The curators of the 2022 edition of the BFI London Film Festival have programmed a total of 164 feature films, including 23 world premieres, 6 international premieres and 15 European premieres, with a special programme of over 20 features and 15 short films available digitally across the whole of the UK on BFI Player until October 23.
The films are grouped in thematic strands: Love, Debate, Laugh, Dare, Thrill, Cult, Journey, Create, Experimenta, Family and Treasures, and will also include TV series.
Over 60 countries are represented, with 41% of the programme from female and non-binary directors and creators or co-directors and co-creators, while ethnically diverse directors and creators make up 34% of the line-up.
And now browse the selection of Asian Titles of the BFI London Film Festival:
OFFICIAL COMPETITION
Nezouh
Soudade Kaadan – UK-Syria-France 2022. 104min
Soudade Kaadan (The Day I Lost My Shadow, LFF 2018) turns to her Syrian roots for this wry, poignant look at a family forced from their home in Damascus.
FIRST FEATURE COMPETITION
Jeong-sun
JEONG Ji-hye – South Korea 2022. 105min
This bold and heartfelt debut tackles the recent epidemic of digital sex crimes in South Korea, making visible the lives of those who are marginalised by sexism, ageism and classism.
Joyland
Saim Sadiq – Pakistan 2022. 126min
A conservative family in Pakistan is torn apart when a son falls in love with a transgender erotic dancer, in Saim Sadiq's riveting queer drama.
DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
What About China?
Trinh Minh-ha – USA-China-Singapore 2022. 135min
Winner of CPH:DOX's New: Vision Award, Trinh Minh-ha's latest work is a multi-layered essay that is both intellectual yet lyrical, political yet poetic.
SHORT FILM COMPETITION
I Have No Legs, and I Must Run
Yue Li – China 2022. 15min
A major athlete has an injury and a talented new recruit raises the spectre of jealousy.
It's Raining Frogs Outside
Maria Estela Paiso – Philippines 2021. 14min
The end of the world is nigh, and frogs are raining down from the sky. Maya is alone and her memories transform into a fever dream.
IMMERSIVE ART AND XR COMPETITION
Missing Pictures Episode 3: The Monkey Wrench Gang
Clément Deneux – France-UK-Taiwan-Luxembourg-South Korea 2022. 11min
The director of Thirteen and Twilight is the next participant in this series that allows filmmakers to revisit an unrealised project.
Planet City
Liam Young in collaboration with Well Played Studios – USA-China 2022. 7min
A VR experience set in an imaginary city of 10 billion people – the entire population of the planet – where every culture co-exists in peace.
GALAS
Decision to Leave
Park Chan-wook – South Korea 2022. 138min
In this sublime, Hitchcockian noir thriller from Park Chan-wook, a detective gets a little too close to the murder he's trying to solve.
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
Holy Spider
Ali Abbasi – Denmark-Germany-Sweden-France 2022. 117min
Ali Abassi's sophomore feature is a terrifying retelling of the case of the Spider Killer, a serial killer hunting down sex workers in Iran.
LOVE
The Cloud Messenger
Rahat Mahajan – India 2022. 152min
A 16-year-old boy feels a powerful attraction towards his classmate, soon realising that much larger forces are at play, in this captivating reimagining of an ancient Indian myth.
Love Life
Kôji Fukada – Japan-France 2022. 123min
Writer-director Kôji Fukada delivers a beguiling, beautifully paced portrait of a family navigating the aftermath of a tragedy, with honesty and a sense of hope.
DEBATE
Blue Island
Chan Tze-woon – Hong Kong (S.A.R of China)-Japan-Taiwan 2022. 97min
This engaging and committed hybrid documentary not only conveys the layered history of Hong Kong, it is a riveting work of political activism.
Declaration
Mahesh Narayanan – India 2022. 107min
When a compromising video of them is circulated, a married couple working dead-end factory jobs face a scandal that threatens to engulf their hopes of employment abroad.
Hidden Letters
Violet Du Feng, Zhao Qing – China-USA-Norway-Germany 2022. 88min
Two Chinese women are linked by their knowledge of an ancient secret language in this insightful documentary exploring resilience and sisterhood.
Next Sohee
South Korea 2022. 135min
July Jung's sharp, earnest and poignant film asks important questions about the nature of workplace exploitation and who should be held responsible when tragedy occurs.July Jung –
Stonewalling
Huang Ji, Ryuji Otsuka – Japan 2022. 148min
The final part of Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka's trilogy is a delicate and perceptive exploration of the hardship of a young woman's life in contemporary China.
DARE
Subtraction
Mani Haghighi – Iran-France 2022. 107min
Actor-writer-director Mani Haghighi's bizarre and highly original film plays with genre conventions and dabbles in magic realism, all amplified by captivating central performances.
THRILL
Faraaz
Hansal Mehta – India 2022. 110min
Based on the real-life terrorist attack that ravaged a Dhaka cafe, Faraaz is a tense hostage drama that unspools over one claustrophobic night.
CULT
NEW NORMAL
Jung Bum-shik – South Korea 2022. 112min
Six tales of loneliness, romance and brutal murder interconnect in this ingenious horror-comedy set in social media-obsessed, post-pandemic Seoul.
JOURNEY
Autobiography
Makbul Mubarak – Indonesia-France-Singapore-Poland-Philippines-Germany-Qatar 2022. 115min
This riveting feature debut from Makbul Mubarak patiently details the journey of a young man as he begins to taste power for the first time.
Liquor Store Dreams
So Yun Um – USA 2022. 85min
So Yun Um dives into the politics of Korean-owned liquor stores in America, in this playful, edgy and tender debut.
Small, Slow But Steady
Shô Miyake – Japan-France 2022. 99min
Sho Miyake crafts a moving, one-of-a-kind sports film, anchored by Yukino Kishii's precise, subtle, unsentimental performance as Deaf aspiring boxer Keiko.
Summer with Hope
Sadaf Foroughi – Canada-Iran 2022. 100min
Sadaf Foroughi's second feature, an intimate family drama, cements the filmmaker's position as an exciting voice in contemporary Iranian cinema.
SHORTS
Bird in the Peninsula
Atsushi Wada – France-Japan 2022. 16min
Dancing children have their rituals interrupted by a young woman.
Honey
Tanmay Chowdhary, Tanvi Chowdhary – India 2022. 13min
Two childhood friends reunite and spend one blissful evening together. As dawn draws near and timelines blur, their deep feelings for one another are revealed.
Moshari
Nuhash Humayun – Bangladesh 2022. 21min
When Ayra's curiosity lures her outside the safety of the ‘moshari', a traditional South Asian mosquito net, her sister Apu is forced to face her demons.
File
Sonia K. Hadad – Iran 2022. 20min
A six-year-old's speech disorder is unexpectedly investigated when his mother takes him for a routine pre-school health screening.
Sappukei
Chun Wang, Hikky Chen – Taiwan 2022. 18min
Filmed on the streets of Saigon, where the unplanned disappearance of the human subject disrupts the flow of linear time and grants the filmmakers access to that which was previously unperceivable.
Takbir
Aziz Hazara – Italy-Afghanistan 2022. 10min
Filmed the night after the Taliban's re-taking of Kabul, Takbir evokes the lasting material and cultural legacies of Afghanistan's many foreign occupations.
Hello to Me in 100 Years
Wu-Ching Chang – Taiwan 2022. 10mi
What will it be like in a century?
