At the 36th Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF) you can explore an epic selection of films from 78 countries, with a huge variety and diversity of film experiences to choose from over 15 days. With over 200 screenings to choose from, there’s a phenomenal selection this year. We’ve chosen a few across the seven major sections for our ‘must see’ list. 

LIFF are presenting at venues across Leeds and Bradford. There is also a selection of films available to rent on their streaming platform Leeds Film Player. They offer a selection of different pass options with discounts available, depending on how many films you want to see.  For full programme details and tickets see here.

Official Selection

6 Nov - 9 Nov | Close

Directed by Lukas Dhont | 1hr 45 min |French with subtitles

Léo and Rémi are close. They are thirteen-year-old boys who have grown up in each other’s company, completely sharing and trusting. It’s a childhood utopia, but one that can be vulnerable. Returning to school after an idyllic summer together, the boys’ friendship attracts gossip among their peers. And now with an emerging ‘image’ to protect, Léo begins to push Rémi away. The second film by Lukas Dhont (Girl, LIFF 2018) is another masterpiece of poignant naturalism and sympathy. Winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes 2022.

“An exceptional film of empathy and vision.” – Nicholas Barber, BBC

17 Nov | After Sun

Directed by Charlotte Wells| 1 hr 36 min| English 

Aftersun is what we use to soothe ourselves. It also evokes an aftermath. This beautiful debut feature is set on an elegiac 1990s summer holiday at a Turkish package resort. We see events through the eyes of pre-teen Sophie (newcomer Frankie Corio), who is there with her soulful, doleful dad Calum (Paul Mescal). They share an easy bond, yet Calum may not be as ‘OK’ as he tries to appear. Aftersun expresses a complex tenderness that many of us feel but seldom can express in words. It’s one of the very best British films of 2022.

“Wells’s movie ripples and shimmers like a swimming pool of mystery” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Cinema Versa – Documentaries

3 Nov - 6 Nov | All The Beauty And The Bloodshed

Directed by Laura Poitras | 1hr 53 min | English 

Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras returns with the extraordinary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, recent winner of the Golden Lion at Venice International Film Festival. The film follows the iconoclastic artist and pugnacious activist Nan Goldin, famed for her vital and poignant photographs of artists and hustlers in the Bohemian East Village. The film provides an intimate overview of Goldin’s life and career. In recent years she has spearheaded a series of impassioned protests in famous Art Galleries, demonstrating against the Sackler family for their role in the opioid crisis.

“A sublime and gritty knockout.” – Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter

16 Nov | Shove It: The Xero Slingsby Story

Directed by Robert Stanley Crampton | 1hr 40 min | English

A larger-than-life character, Leeds saxophonist Matthew Coe AKA Xero Slingsby was an inspirational force in 1980s jazz with a fiery punk performance style. Shove It – the Xero Slingsby story celebrates his short but stellar life and career, lovingly chronicled by his bandmates, friends and family. From his start busking on the streets of West Yorkshire (for which he was arrested over 40 times) to his trio The Works’ success on the live circuit across Europe, we witness his tirelessly passionate spirit first hand through high energy concert footage and interviews.

Fanomenon – fantastic genre

4 Nov - 9 Nov | Ganja & Hess

Directed by Bill Gunn | 1 hr 50 min| English

Ganja & Hess is a unique and radically black take on the vampire genre. Although director Bill Gunn – riding a wave of blaxploitation bloodsuckers in the early 1970s – said “the last thing I want to do is make a black vampire film”, he paved a path for black filmmakers to use genre to say what is unsayable without it. Black anthropologist Dr Hess Green (Duane Jones) is researching the Mythrians, an ancient African nation who ritually drank blood. When he is stabbed with one of their artefacts, a mystic dagger wielded by his deranged assistant Meda (director Bill Gunn), it awakens an unquenchable thirst. When Meda’s wife Ganja (Marlene Clark) searches for her husband, she is converted and learns to live with the demands put on her by her new life.

Later remade by Spike Lee (Da Sweet Blood of Jesus), Ganja & Hess gave its star Duane Jones another classic horror title to his name, alongside his lead in Night of the Living Dead. Seeing the African American experience as parallel to the vampire’s experience of violent transformation and complex assimilation, Ganja & Hess articulated a conflicted yearning for freedoms beyond the recent Civil Rights struggle. Later recut and released in an inferior version, this restoration represents the original release, restored by The Museum of Modern Art with support from The Film Foundation, and mastered in HD from a 35mm negative.

Leeds Short Film Awards 2022

Directed by Various | 1 hr 36 min| English

The first BAFTA qualifying British Short Film Competition, is a glorious depiction of endurance and resistance, as the LIFF programme examines and celebrates characters, stories and ideas striving to overcome the challenges and complexities of life and existence. From the very personal experience of grief and a haunting visual representation of it’s all encompassing and inescapable nature in ‘Listen to Mother’ to the physical boundaries and restrictions of immigration laws and their impact on a young couple as they strive to prove their love and right to stay in ‘Photo Booth’.

Films Femmes Afrique: Women Creators of the Future

13 Nov| Freda

Directed by Gessica Généus | 1 hr 33 min| Haitan French with subtitles and English 

A production from the African diaspora, Gessica Généus’ Creole-language debut feature is a celebration of female resilience underpinned by a vivid evocation of life in Haiti. Freda is a determined young university student, living with her family in a poor neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, where they run a small street shop. Faced with precarious living conditions, colonial legacies and the rise of violence, she must decide whether to stay in her deeply troubled country or seek a future elsewhere. Freda wants to believe in the future of her country.

Disability Futures

11 Nov - 12 Nov | Mafifa

Directed by Daniela Muñoz Barroso | 1hr 17 min| Spanish with subtitles

In this poetic documentary, filmmaker Daniela Muñoz Barroso sets out to discover the identity of the renowned Cuban musician Gladys Esther Linaresa, known as Mafifa, a bell player with La Conga de Los Hoyos in Santiago de Cuba. Barroso, who has progressive bilateral hearing loss, makes a journey of self-discovery as she searches for the enigmatic Mafifa. Through interviews with those who knew Mafifa, expressive hand-held camera work, and creative sound design that aligns us with Barroso’s aural experience, the film creates a lyrical evocation of a musical life.

One Love from Jamaica

6 Nov - 10 Nov | Rockers + Sink Or Swim

Directed by Theodoros Bafaloukos | 1 hr 48 min | English

Rockers is a deep delight for anyone keen to explore Jamaican culture. ‘Horsemouth’ is a man trying to feed his family, buying a motorbike to distribute hot reggae records around town. He runs into strife as he loses his wheels and turns ‘Robin Hood’. The roll-call of amazing reggae stars, often playing themselves or simply hanging out, is more than reason enough to see this, but Rockers is uniquely special in its wonderful and unique texture of the actual 1978 Kingston, full of genuine vibes and off-kilter humour. Screening with the World premiere of the new Jamaican short Sink or Swim. Screening with the World Premiere of Jamaican short Sink or Swim, directed by Tony Hendriks & Natalie Thompson, and selected by the Jamaica Film & Television Association.