Films in Official Competition
The Best Film Award recognises inspiring, inventive and distinctive filmmaking.
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Official Competition supported by
Official Competition gala
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Birds of Passage
Dir Cristina Gallego, Ciro Guerra | Colombia-Denmark-Mexico
The team behind Embrace of the Serpent chart the thrilling rise and fall of the indigenous Wayuu clan in remote Colombia.
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Destroyer
Dir Karyn Kusama | USA
Nicole Kidman is astonishing – and almost unrecognisable – as a jaded police detective haunted by her past in Karyn Kusama’s brooding thriller.
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Happy as Lazzaro
Dir-Scr Alice Rohrwacher | Italy
Alice Rohrwacher follows The Wonders with a delightfully singular time and genre-bending rumination on the fate of innocence when faced with corruption and greed.
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Happy New Year, Colin Burstead.
Dir-Scr Ben Wheatley | UK
A pared-down approach shows off a quieter side to Ben Wheatley’s prodigious talent in this poignantly funny and razor-sharp observation of English family dysfunction.
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In Fabric
Dir-Scr Peter Strickland | UK
Impeccable red talons slide a flick knife across a box to reveal its contents, a beautiful silky dress... that can kill!
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Joy
Dir-Scr Sudabeh Mortezai | Austria
Sudabeh Mortezai (Macondo, LFF 2014) presents a vital and hugely affecting drama that tackles the vicious cycle of sex trafficking in modern Europe.
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The Old Man and the Gun
Dir-Scr David Lowery | USA
David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, A Ghost Story) brings his distinctive vision to this ‘mostly true’ account of the later years of a gentleman bank-robber, played by Robert Redford.
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Shadow
Dir Zhang Yimou | China
Blood spills on an immaculate shadowy landscape in this visually stunning martial arts thriller from Chinese master Zhang Yimou.
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Sunset
Dir László Nemes | Hungary-France
László Nemes first film Son of Saul (Official Competiton, LFF 2015) debuted in competition at Cannes before winning the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar®. But Nemes doesn’t rest on his laurels with this feverishly ambitious second feature.
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Too Late to Die Young
Dir-Scr Dominga Sotomayor | Chile-Brazil-Argentina-Netherlands-Qatar
After Pinochet’s fall, three youngsters drive up to a woodland commune below the Andes. The trip finds them questioning their life in this woozily gorgeous evocation of a Chilean summer.
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