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs – the latest features from Alfonso Cuarón and the Coen Brothers.

Park Chan-wook’s television debut, The Little Drummer Girl, will receive its world premiere – the only TV title presented at this year’s festival. The Korean director’s John Le Carré adaptation stars Florence Pugh, Michael Shannon and Alexander Skarsgård. His previous release, The Handmaiden, was shown at LFF in 2016.

Speaking ahead of the announcement in London’s Leicester Square, Artistic director Tricia Tuttle said: “We’re always very keen and conscious to represent the global diversity of cinema. London is a global city, and we think the audiences reflect that.”

Tuttle revealed that 38% of films will come from female directors with gender parity achieved across three of its four competition strands. This is a considerable uptick from last year’s 24%. Female directors whose films will debut include Karyn Kusama (Destroyer), Sudabeh Mortezai (Joy) and Chilean filmmaker Dominga Sotomayor (Too Late to Die Young).

The London Film Festival program includes 225 features from 75 countries. 21 of these will be world premieres with 29 being European premieres.

Other films set to be shown include Moonlight director Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk, The Front Runner from Jason Reitman, Lee Chang-dong’s Burning and Beautiful Boy which stars Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet.

Gala screenings will include Life Itself from This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman, Matthew Heineman’s A Private War, Japanese anime Mirai and Terry Gilliam’s long-gestating project The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Ralph Fiennes’ latest directorial feature, The White Crow, will also premiere.

The 62nd BFI London Film Festival runs 10-21 October. Its opening night film is Steve McQueen’s Widows with the world premiere of Laurel and Hardy biopic Stan & Ollie closing the festival.

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