Netflix’s ‘Pinocchio,’ ‘My Father’s Dragon’ To World Premiere At BFI London Film Festival
The 66th edition of the BFI London Film Festival announced its lineup of 22 films which will world premiere at this year’s event, including a pair of the season’s most coveted animation debuts in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio and Nora Twomey’s My Father’s Dragon.
Indie features The Blue Rose of Forgetfulness from experimental animator/filmmaker Lewis Klahr and live-action/stop-motion hybrid The Store from Ami-ro Sköld will also world premiere at the U.K. festival.
Just yesterday, Netflix announced that My Father’s Dragon will get a limited theatrical run in November before hitting the platform that same month. Similarly, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio will play in select theaters before hitting Netflix worldwide on December 9.
We’ve covered both Pinocchio and My Father’s Dragon extensively, but little information was available for The Blue Rose of Forgetfulness or The Store before now.
In Klahr’s latest, the celebrated artist presents a collage film which manipulates fragments of comics to deliver a tale about unfulfilled romantic longing. Just last year, Klahr was a major focus of the book Pulses Of Abstraction: Episodes From A History Of Animation, reviewed on Cartoon Brew by Chris Robinson.
Meanwhile, The Store mixes live-action and stop-motion footage to present a provocative and cautionary social realist drama which explores what living in a zero-hours-contract, consumer-based society could look like in the near future.
“Galas, competitive features, short films – across all sections of the program, this is perhaps the richest overall selection of world premieres we have had the privilege of hosting at BFI London Film Festival, and we want to give these artists a moment in the sun before the full program launch,” said festival director Tricia Tuttle in a release. “Securing world premieres for their own sake is never an aim of our audience-facing festival, but it is an honor that these filmmakers and artists entrust us help them to launch their beautiful work. And this is, at least in part, down to the passion and commitment of our audiences!”
The 66th BFI London Film Festival runs from October 5-16. The full festival program launch will be held on September 1.
