Archive

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…

The lives of two vulnerable women in Casablanca - one pregnant, homeless, and shunned, the other a grieving widow - converge and transform in this…

The lives of two vulnerable women in Casablanca - one pregnant, homeless, and shunned, the other a grieving widow - converge and transform in this…

Aftersun 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…

Winner 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…

Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras returns with the extraordinary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, recent winner of the Golden…

The 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…

Anime 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…

The film screenings will be followed by a recorded, subtitled Q&A with Project Art Works.   A screening of short films by the Turner…

Cecilie McNair, previous recipient of a Young Directors Award for best student short film at Cannes, presents her haunting feature debut, a…

A brilliant and important film that for many years since its 1980 release has languished, little-seen until the last decade. Babylon fleshes out the…

Jamaica’s long-brewing political conflict between left- and right- wing factions boiled over into violence around the 1976 election. Better Mus Come…

Black Sun is a highly innovative documentary made by filmmaker Gary Tarn, telling the remarkable story of French artist Hugues de Montalembert, who…

In this original romantic comedy turned thriller, Jaakko (Petri Poikolainen), who has MS, uses a wheelchair and has sight loss, spends his days…

Returning with her second feature - following its FIPRESCI prize–winning premiere at Cannes- writer and director Maryam Touzani (LIFF 2019’s Adam)…

In 1988 queer people’s lives were upended across Britain when the Conservative government enacted ‘Section 28’, which aimed to ‘prohibit the promotion…

The great Ukrainian director Kira Muratova made her debut with this sublime romantic drama in 1967 though it was banned by Soviet censors for twenty…

Our first BAFTA qualifying British Short Film Competition, is a glorious depiction of endurance and resistance, as our programme examines and…

Are 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…

A surprising gem of a documentary straight out of Bradford profiles the Bradford Movie Makers, the oldest amateur film club around. Formed in 1932…

In this striking selection of short documentaries, wide-ranging concerns find different expressions: from a whisper to a song, a scream to a prayer.…

The 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…

Léo 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…

The ever forward-thinking electronic pop band YACHT set out to write and record an album using Artificial Intelligence technology, in a documentary…

A superb remake of hit 2016 Spanish film Contratiempo (The Invisible Guest), Confession is a gripping murder mystery thriller full of wild surprises.…

The memory of ‘Sissi’, Habsburg Empress Elisabeth of Austria, long ago morphed into kitsch memorabilia across Europe. With Corsage, actress Vicky…

Returning once again to LIFF is Queer Fear, which aims to chart queer communities’ lasting association with the horror genre. Screening in a 4K…

Thanks 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…

Pioneering filmmakers Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, who work at the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab and made Leviathan, return with an…

A 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…

An illuminating and highly creative documentary featuring past and present stories of freedom in Vietnam, Esther Johnson's Dust and Metal combines…

An intimate documentary portrait of a woman with motor neurone disease, as she navigates the ups and downs of family life. Made in close collaboration…

Jeanne 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…

The 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…

A programme of bloodthirsty stories from around the world, including scenes from an actor’s descent into his serial killer role, a call centre…

‘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…

The first feature from exciting new Korean filmmaker Park Syeyoung, The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra is an urban ghost story about the human encounters of…

Aalam-Warqe Davidian's semi-autobiographical first feature is a potent glimpse of adolescence amid civil war. 16 year old Jewish Mina, is trying to…

Made 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…

Finite: The Climate of Change is an urgent and inspiring documentary made on the frontline of climate activism. In Germany, concerned citizens step…

A production from the African diaspora, Gessica Geneus’ Creole-language debut feature is a celebration of female resilience underpinned by a vivid…

Ganja & 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…

Geographies of Solitude is an immersion into the rich ecosystem of Sable Island, guided by naturalist and environmentalist Zoe Lucas who has lived…

The astonishing story behind one of Detroit’s great contributions to world culture: Techno, the electronic-music phenomenon created by black artists…

Being 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…

Experience the award-winning interactive virtual reality film Goliath: Playing With Reality, a visually dynamic exploration of living with psychosis.…

Teen misfits Roma, Toto, and Drop call themselves the “Don Glees”, an informal name for their backyard adventures. One day, when the trio gets blamed…

The Hamlet Syndrome is a life affirming documentary, revealing of a group of young Ukrainians who are finding constructive ways to deal with years of…

Writer/director Andy Mitton follows up his Vermont-set first feature The Witch in the Window with another atmospheric and chilling horror film. Filmed…

Perry Henzell's daughter Justine has recorded a special introduction to celebrate the film's 50th anniversary. As well as being a golden time for…

In 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…

Holy 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…

The fears and anxieties that come from being a first-time mother power this poignant, creepy, and often nerve-rattling feature debut from Mexican…

I Didn’t See You There is an innovative, expressionistic and deeply personal film, and the debut documentary feature by filmmaker Reid Davenport. Shot…

Costa Rican director Valentina Maurel’s debut is a vivid and emotionally supercharged family drama with lived in performances by a terrific cast. Eva…

Quirky, 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…

Going 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…

The delightful and poignant first feature from Moshe Rosenthal, with three terrific lead performances, Karaoke is an offbeat comedy about a suburban…

The 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…

Mateo lives under the overprotective and omnipresent watch of his mother Libertad, locked in a house of pastel pink hues, and trapped in a…

Our first international programme is, quite simply, incandescent: a farmer toils in the scorching Portuguese heat; a Turkish single mother begins to…

An 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…

The 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…

We conclude our international short film programme with a selection of films firmly rooted in the earth. Or are they? Decide for yourself as we…

