So another fantastic festival I hear from Matilda.
What's the reason behind you guys?
Want to have to tell you, there's just.
So many reasons to open with Matilda.
I mean, it's a musical, it's a family film.
We haven't opened with either of those in quite at least a decade.
And it really
we want to communicate to audiences that the festival is for everyone.
And what better way to do that than with an adaptation of a musical
that more than 10 million people have seen songs that almost everyone
in the UK, possibly globally, can sing a little bit of something from Matilda.
I know I can sing all of the Matilda songs, so
but Matilda is also a great female character.
I mean, she really is resilient
and smart and strong and she fights back against bullies.
And that feels still feels really relevant.
You guys have had to kind of bounce back from the pandemic, and that's
kind of change how you've done things.
Last year it was kind of a test bed.
I guess this year you've managed to do it even more.
So how proud of you
that you've managed to do it in the way that you guys have done it?
Oh, definitely.
I mean, in 2019, before the pandemic, we set out a strategy
that included expanding the UK wide, and the pandemic gave us opportunities
to experiment in ways that we hadn't imagined not being able to do that,
but it really turbocharge those plans and we really shifted the make up.
So we are the London Film Festival, but we're accessible to film
fans all around the UK and that is really important too.
If you got a fantastic line up this year, there's obviously some films
that didn't get in that people have been desperately from Toronto or met us.
How does that what does that process work for
you guys in terms of picking and choosing which ones you can and what you don't?
Well.
It's a complex process.
I mean, and I'd say also that
some people assume things didn't get in and it might be other reasons.
So I'm not naming any you know, I'm not corroborated corroborating any stories
here, but it's we watched around 2000 films, shorts and features.
And it is a long process of trying to
hone down a program that feels like there's something for every kind of film.
And that represents lots of different perspectives,
that has global diversity, that represents the many forms of cinema from artists
moving images to documentaries to fiction films to musicals.
And that process takes a long time. Yeah.
In terms of yourself, obviously, you defying very, very soon,
is that something that you've been thinking of for a while
or is it
something that's just come up and you know you're going to go
and do something else? Very exciting.
Well, I when I took the job, I always thought of this as a five year role.
So this is my fifth year
and I think I wouldn't be leaving if I didn't feel like we'd really move
the dial on some of the things that we set out
and said we were going to do in 20 1819 that we've really done those pandemics. Ben
Franklin Anchoring.
I'm ready to be on the other side of the stage now.
I'm watching the films and I also have an incredible team.
I don't think anyone should stay in these cultural jobs for forever, that we
a festival should be a lab of ideas, as it should be a place for new people.
New voices represent cultural moment.
So I think that kind of change is really good for me.
And hopefully I just find that,
I mean, if we don't talk to you on the closing night,
you've got a hell of a film too, to close the festival on.
There seems to be this huge excitement for this knives out franchise.
Then your face going from body to face.
Bernard BLOCK, how excited are you guys to close with that particular part?
Well, we actually had the European premiere of Knives Out
and You program that, you know, we love Ryan Gosling's films,
but we programed it before anyone knew anything about Knives Out.
And I remember seeing it thinking this is going to be huge because it really
I mean, it's such a smart, city literate film,
but it really delivers as great entertainment as well, too.
And he's done the exact same thing with his new film.
I mean, he's in a whole new mystery.
The only thing that links to, well, two things
link together knives out in his new what is Daniel Craig and the other is
the brilliance of Brian Johnson who's made a totally original story.
And it's it's pretty it's like it's going to bring down the house imposing on it.
That's the one I'm really looking forward to. So fingers crossed.
Thank you so much for your time as ever. It's like a stage, I think.