Kneecap (2024)World premieres include Amrou Al-Kadhi’s Layla and Mikko Mäkelä’s Sebastian in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition, with other festival strands to screen Rich Peppiatt’s Kneecap and Molly Manning Walker’s How to Have Sex, all supported through the BFI Filmmaking Fund.
In addition, Gary Hustwit’s documentary Eno, supported via the UK Global Screen Fund International Co-production strand, will screen in New Frontiers. Other UK films receiving their world premieres are Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding, Chris Smith’s Devo, Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun, Christopher Jenkins’s 10 Lives and the documentary Super/man: The Christopher Reeve Story from filmmakers Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui.
“We are delighted to see that four features supported by the fund have been selected to premiere at Sundance,” says Mia Bays, director of the BFI Filmmaking Fund. “A showcase for the crème-de-la-crème of international indie film, and such an important launchpad for these special films. We exist to nurture filmmakers with unique and distinctive visions who have something important to share with the world, and Kneecap, Layla, Sebastian, and How to Have Sex are perfect embodiments of that. We couldn’t be happier for them and for everyone involved. It is also wonderful to see international co-production Eno, which is supported by the UK Global Screen Fund, also heading to Utah. Another stellar crop for 2024!”
BFI Filmmaking Fund
Kneecap
Ireland-UK (world premiere)
Writer/director: Rich Peppiatt
Producers: Jack Tarling, Trevor Birney
Starring: Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin, JJ Ó Dochartaigh, Michael Fassbender, Josie Walker, Simone Kirby.
There are 80,000 native Irish speakers in Ireland. 6,000 live in the North of Ireland. Three of them became a rap group called Kneecap. This anarchic Belfast trio becomes the unlikely figurehead of a civil rights movement to save the mother tongue.
Layla
UK (world premiere)
Writer/director: Amrou Al-Kadhi
Producer: Savannah James-Bayly
Starring: Bilal Hasna, Louis Greatorex, Safiyya Ingar, Darkwah, Terique Jarrett, Sarah Agha
When Layla, a struggling Arab drag queen, falls in love for the first time, they lose and find themself in a transformative relationship that tests who they really are.
Sebastian
UK-Finland- Belgium (world premiere)
Writer/director: Mikko Mäkelä
Producer: James Watson
Starring: Ruaridh Mollica, Hiftu Quasem, Ingvar Sigurdsson, Jonathan Hyde, Leanne Best, Lara Rossi
Max, a 25-year-old aspiring writer living in London, begins a double life as a sex worker in order to research his debut novel.
How to Have Sex
UK
Writer/director: Molly Manning Walker
Producers: Ivana MacKinnon, Emily Leo, Konstantinos Kontovrakis
Starring: Mia McKenna-Bruce, Samuel Bottomley, Shaun Thomas, Lara Peake, Enva Lewis, Laura Ambler
Three British teenage girls go on a rite-of-passage holiday, drinking, clubbing, and hooking up in what should be the best summer of their lives. As they dance their way across the sun-drenched streets of Malia, they find themselves navigating the complexities of sex, consent, and self-discovery.
UK Global Screen Fund: International Co-Production
Eno
US-UK (world premiere)
Director: Gary Hustwit
Visionary musician and artist Brian Eno – known for producing David Bowie, U2, Talking Heads, among many others; pioneering the genre of ambient music; and releasing over 40 solo and collaboration albums – reveals his creative processes in this groundbreaking generative documentary: a film that’s different every time it’s shown.
