BEST OF LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2016 - THE SOS LFF AWARDS

With the 60th BFI London Film Festival having now graciously agreed to shut up shop and give me a break from watching masterpieces, it's time to conclude SOS' coverage of the fest with my LFF 2016 awards! Lots of brilliant films at this year's event, indeed so many that there are several deserving award-winners that barely even got a look in! To clarify, only one award was allocated per film, so there may be some cases where a film would have claimed more than one award, but was relegated to runner-up status by virtue of having won a different award. You can check out last year's winners at this link, and this year's below:

Best Film
My Life as a Courgette (Claude Barras)

Best Film - Special Mention
Raw (Julia Ducournau)
Runners-up: The Woman Who Left (Lav Diaz), The Death of Louis XIV (Albert Serra), Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)

Best Direction
Lav Diaz (The Woman Who Left)
Runners-up: Claude Barras (My Life as a Courgette), Maren Ade (Toni Erdmann)

Best Performance by a Female Actor
Kirin Kiki (After the Storm)
Runners-up: Charo Santos-Concio (The Woman Who Left), Rooney Mara (Una)

Best Performance by a Male Actor
Jean-Pierre Leaud (The Death of Louis XIV)
Runners-up: John Lloyd Cruz (The Woman Who Left), Ben Mendelsohn (Una)

Best Screenplay
Maren Ade (Toni Erdmann)
Runners-up: Claude Barras, Morgan Navarro, Celine Sciamma and Germano Zullo (My Life as a Courgette), Lav Diaz (The Woman Who Left)

Artistic or Technical Achievement
Paul Atkins, Matthew Bramante, Erik de Boer, Dan Glass, Kevin O'Neill and Bruce Woloshyn (Voyage of Time: Life's Journey) - cinematography and visual effects
Runners-up: Lav Diaz (The Woman Who Left) - cinematography, Olivier Affonso and Amelie Grossier (Raw) - makeup

LFF 2016 REVIEW - THE WOMAN WHO LEFT (LAV DIAZ)

How to describe The Woman Who Left? Even the briefest appraisal of a single strand of its inquiries would take as long to write as the film itself takes to watch. There are those constant features of Lav Diaz's technique that never cease to impress, to serve such powerful purpose in the expression of story, theme and emotion. They need referenced only to again stress their integrity and Diaz's brilliance in employing them - the hi-def digital photography revealing all, yet only ever what Diaz wants us to see, when he wants us to see it. A great naturalist with his actors, he's also a great formalist with the rest of his mise-en-scene, and continues to create stories that are ours to interpret, not his characters' to inhabit. Then there's the obsession with environment, the appreciation of the nature of a particular place's effect upon the particular psychology of each particular person, the breathtaking astuteness with which Diaz places his figures within their specific physical milieu. And the sympathetic, provocative dissection of social and historical practices and conventions, with a focus on the lives of the disenfranchised, society's rejects, those whose control over its standards is as limited as its impact on them is profound. Law is in perpetual combat with justice in Diaz's films, and the many ways in which humans seek to pervert their most essential qualities are revealed as a rot within our character. Then there are the facets unique to The Woman Who Left: a loosening of Diaz's style, a new purpose for his personal brand of rigorous lyricism - this is among his most overtly emotional and humorous films. Also the critique of institutional systems of religion and spirituality, with the bold and sensational alternative Diaz proposes placing those rejects at the top of his church, part of this film's integral reconfiguration of gender and sexual politics. If this is, indeed, the church of Lav Diaz, then I'm more than ready to be baptized.

LFF 2016 PREVIEW: THE WOMAN WHO LEFT

'Dickensian in scope, this is a great achievement from an exemplar of the art'

Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

'One of [Lav Diaz's] best'

Lorenzo Esposito, Cinema Scope

'Diaz's formal powers [are] at full strength'

Guy Lodge, Variety

It was set to be Sebastien Lifshitz's The Lives of Therese, taking the place of the penultimate screening of the 23 on my slate at the London Film Festival this month. His Cannes Queer Palm winner was indeed one of my most-anticipated, but much as it's a shame to need to abandon it, it is indeed a need. Lav Diaz's The Woman Who Left is scheduled for its British premiere at the same time, and as the dedicated Diaz fanatic that I am (both Norte, the End of History and From What Is Before were my favourite films at LFF 2013 and 2014 respectively), it was a no-brainer. His second film this year, following his 8-hour A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery, also a prize-winner at Berlin, The Woman Who Left claimed a second major festival award at Venice last month, winning the Golden Lion and marking the single greatest accomplishment for any Filipino film in history. And so the new Film #22 on my LFF visit this year assumes the status of the sole most-anticipated film of the whole bunch. Hoping to catch The Lives of Therese at the next-earliest possible opportunity, but dying to catch The Woman Who Left just next week!

VENICE GOLDEN LION GOES TO LAV DIAZ'S THE WOMAN WHO LEFT

Thierry Fremaux, take note: my man Lav Diaz deserves a space in your official selection some year soon, not just in Un Certain Regard, ocurrrrr? After winning the biggest international awards ever bestowed upon Filipino films at Locarno and Berlin festivals, he tops his own personal best by winning Venezia 73's Golden Lion for The Woman Who Left; I posted the trailer for it just yesterday. Check out the full list of winners below, which include several awards for major Oscar contenders, despite the highly arthouse flavour of the top winner.

