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Ok #filmsky. Another year, another banging #LFF line-up to cover! Over the next few weeks, I’ll be dropping reactions & reviews for everything weird & wonderful #LondonFilmFestival has to offer. There’ll be coverage on insertmontage.com & bite sized thoughts in the thread below 👇 #LFF2026 🎞️🎬📽️

1. PETROLHEADS (dir. Emil Langballe) A charming little story of friendship, acceptance, dreams, identity & one man’s undying love for the Honda Civic. It’s a simple but effective doc that approaches disability & neurodiversity from a unique & refreshingly honest way & the result is quietly moving

2. HOT WATER (dir. Ramzi Bashour) I’m a sucker for a good road trip movie & this is an ok road trip movie. Ticks all the genre boxes but never develops them. The mother-son dynamic is sweet but for a trip that takes in so many miles geographically, it doesn’t go anywhere. Dale Dickey steals the show

3. FLIES (dir. Fernando Eimbcke) Such a lovely little film. A low-key black & white delight about the unlikely bond between an isolated woman & the 9-year-old son of a man she begrudgingly rents a room out to. Beautifully shot with a playful spirit & tonnes of heart despite its downplayed emotions

4. DAO (dir. Alain Gomis) Took minute to dial in on but once locked in I loved it. Dao is a 3-hour epic that cleverly plays with form & time as it bounces back & forth between France, Africa & the film’s rehearsals to bring us a soulful, thematically rich look at culture, identity, family & ancestry

5. CONGO BOY (dir. Rafiki Fariala) Culturally specific but thematically universal. A hard hitting but ultimately uplifting against-all-odds coming-of-age tale that does what it says on the tin but does it well, powered along but a fantastic lead performance by newcomer Bradley Fiomana Dembeasset

7. ISABEL (dir. Gabe Klinger) What a lovely little film. Never overstretches itself in its honest, low-key tale of wine, dreams & the quiet celebration of life’s imperfections. I can’t say I’ve ever tried a natural Brazilian wine before but I am now obsessed

8. ELSINORE (dir. Simon Stone) Big emotions & even bigger acting, #Elsinore hits hard with Ian Charleson’s story yet there’s a lightness & a welcome dose of humour to it that balance things out. This is the Andrew Scott show though. It’s a huge performance & I can image awards buzz is incoming

9. ALL OF A SUDDEN (dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi) Despite the sprawling runtime and the unbearably dense emotional weight it carries, Hamaguchi’s latest slow burn wonder is a beautifully and sensitively constructed story of life, death, the people we are, and those we connect with along the way