Spank's LFF Diary, Sunday 10/10/2021

Reviewed today: A Cop Movie, Cow, The Outsiders: The Complete Novel.

Spank's LFF Diary, Saturday 09/10/2021

Reviewed today: Bergman Island, Cannon Arm And The Arcade Quest, Find Me Here, Small Body.

Spank's LFF Diary, Friday 08/10/2021

Reviewed today: The Feast, The Taking, The Velvet Underground, What Do We See When We Look At The Sky?

Spank's LFF Diary, Thursday 07/10/2021

Reviewed today: The Feast, Mothers Of The Revolution, The Storms Of Jeremy Thomas.

Spank's LFF Diary, Wednesday 06/10/2021

Reviewed today: Cop Secret, The Crossing.

London Film Festival 2021

Did I mention that we both caught Covid towards the end of August?

No, of course I didn't mention it. It's exactly the sort of detail I'd deliberately hold back to use as a dramatic opening to a twelve-day liveblog, or perhaps to kick off the second chapter of Spank's LFF Diaries Volume Six: 2020-2024 (to be published by lulu.com in summer 2025). Anyway, you've probably got questions at this point, so to answer the two most important ones:

a) We're fine, thanks. It was a pretty mild case of the 'rona for both myself and The Belated Birthday Girl, and apart from slight congestion and a bit of weirdness in the taste/smell department, we both came through our ten days of self-isolation unscathed. Get vaccinated, people, and continue to behave with caution in small crowded spaces.

b) Yeah, about that. I'd imagine you're already poring over our 2021 Edinburgh Diary to see if you can work out exactly where it was we caught it. The BBG says I'm obliged to point out that really, there's no way we can be sure. Which is true, but I'd like to suggest that when that woman on the LNER advert tells you all the things you can do on their trains, she's missed one out.

So what with Edinburgh and Manchester before it, that makes it two festivals we've been to so far this year that have resulted in some sort of Covid panic for us both. Shall we try and make it three?

Spank's LFF Diary: The Wrap Party 2020

As is traditional, let's start with the numbers and the programme categories...

* Laugh: 0
* Journey: 6
* Dare: 7
* Create: 5
* Love: 4
* Cult: 1
* Debate: 6
* Family: 1
* Treasures: 3
* Experimenta: 1
* Shorts: 20
* Expanded: 5
* Events: 4

The shorts make it difficult to make a proper comparison with previous years - normally they'd be clumped into programmes, here we ended up picking and choosing from several collections. But in terms of feature films, we saw 34 in total: 26 online, 8 in cinemas. That's the same number of features as last year, before we add on all the shorts, VR gubbins and live events.

Remember how we thought a couple of months ago that there wouldn't be a 2020 London Film Festival? Looking a bit silly now, aren't we?

Spank's LFF Diary, Sunday 18/10/2020

Reviewed today: African Apocalypse, David Byrne's American Utopia, Friendship's Death, Virtual LFF Audience Awards.

Spank's LFF Diary, Saturday 17/10/2020

Reviewed today: Ammonite, Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and The Legendary Tapes, Nomadland, Screen Talk: David Byrne.

Spank's LFF Diary, Friday 16/10/2020

Reviewed today: After Love, Possessor, Shadow Country, Striding Into The Wind.