The BFI London Film Festival has revealed its 2019 winners, which include lauded Colombian co-production Monos and Mati Diop’s well-received Atlantics.
Monos, the Sundance thriller about child soldiers, took home the best film award in official competition, with jury president Wash Westmoreland saying, “Monos is a stunning cinematic achievement; marrying dynamic visuals, faultless performances and groundbreaking storytelling. It’s a masterpiece!”
The competition jury gave special commendations to Alma Har’el’s Honey Boy and Rose Glass’s Saint Maud.
Mati Diop’s Senegal-set love story drama Atlantics took home the Sutherland Award in the first feature competition. There was a special commendation in the same category for Bora Kim’s House Of Hummingbird.
Meanwhile, the Grierson Award in the documentary competition went to Rubika Shah’s documentary White Riot, about multicultural punk and reggae gigs in London in the 1970s.
The competition winners received their awards on stage from festival director Tricia Tuttle and respective jury presidents in front of a public audience at a special screening of each winning film today at Vue Leicester Square. The winner of each competition section was also awarded a commemorative 35 mm print of their winning film, provided by festival sponsor CPC London.
Tuttle said, “Our awards highlight the most distinctive, urgent and accomplished filmmaking from around the globe and it has been an incredible Festival – with audiences moved, provoked and dazzled by these films, many of which engage with pressing social and political themes in very inventive ways.
“We are hugely grateful to our juries for their time this week in picking the award winners. I know the quality of the nominated films made many of the decisions very difficult and the juries brought a tremendous amount of passion, integrity and expertise to the deliberations.”
More than 60% of the films in London’s competition across all sections were from a female director or co-director, with 16 countries represented across the producers and co-producers.