Covid-19 has created an unprecedented interruption in the film cultural calendar as cinemas close around the country and many eagerly anticipated screenings and festivals are postponed or cancelled. Fortunately, there is an incredible world of film content to explore online and film exhibitors have been fast to adapt to the multiple streaming platforms that now flourish for ‘Theatrical at Home’ releases. Many of the hit films from LIFF 2019 are already available. Here at Leeds Film we’ll be giving regular news and guidance for essential new cinema to help us get through this difficult period.
This week we’re highlighting Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, which is now available to stream on BBC IPlayer, free to watch with a UK TV licence. LIFF hosted two sell out screenings at the Everyman last year and it’s a highly recommended film, obviously an essential watch for Miles Davis fans, but also the perfect introduction for anyone who is curious to discover one of the most groundbreaking and influential musicians of the twentieth century. Featuring unseen archive footage and studio outtakes, Birth of the Cool provides an outline of his long and complex career as trumpeter and bandleader from bebop to cool jazz, orchestral music to jazz fusion.
Here are some other great LIFF 2019 films now available for streaming on various platforms:
Netflix
Scorsese’s epic crime drama The Irishman, Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce in The Two Popes, Mati Diop’s dreamlike Dakar love story Atlantics, Irish exorcist comedy Extra Ordinary and the wildly inventive French animated fantasy I Lost My Body.
iTunes
Brooding Irish crime drama Calm With Horses, Gripping Spanish political thriller The Candidate, dark comedy thriller Come to Daddy, Naomi Watts and Tim Roth in Luce, zombie comedy Little Monsters, inventive indie sci-fi Vivarium, wild South Korean action thriller The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil and surreal black comedy Greener Grass.
BFI Player
Passionate drama about a foster child pushing the system to its limits, System Crasher, Romantic French time-travel comedy La Belle Époque, two powerful relationship dramas, with Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson starring as a couple coping with a cancer diagnosis in Ordinary Love and Tom Cullen's intense and intimate directorial debut Pink Wall, fascinating Imelda Marcos documentary The Kingmaker and the heartfelt Sudanese love letter to cinema Talking About Trees.
Curzon Home Cinema
The Whistlers, a playful noir thriller from one of the masters of the Romanian New Wave, Corneliu Porumboiu (12:08 East of Bucharest), the documentary The Atom: A Love Affair, a tale of scientific passion and political intrigue about the West's love-hate relationship with nuclear power, hard-hitting South African LGBTIQ+ drama Moffie, essential doc on fearless crime photographer Letizia Battaglia, Shooting the Mafia, Celine Sciamma's arthouse hit Portrait of a Lady on Fire, sex-positive Finnish romcom Dogs Don't Wear Pants and The Street, which documents the divisive gentrification of a London district.
Amazon Prime
Oliver Laxe's winner of the Un Certain Regard jury prize at Cannes Film Festival, magnificently shot on 16mm, Fire Will Come, and The Report, with Adam Driver on excellent form, are available to subscribers alongside various other titles for individual rental.
BBC iPlayer
An essential watch for fans and newcomers alike, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool is available to stream on BBC iPlayer, free to watch with a UK TV licence.
Peccadillo Player
One of the LGBTIQ+ highlights of the film year, And Then We Danced is an intense love story set in the dynamic but ultra-conservative world of traditional Georgian dance.
