The 63rd BFI London Film Festival, in partnership with American Express, has announced the contenders for the Best Film Award in this year’s Official Competition selection. One of the ten nominated films includes Rose Plays Julie, a psychological thriller, from Irish directing duo, Desperate Optimists (Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor), which Fonic created the audio post production.
The Best Film Award aims to honour inspiring, inventive and distinctive global filmmaking, and the winner will be chosen by the Official Competition Jury, the members of which will be announced in the coming weeks. The Festival also invites audiences to share their responses to films seen in Competition throughout the Festival at #MyLFFAward. Official Competition titles will be screen nightly across the Festival at one of the two premiere screens of the Vue Leicester Square, with a red carpet-style reception for the attending filmmakers each evening. The winner of the Best Film will be announced at a special screening on Saturday 12 October.
Rose Plays Julie is an immersive and riveting story of Rose (Ann Skelly), a veterinary student, who decides, during a term studying animal euthanasia, to contact Ellen (Orla Brady), her birth mother, who gave her up for adoption, to find out why she made that decision. What she discovers takes her on a devastating and dangerous journey of misogyny, revenge and longing that threatens to destroy her already fragile sense of her own identity.
Rose Plays Julie festival and world premiere takes place on Thursday 3rd October at 8:30pm in Screen 7 of Vue Leicester Square and then five additional screenings throughout the festival. More information can be found here
The 10 films in Official Competition are:
- Fanny Lye Deliver’d (United Kingdom-Germany, dir-scr. Thomas Clay)
- Honey Boy (USA, dir. Alma Har’el)
- La Llorona (Guatemala-France, dir. Jayro Bustamante)
- Lingua Franca (USA, dir-scr. Isabel Sandoval)
- Moffie (South Africa-United Kingdom, dir. Oliver Hermanus)
- Monos (Colombia-Argentina-Netherlands-Germany-Sweden-Uruguay-USA, dir. Alejandro Landes)
- The Other Lamb (Ireland-Belgium-USA, dir. Małgorzata Szumowska)
- The Perfect Candidate (Germany-Saudi Arabia, dir. Haifaa Al Mansour)
- Rose Plays Julie (Ireland-United Kingdom, dir-scr. Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor)
- Saint Maud (United Kingdom, dir-scr. Rose Glass)
The Official Competition trailer, gives a taster of those competing for Best Film this year and can be found here
The BFI London Film Festival runs from 2nd-13th October and celebrates the diverse landscape of international cinema, showcasing films set to entertain, inspire, provoke debate and tackle issues of our time. The BFI London Film Festival is the UK’s leading cinema event and one of the world’s most important film festivals. The programme offers UK audiences the chance to see some of the most anticipated new films from around the globe, including works destined to be major awards contenders.
Fonic is proud to have worked on this film with Joe and Christine and are so pleased to see the film being recognised by such an important international festival and we want to wish all the Rose Plays Julie team the best of luck in the Official Competition.