In Conversation with Ruud Lenssen

  Ruud Lenssen is an independent documentary filmmaker. His films focus on socially relevant topics. In 2010 Lenssen graduated from the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam with a BA in Audiovisual Design. His graduation film ‘Kathem & Chris’, a short documentary about the friendship between former asylum seeker Kathem and the local villager Chris in the Limburg village…

56th BFI London Film Festival: Horses Of God ( Les Chevaux de Dieu) Review

  Nabil Ayouch’s ‘Les Chevaux De Dieu’ (Horses of God) was described by The Hollywood Reporter as an ‘intimate portrait of boys growing up in a toxic environment’. Written by Jamal Belmahi, Horses of God is based on a book about the five simultaneous explosions in Casablanca in 2003, and “uses current events — the…

56th BFI London Film Festival: The Hunt Review

Thomas Vinterberg’s (Festen)  latest film The Hunt, starring Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale, A Royal Affair), is set in a small community during the period of three months. In this town we see the full extent one lie has in destroying an innocent man’s life. Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen), a nursery teacher who is just getting back…

56th BFI London Film Festival: Zaytoun Review

After directing Lemon Tree and The Syrian Bride, Eran Riklis decided on making another film, setting its action in the Middle East again. Zaytoun is a story of an unlikely road trip and, against all odds, friendship between an Israeli pilot and a Palestinian boy. 1982 Lebanon, as the tension between Israel and Lebanon grows (6 June 1982 Israeli Defense Forces invaded, already…

Untouchable Review

Untouchable, the new French comedy to hit our screens, is a beautiful homage to French cinema. Directed and written by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, the film, which is based on a true story, tells the tale of the unlikely friendship between tetraplegic aristocrat Phillipe and Driss, a young man from the ghetto, who becomes…

56th BFI London Film Festival: In Conversation with Jeremy Teicher

Jeremy Teicher is a young director whose short film This Is Us was nominated for a 2011 Student Academy Award. He graduated cum laude from Dartmouth College in 2010 where he studied Film, English and Theater. He recently completed his first feature film called Tall as the Baobab Tree, which will have its European Premiere at the…

56th BFI London Film Festival: Tall as the Baobab Tree Review

After seeing some films that focus on Africa and its affairs – War/Dance, Return to Africa’s Witch Children and The Great African Scandal, I was longing to watch a film that wasn’t a documentary and one that would address a different issue than child soldiers or corruption. I was very excited when I got a…