NAME OF FESTIVAL: Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF)
SINCE: 1987
WHERE: Leeds, England
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
The Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF) is the largest film festival in England outside London. Founded in 1987, it is held in November at various venues throughout Leeds, West Yorkshire. In 2014, the festival welcomed over 40,000 visitors and showed over 300 films from around the world, shorts and features, commercial and independent.
Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF)
The dark Hungarian black comedy Liza, the Fox-Fairy is the winner of the 2015 Leeds International Film Festival Audience Award for New Narrative Feature, and Landfill Harmonic directed Graham Townsley, Brad Allgood is the winner of the Audience Award for New Documentary Feature. Liza, the Fox-Fairy is about a 30 year old nurse whose only friend is Tomy Tani, the ghost of a Japanese pop singer from the 1950s that only she can see, and […]
Brooklyn, directed by John Crowley and starring Saoirse Ronan, has been voted the winner of the Audience Award for Best Film at 2015 Leeds International Film Festival in Leeds, UK. Brooklyn, which was the opening night film of the festival, is described as a wonderful romantic drama adapted by Nick Hornby from Colm Tóibín’s best-selling novel. Eilis is a young Irish woman who leaves her home for New York in the 1950s. Desperately homesick at […]
What We Do in the Shadows
What We Do in the Shadows was voted by 28th Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF28) audiences as overall favorite and X+Y, starring Asa Butterfield and Sally Hawkins, came second. In What We Do in the Shadows, Viago, Deacon, Vladislav and Peter are four vampires sharing a house in Wellington, trying to balance being undead with everyday problems like whose turn it is to wash up, where to find virgin blood and how to dress for a night out when you don’t have a reflection. As a documentary film crew follows them round we learn about each of their histories and what it means to be hundreds of years old in the 21st century. Co-written and starring Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords, What We Do in the Shadows balances comedy, horror and social commentary perfectly in this hilarious film.
Testament of Youth
Testament of Youth opens the 28th Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF28) on Wednesday 5th November, with very special guests James Kent (director) and Rosie Alison (producer) in attendance. Backed by Screen Yorkshire and filmed primarily in the region, Testament of Youth is the first big screen adaptation of Vera Brittain’s iconic and powerful WW1 memoir. Irrepressible and free-minded, Vera Brittain overcomes the prejudices of her family and hometown to win a scholarship to Oxford. With everything to live for, she falls in love with her brother’s close friend Roland Leighton as they go to university to pursue their literary dreams. But war is looming and everything will change. From award-winning television director James Kent, Testament of Youth stars Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Dominic West and Emily Watson.
THE ROCKET was voted by 27th Leeds International Film Festival audiences as overall favorite from 139 feature films. Set against the lush backdrop of rural Laos, The Rocket is described as a spirited, fable-like family drama from Australia that tells the story of ten-year-old Ahlo, who yearns to break free from his ill-fated destiny. After his village is displaced to make way for a massive dam, Ahlo escapes with his father and grandmother through the Laotian outback in search of a new home. Along the way, they come across a rocket festival with a competition that offers a lucrative, but dangerous, chance for a new beginning.The two feature films that were closest in the voting to The Rocket are both music documentaries, FILMAGE: THE STORY OF DESCENDENTS / ALL and REVENGE OF THE MEKONS. The top ten winners in the LIFF27 Audience Award for Best Film are: 1) The Rocket 2) Filmage: The Story of Descendents / ALL 3) Revenge of the Mekons 4) Final Cut, Ladies & Gentlemen 5) Ghost Graduation 6) Mistaken for Strangers 7) Brothers Hypnotic 8) We are the Best! 9) Gravity 10) Sign Painters.
GRAVITY, starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock
The sci-fi drama GRAVITY, starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, will open the 27th Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF27) on Wednesday November 6, 2013. From Alfonso Cuarón, the director of Children of Men, Gravity is described as “a unique and unforgettable cinema experience about a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission with a veteran astronaut. On a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes.” Closing LIFF27 on Thursday November 21, 2013, is a rare screening of Hungarian director Gyórgy Pólfi’s unique FINAL CUT: LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, described as “an irresistible celebration of cinema, telling the ultimate love story using tiny excerpts from hundreds of movies ranging across film history.”
The 26th Leeds International Film Festival ended on Sunday November 18th, after 18 days packed with 270 screenings and events, and an audience of 35,000. The Hunt was voted by Leeds 2012 audiences as overall favorite from 140 feature films, and a record 14,196 completed votes were cast.
The film is described by the festival as Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg’s best film since Festen, The Hunt is a gripping, provocative and devastating drama about a respected member of a close-knit Danish community whose life is destroyed when a young girl accuses him, falsely, of abuse. Winner of Best Actor in Cannes, Mads Mikkelsen plays Lucas, a 40-year-old, good-natured primary school teacher who is recently divorced and trying to rebuild his relationship with his son. Once the accusation is made, Lucas is deemed guilty by the community-turned-mob, ostracized, and hunted by his former friends and neighbors.
Other winners include:
Ben Affleck’s new thriller Argo has been announced as the Opening Gala film of this year’s Leeds International Film Festival. Argo, based on the remarkable true story of a CIA expert posing as a fake film producer in order to infiltrate Iran at the time of the hostage crisis in 1979 and rescue a group of stranded Americans, will open the annual festival at Leeds Town Hall on Thursday November 1, 2012.
The Official Selection will close with Michael Haneke’s second Palme d’Or winnerAmour, a drama about the bond of love between an elderly couple in their eighties, starring Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva.
Other new feature film highlights in the Official Selection include Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, Carlos Reygadas’ Post Tenebras Lux, Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths, Tribeca award winners Lucy Mulloy’sUna Noche and Kim Nguyen’s War Witch, and Dominga Sotomayor’s Rotterdam Tiger Award winner From Thursday Till Sunday.
The 25th Leeds International Film Festival which ran November 3 to November 20, 2011, attracted its largest ever audience of over 35,000, including a record audience for a single screening with 1000 people attending Closing Gala Shame. The Festival today announced its Audience Award winners and three prestigious Jury prizes. {jathumbnail off} 
The 25th Leeds International Film Festival runs November 3 – November 20, 2011, today announced that Steve MQueen’s Shame will screen at the Closing Gala on Friday 18th November, and also released it full Official Selection program. Directed by Steve McQueen and starring Michael Fassbender, Shame follows Brendan (Fassbender) who plans his life around relentless sexual encounters until a visit from his wayward sister forces him to reassess his priorities. The festival will kick off […]
The 24th Leeds International Film Festival has announced the winners of its several competitions. “Tuesday, After Christmas” by Radu Muntean wins the Golden Owl Award at the 24th Leeds International Film Festival 2010. A Special Mention wentto Hitoshi Yazaki’s “Sweet Little Lies”. “Tuesday, After Christmas” is “an exquisitely crafted portrait of a married man who has fallen in love with another woman, and a stunning example of the Romanian New Wave. The subtelty and compassion with which […]
The Taipei Representative Office in the UK, University of Leeds and Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF) are cooperating to organise a special event in Leeds focusing on the Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang. The event will be held on 15 and 16 November 2010. This event begins on 15 November with a screening of his film The Wayward Cloud. A workshop will be hosted by Tsai himself at the University of Leeds in the morning of […]