Concorso Venezia 73

Golden Lion for Best Film

The Woman Who Left (Lav Diaz)

Silver Lion - Grand Jury Prize

Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford)

Special Jury Prize

The Bad Batch (Ana Lily Amirpour)

Silver Lion for Best Director

Amat Escalante (The Untamed)

Andrey Konchalovsky (Paradise)

Volpi Cup for Best Actress

Emma Stone (La La Land)

Volpi Cup for Best Actor

Oscar Martinez (The Distinguished Citizen)

Best Screenplay

Noah Oppenheim (Jackie)

Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Actor / Actress

Paula Beer (Frantz)

Concorso Orrizonti

Best Film

Liberami (Federica di Giacomo)

Special Jury Prize

Big Big World (Reha Erdem)

Best Director

Fien Troch (Home)

Best Actress

Ruth Diaz (The Fury of a Patient Man)

Best Actor

Nuno Lopes (Sao Jorge)

Best Screenplay

Wang Bing (Bitter Money)

Best Short Film

La Voz Perdida (Marcelo Martinessi)

Leone del Futuro

Luigi de Laurentiis Award for a Debut Film

The Last of Us (Ala Eddine Slim)

Venezia Classici

Best Restored Film

The Man with the Balloons (Marco Ferreri)

Best Documentary on Cinema

Le Concours (Claire Simon)

Independent Awards

Premio l'Oreal Paris per il Cinema

Matilde Gioli

Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award

Amir Naderi

Persol Tribute to Visionary Talent Award

Liev Schreiber

FIRST TRAILER FOR LAV DIAZ'S THE WOMAN WHO LEFT

It's one of my biggest disappointments that the 2016 London Film Festival lineup includes neither of Lav Diaz's two films this year: his Berlin Film Festival award-winning A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery and his Venice Film Festival competitor The Woman Who Left. Seriously, I'd trade you my Eugene Green, my Cristian Mungiu, my Bertrand Tavernier and my Maren Ade for just one of them! Here's the first trailer for the latter, The Woman Who Left, which also screens in the Toronto International Film Festival this month. Early reviews are excellent, and the trailer is predictably promising. The guy sure does a lot, and does very little wrong!

REVIEW - THE DAY BEFORE THE END (LAV DIAZ)

Shouting into the void: not the past but the future, a cultural landscape devastated by indifference. The West has infiltrated the East, usurped its codes and conventions with its own, creating a clusterfuck of nonsense, and its silent, sinister wake. Lav Diaz once more pulls from the past to illustrate the present, and gives a glimpse of that future in The Day Before the End, a montage of bewilderment that will bewilder its viewers. Who, what, why: any number of questions, and many more answers, though too few of any discernible consequence. In Diaz's desolation, you take what you can. He respects artists, and the artistic process, but laments the perceived pointlessness therein - the actors unheard, unnoticed, standing strong and shouting, preserving for preservation's sake. He loves his country, or is it just an idea of his country, an aspiration for it? Is it more of a reminiscence that he prefers, one lifted from the works of other artists, foreign artists? If his nation's self-destruction was not, in fact, by itself, but by Western influence, then can its salvation truly be Shakespeare, a paragon of Western culture? Or is that salvation too merely a reminiscence, a poignant reminder from what is before? And he fears - a danger that is identified yet unidentifiable, something at stake, but exactly what? Equally unidentifiable. If it truly is the day before the end, what to do? Diaz gives up and keeps going, a hopeless harbinger yet a determined one. If all we can do is shout into the void, then at least someone has something to shout about.

ROSI BAGS THE BEAR AT BERLINALE

Making another claim in favour of diversity in the major festivals, Meryl Streep's jury chose a wide variety of films and filmmakers in their 2016 Berlinale awards. Gianfranco Rosi's Fire at Sea, a documentary about the refugee crisis in Europe, won the Golden Bear for Best Film - surely it can't be just a coincidence that docs keep claiming top festival prizes when entered into these competitions! And quite the achievement for Rosi on his first Golden Bear contender, less than three years after winning at Venice less than three years ago for his last film and first Golden Lion contender, Sacro GRA. Filipino auteur Lav Diaz also brought home a major award, flying the flag for marathon runtimes; the Best Director prize went to Mia Hansen-Love for Things to Come - both welcome examples of inclusion in the international film community. Good choices, Streep and co.! Check out all their choices below:

Golden Bear for Best Film

Fire at Sea (Gianfranco Rosi)

Silver Bear - Grand Jury Prize

Death in Sarajevo (Danis Tanovic)

Silver Bear - Alfred Bauer Prize

A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery (Lav Diaz)

Silver Bear for Best Director

Mia Hansen-Love (Things to Come)

Silver Bear for Best Actor

Majd Mastoura (Hedi)

Silver Bear for Best Actress

Trine Dyrholm (The Commune)

Silver Bear for Best Script

Tomasz Wasilewski (United States of Love)

Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution

Lee Ping Bin (Crosscurrent)

Best First Feature

Hedi (Mohamed Ben Attia)

Golden Bear for Best Short Film

Batrachian's Ballad (Leonor Teles)

Berlin Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards

A Man Returned (Mahdi Fleifel)

Audi Short Film Award

Anchorage Prohibited (Chiang Wei Liang)

TRAILER FOR LAV DIAZ'S A LULLABY TO THE SORROWFUL MYSTERY

Given the rate at which he turns out features, it's remarkable that Lav Diaz's works are as long as they are - his latest, A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery, clocks in at over eight hours, far from an anomaly in his canon. What's even more remarkable is the high quality of these works, and the consistency of this high quality. Here's hoping that this one - the entrancing, enigmatic trailer for which is above - is as good as we've come to expect from Diaz. Its world premiere is on this coming Thursday, the 18th of February, where it's competing for the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival - the most prestigious festival placement to date for any of the Filipino director's films.