Under the radar London Film Festival attracted big names

The London Film Festival was a delight. I only caught the last six days of it and made 12 films. But what was interesting was the buzz. The event, in its 68th year, skews a little under the radar, at least to other major film festivals. In fact, it doesn’t even register. Not like Cannes or Venice or Berlin or Locarno, or even Toronto. It seems to have the same status as that of the other of the world’s two greatest cities - New York. Does anyone even know there’s a New York Film Festival? But Londoners seem to enjoy it. And perhaps that’s all that matters. Alongside the sprawling British Film Institute (BFI) on London’s Southbank the red-carpet event packed in hundreds on the carpet itself, not to mention hundreds more standing on balconies overlooking (photo). Someone cares! And some big-name stars came out. Saoirse Ronan and Steve McQueen kicked it off with Blitz. Angelina Jolie there to showcase Maria, Cate Blanchett for Rumours. Canada (and Hollywood’s) Denis Villeneuve showed up for a lecture. As did Mike Leigh. The theatres were (mostly) packed. The cinemas themselves were of a wide variety – from the spectacular and voluminous Royal Festival Hall to the neighboring BFI’s four screening rooms, to several commercial cinemas on the other side of the river in the theatrical West End. I made it to screenings at the Curzon Mayfair and the Curzon Soho. Mayfair being the city’s most elite neighborhood where black cabs kept circling the block looking for fares from the affluent customers of upscale bars, people spilling into the street. I gazed at the buildings and thought of the modern (post war history) of the area, when Mayfair was a center of the British New Wave and subsequent cinema including origins of the 007 franchise. I kept imagining Dirk Bogard and Wendy Craig in The Servant (Joseph Losey 1963), set in the kind of high end buildings that dot the area with their large square mullion windows. And Soho the traditional nightclub district between Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square, on Saturday night virtually every square foot seemingly occupied with tourists and raving club goers.