Festivals, Films, News, Women Directors

Andrea Arnold Named Jury President of BFI London Film Fest’s Official Competition

Arnold: Cinéma CANAL+/YouTube

“Fish Tank” director Andrea Arnold is heading to the 61st BFI London Film Festival. The Hollywood Reporter confirms that the Oscar-winning filmmaker will lead the official competition’s jury. Arnold will preside over a jury that includes actress Lily Cole (“Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie”) and producer Emma Thomas (“Dunkirk”), amongst others.

Arnold isn’t the only woman who will serve as a jury president. “The Trip” producer Melissa Parmenter is heading the first feature competition.

“Red Road,” “Wuthering Heights,” and episodes of “I Love Dick” and “Transparent” are among Arnold’s directing credits. She screened her most recent feature film, “American Honey,” at last year’s edition of BFI London Film Fest. The Cannes’ Jury Prize and British Independent Film Award-winning flick follows a group of teens and young adults who travel through the Midwest selling magazine subscriptions.

“We’ve grown up mainly on male stories, and most of the films have been written and directed by men — and that’s only half of the human race,” Arnold has said. “I remember going to a women’s film festival and feeling a slight amount of trepidation, but actually it was fantastic. Some of the films made me cry because they really spoke to me. It was then I realized up till then I had mostly been spoken to by men in cinema.”

Arnold won an Oscar in 2005 for her short film “Wasp.”

The BFI London Film Fest begins Wednesday, October 4, and will run through October 15. “Battle of the Sexes,” Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton’s biopic about the famous Billie Jean King v. Bobby Riggs tennis match, will make its European premiere as the fest’s American Express Gala on October 7. Among the other films screening are Guillermo del Toro’s dark fairy tale “The Shape of Water” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” TIFF’s People’s Choice Award winner starring Frances McDormand as a grieving mother hell-bent on justice.


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