Set against a backdrop of spellbinding desert landscapes, with a vibrant musical score, Above Water immerses us in the life of a village in Niger, one…
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The lives of two vulnerable women in Casablanca - one pregnant, homeless, and shunned, the other a grieving widow - converge and transform in this…
Continue readingThe lives of two vulnerable women in Casablanca - one pregnant, homeless, and shunned, the other a grieving widow - converge and transform in this…
Continue readingAftersun is what we use to soothe ourselves. It also evokes an aftermath. This beautiful debut feature is set on an elegiac 1990s summer holiday at a…
Continue readingWinner of the Golden Bear at the Berlinale, Alcarràs is a beautifully observed ensemble drama full of heart. As far as they can remember, the Solé…
Continue readingAcademy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras returns with the extraordinary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, recent winner of the Golden…
Continue readingThe Cakemaker was an audience favourite at LIFF 2017 and writer/director Ofir Raul Graizer’s new film America is a sensual and vibrant melodrama and…
Continue readingAnime draws avid attention from around the world and it has a $22 billion market size. Over 200 new TV series are launched every year and they vie for…
Continue readingThe film screenings will be followed by a recorded, subtitled Q&A with Project Art Works. A screening of short films by the Turner…
Continue readingCecilie McNair, previous recipient of a Young Directors Award for best student short film at Cannes, presents her haunting feature debut, a…
Continue readingA brilliant and important film that for many years since its 1980 release has languished, little-seen until the last decade. Babylon fleshes out the…
Continue readingJamaica’s long-brewing political conflict between left- and right- wing factions boiled over into violence around the 1976 election. Better Mus Come…
Continue readingBlack Sun is a highly innovative documentary made by filmmaker Gary Tarn, telling the remarkable story of French artist Hugues de Montalembert, who…
Continue readingIn this original romantic comedy turned thriller, Jaakko (Petri Poikolainen), who has MS, uses a wheelchair and has sight loss, spends his days…
Continue readingReturning with her second feature - following its FIPRESCI prize–winning premiere at Cannes- writer and director Maryam Touzani (LIFF 2019’s Adam)…
Continue readingIn 1988 queer people’s lives were upended across Britain when the Conservative government enacted ‘Section 28’, which aimed to ‘prohibit the promotion…
Continue readingThe great Ukrainian director Kira Muratova made her debut with this sublime romantic drama in 1967 though it was banned by Soviet censors for twenty…
Continue readingOur first BAFTA qualifying British Short Film Competition, is a glorious depiction of endurance and resistance, as our programme examines and…
Continue readingAre we the sum of our thoughts? Are we in control of our actions? Or is there a more fundamental link between mind and body? From where does altruism…
Continue readingA surprising gem of a documentary straight out of Bradford profiles the Bradford Movie Makers, the oldest amateur film club around. Formed in 1932…
Continue readingIn this striking selection of short documentaries, wide-ranging concerns find different expressions: from a whisper to a song, a scream to a prayer.…
Continue readingThe UK premiere of a new digital restoration of one of the great classics of French cinema. Elegantly directed by Jacques Becker, Casque d’Or is both…
Continue readingLéo and Rémi are close. They are thirteen-year-old boys who have grown up in each other’s company, completely sharing and trusting. It’s a childhood…
Continue readingThe ever forward-thinking electronic pop band YACHT set out to write and record an album using Artificial Intelligence technology, in a documentary…
Continue readingA superb remake of hit 2016 Spanish film Contratiempo (The Invisible Guest), Confession is a gripping murder mystery thriller full of wild surprises.…
Continue readingThe memory of ‘Sissi’, Habsburg Empress Elisabeth of Austria, long ago morphed into kitsch memorabilia across Europe. With Corsage, actress Vicky…
Continue readingReturning once again to LIFF is Queer Fear, which aims to chart queer communities’ lasting association with the horror genre. Screening in a 4K…
Continue readingThanks to a late injection of gore from South Korea, Day of the Dead is revived for LIFF 2022! From 1.30pm to 10.30pm on 5 November at Vue in The…
Continue readingPioneering filmmakers Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, who work at the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab and made Leviathan, return with an…
Continue readingA love letter to the seaside town of Scarborough and a celebration of true DIY punk spirit, Dead Mint documents the career of the mischievous musical…
Continue readingAn illuminating and highly creative documentary featuring past and present stories of freedom in Vietnam, Esther Johnson's Dust and Metal combines…
