With London Film Festival concluding today and all of my reviews done and dusted, I thought I would write this post to roundup my experience. Being my first film festival, I was so excited to be apart of something I have been a fan of for years. Looking at the lineup, it seemed that there were four major films: Steve McQueen’s Mangrove, Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland, Pete Docter’s Soul and Francis Lee’s Ammonite and I was determined to see at least two of these. Luckily I was able to see Mangrove and Ammonite on the screenings but sadly wasn’t successful in the ballot to see Nomadland and I don’t live in London to see Soul. However, I was thrilled with all the films I watched. I decided that my target was to watch 10 films and make them as varied as I could. In total, I watched 12 films and this includes documentaries, shorts, animation, drama, horror, foreign language, etc. There wasn’t one film that disappointed me and many standouts that I hope go on to receive award recognition and open new doors to create more films.
Overall, what stood out to me was the quality of the writing in the films I watched which was absolutely fantastic. The creativity and originality of the films I watched shows that the industry isn’t failing and there is room for films that push boundaries. From adaptations to original pieces, each film was so distinctive and unique that I was so pleased with how many well-rounded characters there were.
I thought it would be fun to come up with my personal winners from the Festival from the films I watched. As I previously said, there were no disappointments so this will be tricky. I have also added a special Shoutout category because the winner of this gave two brilliant performances and has clearly had a stellar year. I wanted to recognise this with their own special category.
Here are the Smaller Pictures Winners of London Film Festival:
Best Picture – Wolfwalkers
Best Director – Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart for Wolfwalkers
Best Leading Actor – Riz Ahmed for Mogul Mowgli
Best Leading Actress – Tilda Swinton for The Human Voice
Best Supporting Actor – Fazlur Rahman Babu for The Salt in Our Waters (Nonajoler Kabbo)
Best Supporting Actress – Letitia Wright for Mangrove
Best Original Screenplay – Will Collins for Wolfwalkers
Best Adapted Screenplay – Pedro Almodóvar for The Human Voice
Best Documentary Feature – One Man and His Shoes
Best Original Score – Jim Williams for Possessor
Best Song – “Running with the Wolves”, AURORA from Wolfwalkers
Best Cinematography – Stéphane Fontaine for Ammonite
Best Editing – Matthew Hannam for Possessor
Best Production Design – Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart and Maria Pareja for Wolfwalkers
Best Costume Design – Michael O’Connor for Ammonite
Best Hair and Makeup – The Human Voice
Special Shoutout Winner – Sean Bean for Wolfwalkers and Possessor
London Film Festival has given me some amazing memories and been a highlight of my year and a brilliant opportunity that I am so grateful for. I am also so excited to announce that I will be reviewing films from the upcoming Raindance Film Festival at the end of this month so my Festival journey hasn’t ended just yet!
So that’s it for my little awards section and roundup! Which film are you looking forward to seeing the most? Let me know in the comments below!
Just in case you want to read my reviews for the films, I have included them below. I really recommend watching all of them:
Smaller Pictures Film 
[…] with my London Film Festival Roundup (which you can read here), I thought I would pick my personal winners. Now, bear in mind I only watched 7 films but all 7 […]
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