East London to host two alternatives to the London Film Festival
Good value local film festivals … Photograph: Let’s All be Free festival
The BFI London Film Festival is not the only show in town this month, as two locally based film festivals battle it out for a share of the limelight.
London Fields Free Film Festival
London Fields Free Film Festival returns for its second year with shorts, documentaries and features showing in venues across London Fields (23 October – 1 November).
The programme is centred around themes such as community, creativity, sexuality and mental illness, and with each event tailored to the venue – drag documentary Dressed as a Girl, for example, will be showing at London College of Fashion.
The ten-day festival closes over Halloween weekend, when The Bechdel Test Festival will host the intriguingly entitled Horror Hareem at Hackney Picturehouse, a weekend of horror films with women in lead roles.
Let’s All be Free
Another festival this month claims to “explore and celebrate what it means to be free”.
Let’s All Be Free Festival is at Motel Studio (16–18 October) and will include a selection of shorts, documentaries and ‘expression films’ from around the globe.
Highlights include the poetry film Borders by Elizabeth Mizon, about invasive virginity examinations given to migrating women from the Indian subcontinent in the 1970s.
There will also be spoken word artists, a panel discussion about the refugee crisis, and a Masterclass with Oscar winner Randolph Benson.
Day tickets for the festival are £5.
For full festival programmes see fb.com/londonfieldsfreefilmfestival