Continue readingAn intimate documentary portrait of a woman with motor neurone disease, as she navigates the ups and downs of family life. Made in close collaboration…
Continue readingJeanne says she is fine but feels like crap. Her business dream is an embarrassing nightmare, she is broke, and worse still, mum just died, Jeanne…
Continue readingThe first of our annual Fanomenon short film programmes is in two parts. In our Sci-Fi selection, a couple grapple with losing each other in a state…
Continue readingA programme of bloodthirsty stories from around the world, including scenes from an actor’s descent into his serial killer role, a call centre…
Continue reading‘30-year-old Kao is the world’s fastest sport stacker, thanks in large part to his self-sacrificing girlfriend Jay, who allows him to practice…
Continue readingThe first feature from exciting new Korean filmmaker Park Syeyoung, The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra is an urban ghost story about the human encounters of…
Continue readingAalam-Warqe Davidian's semi-autobiographical first feature is a potent glimpse of adolescence amid civil war. 16 year old Jewish Mina, is trying to…
Continue readingMade by women from across Africa and the diaspora, these powerful short films reflect on what it means to find a sense of belonging and to call a…
Continue readingFinite: The Climate of Change is an urgent and inspiring documentary made on the frontline of climate activism. In Germany, concerned citizens step…
Continue readingA production from the African diaspora, Gessica Geneus’ Creole-language debut feature is a celebration of female resilience underpinned by a vivid…
Continue readingGanja & Hess is a unique and radically black take on the vampire genre. Director Bill Gunn paved a path for black filmmakers to use genre to say…
Continue readingGeographies of Solitude is an immersion into the rich ecosystem of Sable Island, guided by naturalist and environmentalist Zoe Lucas who has lived…
Continue readingThe astonishing story behind one of Detroit’s great contributions to world culture: Techno, the electronic-music phenomenon created by black artists…
Continue readingBeing too pious can land us in all sorts of trouble. In the late 1800s, a Lutheran priest travelled from Denmark to remote coastal Iceland to…
Continue readingExperience the award-winning interactive virtual reality film Goliath: Playing With Reality, a visually dynamic exploration of living with psychosis.…
Continue readingTeen misfits Roma, Toto, and Drop call themselves the “Don Glees”, an informal name for their backyard adventures. One day, when the trio gets blamed…
Continue readingThe Hamlet Syndrome is a life affirming documentary, revealing of a group of young Ukrainians who are finding constructive ways to deal with years of…
Continue readingWriter/director Andy Mitton follows up his Vermont-set first feature The Witch in the Window with another atmospheric and chilling horror film. Filmed…
Continue readingPerry Henzell's daughter Justine has recorded a special introduction to celebrate the film's 50th anniversary. As well as being a golden time for…
Continue readingIn the shadow of the pandemic, a small town rallies to protect a beloved local bookstore in its hour of need. A landmark in Lenox, Massachusetts, The…
Continue readingHoly Spider begins as an investigation of an alarming crime, then zooms out to implicate a very troubled society. In Mashhad’s red light district, sex…
Continue readingThe fears and anxieties that come from being a first-time mother power this poignant, creepy, and often nerve-rattling feature debut from Mexican…
Continue readingI Didn’t See You There is an innovative, expressionistic and deeply personal film, and the debut documentary feature by filmmaker Reid Davenport. Shot…
Continue readingCosta Rican director Valentina Maurel’s debut is a vivid and emotionally supercharged family drama with lived in performances by a terrific cast. Eva…
Continue readingQuirky, deadpan humour, an absurdist eye for French social etiquette and a keen sense of the folly of existence are among the hallmarks of the oddball…
Continue readingGoing back to where it all started: Jamaica’s lush country interior. This is where Jamaican music began and to where Inna de Yard returns; to capture…
Continue readingThe delightful and poignant first feature from Moshe Rosenthal, with three terrific lead performances, Karaoke is an offbeat comedy about a suburban…
Continue readingThe great French director Éric Rohmer wrote a single theatre play called ‘Le Trio en Mi Bémol’. This has been inventively adapted for the screen by…
Continue readingMateo lives under the overprotective and omnipresent watch of his mother Libertad, locked in a house of pastel pink hues, and trapped in a…
Continue readingOur first international programme is, quite simply, incandescent: a farmer toils in the scorching Portuguese heat; a Turkish single mother begins to…
Continue readingAn underwater eruption clarifies a girl's relationship with her hometown. A tearful man, grieving for his mother, finds solace in a younger man and a…