Inventive sights and sounds abound in this dazzling international programme of music videos. Songs by artists including Alt-J, Mykki Blanco featuring…

The winning short films will be announced at the start of this programme before they are screened. The winner of the LIFF 2022 New Directors…

We 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…

One 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…

Bianca Lucas’s haunting narrative debut follows John, a drifter returning to his Mississippi hometown to deal with recent trauma. Originally intended…

Love 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…

Patricia Highsmith is one of most celebrated authors of the twentieth century with the Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train amongst her most…

In this poetic documentary, filmmaker Daniela Muñoz Barroso sets out to discover the identity of the renowned Cuban musician Gladys Esther Linaresa,…

Matter Out Of Place is an incredibly innovative and strangely beautiful environmental film about rubbish and the way it has spread to the most remote…

An irresistibly bittersweet comedy drama from Palestine, Mediterranean Fever explores serious themes of masculinity and mental illness with…

British writer-director Thomas Hardiman makes his feature debut with this experimental, one-shot dark comedy set in the world of competitive…

A superbly stylised evocation of life in 1970s Bucharest, Metronom is a quietly affecting love story set against the severe backdrop of authoritarian…

The great filmmaker Patricio Guzman has been using increasingly creative means to document political unrest in his native Chile since the military…

Emma 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.…

Myanmar Diaries is a truly remarkable document of creative resistance interweaving ten short films by ten young anonymous Burmese filmmakers. The…

Neptune Frost is a genre-defying, Afro-futurist, sci-fi punk musical created and composed by Saul Williams and co-directed with Rwandan actor Anisia…

Director 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…

Based 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…

Dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has now spent over a decade covertly creating deftly imaginative films despite being banned from filmmaking…

"This deeply personal documentary is an intergenerational story of love, loss and belonging. After growing up in exile, director Akuol de Mabior…

Winner 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…

A 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…

In this experimental cinematic portrait, South African mother, full-time domestic worker and part-time actor, Mothiba Grace Bapela, reflects on her…

Albert Serra (The Death of Louis XIV) shows he is one of the most distinctive and boundary pushing directors working today with his latest epic,…

Pamfir is a barnstorming debut from Ukrainian filmmaker Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk with a powerhouse performance from Oleksandr Yatsentyuk as the…

Michael Koch’s sophomore feature is a moving meditation on the patient nature of enduring love. In a remote Alpine village, Anna, a single mother,…

This off-the-radar contender for Film of 2022 takes place almost entirely within a car, has an unorthodox duration, and characters whom we only…

When efforts to extradite notorious convicts from the Philippines to South Korea are stymied by a deadly airport bombing, the Korean authorities…

The LIFF Queer Shorts programmes are curated by Leeds Queer Film Festival, an annual DIY celebration of the best LGBT+ films from around the world.…

This second of two Queer Shorts programmes curated by Leeds Queer Film Festival includes stories about how queerness interfaces with many different…

A tender tale about the transformative nature of love, Return to Dust- the sixth film by acclaimed Chinese director Li Ruijun- expands into a poignant…

Everyone 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…

A highly innovative music documentary about the great jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, Rewind and Play is edited entirely from a French television…

Classic 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,…

Rockers is a deep delight for anyone keen to explore Jamaican culture. ‘Horsemouth’ is a man trying to feed his family, buying a motorbike to…

Hot-tempered and fiercely independent, Julia finds escape in a passion for motorcycles and the high-octane world of urban ‘Rodeos’ - illicit…

In the heart of Paris, a prestigious high school takes an audacious challenge: integrate students from working-class districts and make them break the…

The 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…

Hailing from the site where cinematography and choreography meet, this compelling collection of international dance films navigate the endless ways a…

A larger-than-life character, Leeds saxophonist Matthew Coe AKA Xero Slingsby was an inspirational force in 1980s jazz with a fiery punk performance…

In this pitch black satirical comedy, director Kristoffer Borgli portrays a toxic relationship that rapidly escalates to frightening new levels of…

As 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…

A polemical and probing essay film on the media representation of disablement. Made by the renowned experimental filmmaker Stephen Dwoskin, Face of…

Lovers Rock, often dubbed ‘romantic reggae’, is a uniquely black British sound that developed in the late 70s and 80s against a backdrop of riots,…

As 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…

Carmen 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,…

A stunning film from this year’s Locarno Film Festival, Tommy Guns receives its UK Premiere at LIFF 2022. Angolan-born Portuguese filmmaker Carlos…

The 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…

Yugoslavia, late 1980s. Parents and son are hastily making the final preparations for Christmas Eve dinner. Their beloved uncle from Germany will be…

Acclaimed French-Tunisian documentarian Erige Sehiri makes her narrative debut with this beautifully observed, deeply intimate look at a day in the…

It’s “Bambi meets Apocalypse Now” in this provocative and strangely beautiful horror comedy from acclaimed filmmaker and illustrator Alberto Vazquez.…

Vera 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…

The 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…

Natalia Sinelnikova’s remarkable graduation film, is a razor-sharp dystopian satire set in a gated tower block. Inside, Anna works as a security…

Welcome once again, to the wonderful world of animation, which we’ve carefully unwrapped for the delight of all! A cornucopia of styles and stories…

In our second selection of outstanding new animated films we present recent work by two established stop-motion specialists (and LIFF alumni). Bear…

Travel 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…

Capturing the spirit of youth, Lula Ali Ismaïl’s vibrant debut feature follows three friends growing up in Djibouti. Coming from different…

Nazlı 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…