All The Winners From The BFI London Film Festival 2016

09:14:00



Good Morning Lovelies,

I come with some very happy news this morning! The winners of the 2016 BFI London Film Festival have been announced and there have been some amazing choices this year. With the jury providing the best feedback about them and the winners really standing out, the competition was one of the best by far.

I honestly don’t know how they picked out who should win but they did and they are all brilliant. Take a look and see…

Official Competition Award Winner 2016 – Best Film: Certain Women. Directed by Kelly Reichardt.


The film jury said about the film, “In a vibrant year for cinema it was the masterful mise en scène and quiet modesty of this film that determined our choice for Best film. A humane and poignant story that calibrates with startling vulnerability and delicate understatement the isolation, frustrations and loneliness of lives unlived in a quiet corner of rural America”.

First Feature Competition Award Winner 2016 – The Sutherland Award: Julia Ducournau for Raw.


Speaking about Raw, Sarah Gavron said, “It is a film that shocked and surprised us in equal measure. We admired the way the director did something completely unexpected with the genre. We enjoyed the outrageousness of the story-telling and the glee with which events unfolded. We loved the eerie originality of the setting, the dark, dark humour, the great score and the truly distinctive visual language. And the bold charismatic acting of the women at the centre of a film that is both unique and unsettling and will quite literally make some swoon”.

The jury also gave a special commendation to Uda Benyamina's DIVINES for its standout female performance from Oulaya Amamra and for its great energy and veracity.

Documentary Competition Award Winner 2016 – The Grierson Award: Starless Dreams. Directed, produced and written by Mehrdad Oskouei.


About the winner, Louise Osmond commented, “Starless Dreams is the story of young women in a juvenile detention centre in Iran. By that description, you’d imagine a dark film exploring a bleak world of broken young lives. This film was the very opposite of that. It took us into a world none of us knew anything about - the street kids, thieves and children of crack addicts of Iran - and showed us a place full of humour, life and spirit. Beautifully paced with great characterisation and a very strong sense of place, director Mehrdad Oskouei captured the fears and friendships of these teenagers with such humanity. The profoundly moving irony of the film is that it was in this detention centre, with others like them, that these girls finally found a sense of family and home; you feared for them most the day they were released back into their family’s care. It’s a film that stays with you for a very long time”.

Short Film Competition Award Winner 2016 – Best Short Film Award: 9 Days – From My Window In Aleppo. Directed by Issa Touma, Thomas Vroege and Floor Van De Muelen.


Jury president and Academy-Award®-winner, Mat Kirkby said about the film, “When Syrian photographer Issa Touma decided to pick up his camera and film events from his window in Aleppo, he did not know whether he would be alive to finish the filming. Not only does his documentary show what one person, one camera and a restricted view of an alleyway can do to reveal something as complex, confusing, and terrifying as a civil war, but also it demonstrates the power of film to reach the wider world, and make those of us more fortunate re-assess the freedom we take for granted.”

BFI Fellowship Award Winner 2016:  Steve McQueen


Congratulations to all of the films and winners! I am so sad that the festival is over for another year, but we have so many great films to look forward to now lovelies! Let award season begin!

Blog Soon,

Joey X

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