Continue readingThe intangible is key to our third international short film programme. An invisible border in Vienna assails a family in the middle of the night. Two…
Continue readingWe conclude our international short film programme with a selection of films firmly rooted in the earth. Or are they? Decide for yourself as we…
Continue readingInventive sights and sounds abound in this dazzling international programme of music videos. Songs by artists including Alt-J, Mykki Blanco featuring…
Continue readingThe winning short films will be announced at the start of this programme before they are screened. The winner of the LIFF 2022 New Directors…
Continue readingWe reveal the full line-up online for the 36th Leeds International Film Festival on 6 October and you can join us in person for a free programme…
Continue readingOne of the most acclaimed films of the year, Living is a deeply moving and life affirming drama about a man dealing with a terminal diagnosis…
Continue readingBianca Lucas’s haunting narrative debut follows John, a drifter returning to his Mississippi hometown to deal with recent trauma. Originally intended…
Continue readingLove Life is a moving and complex family drama about a young married couple, Taeko and Jiro, whose lives are shaken to the core by a tragic accident…
Continue readingPatricia Highsmith is one of most celebrated authors of the twentieth century with the Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train amongst her most…
Continue readingIn this poetic documentary, filmmaker Daniela Muñoz Barroso sets out to discover the identity of the renowned Cuban musician Gladys Esther Linaresa,…
Continue readingMatter Out Of Place is an incredibly innovative and strangely beautiful environmental film about rubbish and the way it has spread to the most remote…
Continue readingAn irresistibly bittersweet comedy drama from Palestine, Mediterranean Fever explores serious themes of masculinity and mental illness with…
Continue readingBritish writer-director Thomas Hardiman makes his feature debut with this experimental, one-shot dark comedy set in the world of competitive…
Continue readingA superbly stylised evocation of life in 1970s Bucharest, Metronom is a quietly affecting love story set against the severe backdrop of authoritarian…
Continue readingThe great filmmaker Patricio Guzman has been using increasingly creative means to document political unrest in his native Chile since the military…
Continue readingEmma Kawawada’s first feature is a deeply affecting drama about a young refugee who is searching for her own world while caught between two others.…
Continue readingMyanmar Diaries is a truly remarkable document of creative resistance interweaving ten short films by ten young anonymous Burmese filmmakers. The…
Continue readingNeptune Frost is a genre-defying, Afro-futurist, sci-fi punk musical created and composed by Saul Williams and co-directed with Rwandan actor Anisia…
Continue readingDirector Jung Bum-shik’s Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018) launched a new chapter in Korean horror and told the story of a web series crew filming a live…
Continue readingBased on a tragic true story, July Jung’s Next Sohee is a strong indictment of exploitation in the job market in South Korea. Sohee is a cheerful and…
Continue readingDissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has now spent over a decade covertly creating deftly imaginative films despite being banned from filmmaking…
Continue reading"This deeply personal documentary is an intergenerational story of love, loss and belonging. After growing up in exile, director Akuol de Mabior…
Continue readingWinner of the Grand Jury Prize at Berlin 2022, the 27th feature from Hong Sang-soo is a charming, playful, and poignant cinematic treat, receiving its…
Continue readingA vital document in a country where women’s reproductive rights are under siege, On The Divide zeros in on Whole Women’s Health, the last abortion…
Continue readingIn this experimental cinematic portrait, South African mother, full-time domestic worker and part-time actor, Mothiba Grace Bapela, reflects on her…
Continue readingAlbert Serra (The Death of Louis XIV) shows he is one of the most distinctive and boundary pushing directors working today with his latest epic,…
Continue readingPamfir is a barnstorming debut from Ukrainian filmmaker Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk with a powerhouse performance from Oleksandr Yatsentyuk as the…
Continue readingMichael Koch’s sophomore feature is a moving meditation on the patient nature of enduring love. In a remote Alpine village, Anna, a single mother,…
Continue readingThis off-the-radar contender for Film of 2022 takes place almost entirely within a car, has an unorthodox duration, and characters whom we only…
Continue readingWhen efforts to extradite notorious convicts from the Philippines to South Korea are stymied by a deadly airport bombing, the Korean authorities…
Continue readingThe LIFF Queer Shorts programmes are curated by Leeds Queer Film Festival, an annual DIY celebration of the best LGBT+ films from around the world.…
Continue readingThis second of two Queer Shorts programmes curated by Leeds Queer Film Festival includes stories about how queerness interfaces with many different…
Continue readingA tender tale about the transformative nature of love, Return to Dust- the sixth film by acclaimed Chinese director Li Ruijun- expands into a poignant…
Continue readingEveryone who meets Freddie finds her startling yet alluring. She’s 25 years old, appears outwardly Korean yet doesn’t know the language, and is soon…
Continue readingA highly innovative music documentary about the great jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, Rewind and Play is edited entirely from a French television…
Continue readingClassic action thriller set in a near-future world where the Detroit’s streets are patrolled by cyborg police. When officer Murphy is killed on duty,…
Continue readingRockers is a deep delight for anyone keen to explore Jamaican culture. ‘Horsemouth’ is a man trying to feed his family, buying a motorbike to…
Continue readingHot-tempered and fiercely independent, Julia finds escape in a passion for motorcycles and the high-octane world of urban ‘Rodeos’ - illicit…
Continue readingIn the heart of Paris, a prestigious high school takes an audacious challenge: integrate students from working-class districts and make them break the…
Continue readingThe latest in the Ring series of films, Sadako DX is a surprising horror comedy that isn’t afraid to make fun of the legendary series and its J-horror…
Continue readingHailing from the site where cinematography and choreography meet, this compelling collection of international dance films navigate the endless ways a…
Continue readingA larger-than-life character, Leeds saxophonist Matthew Coe AKA Xero Slingsby was an inspirational force in 1980s jazz with a fiery punk performance…
Continue readingIn this pitch black satirical comedy, director Kristoffer Borgli portrays a toxic relationship that rapidly escalates to frightening new levels of…
Continue readingAs a fourteen-year-old boy, Ghyslain Raza’s world was turned upside down when he found himself at the centre of the first viral phenomenon of the…
Continue readingA polemical and probing essay film on the media representation of disablement. Made by the renowned experimental filmmaker Stephen Dwoskin, Face of…
Continue readingLovers Rock, often dubbed ‘romantic reggae’, is a uniquely black British sound that developed in the late 70s and 80s against a backdrop of riots,…
Continue readingAs glimpsed in both The Harder They Come and Rockers, Kingston’s Studio 17 was the beating heart of mento, ska, reggae and dub for decades. Both…
Continue readingCarmen Jaquier’s debut feature is a fiercely independent coming of age tale and a transcendent allegory of the power of female sexuality. Set in 1900,…
Continue readingA stunning film from this year’s Locarno Film Festival, Tommy Guns receives its UK Premiere at LIFF 2022. Angolan-born Portuguese filmmaker Carlos…
Continue readingThe latest from multiple Palme d’Or winning Belgian duo the Dardenne Brothers, Tori and Loikta is a tender portrait of two young West African migrants…
Continue readingYugoslavia, late 1980s. Parents and son are hastily making the final preparations for Christmas Eve dinner. Their beloved uncle from Germany will be…
Continue readingAcclaimed French-Tunisian documentarian Erige Sehiri makes her narrative debut with this beautifully observed, deeply intimate look at a day in the…
Continue readingIt’s “Bambi meets Apocalypse Now” in this provocative and strangely beautiful horror comedy from acclaimed filmmaker and illustrator Alberto Vazquez.…
Continue readingVera Gemma won Best Actress in the Horizons section at Venice 2022 for her compelling performance in Vera, in a role that partly mirrors her own life…
Continue readingThe Viking Society is recruiting volunteers for the first crewed mission to Mars. The goal is to form a B-team that will mirror the mission here on…
Continue readingNatalia Sinelnikova’s remarkable graduation film, is a razor-sharp dystopian satire set in a gated tower block. Inside, Anna works as a security…
Continue readingWelcome once again, to the wonderful world of animation, which we’ve carefully unwrapped for the delight of all! A cornucopia of styles and stories…
Continue readingIn our second selection of outstanding new animated films we present recent work by two established stop-motion specialists (and LIFF alumni). Bear…
Continue readingTravel with us from the comfort of a cinema chair for a whistlestop visual tour of our great county, starting locally in our native Leeds with a…
Continue readingCapturing the spirit of youth, Lula Ali Ismaïl’s vibrant debut feature follows three friends growing up in Djibouti. Coming from different…
Continue readingNazlı Elif Durlu’s striking black comedy follows Zuhal, a successful lawyer in İstanbul, who begins to hear the sound of a cat meowing in her…
Continue readingLeeds Film is supported by the BFI Audience Fund which aims to boost diversity and inclusivity, and to build a broad film culture across the UK which recognises and values the quality of difference and seeks to rebalance under-representation on screen, in the workforce and in audiences.
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