London Film Festival Adds Pics From John Woo, Alex Gibney, Venice

The BFI London Film Festival has added four titles to its lineup, including three fresh from the Venice Film Festival and one that heads to New York at the end of this month.

Alex Gibney’s No Stone Unturned will screen in LFF’s Debate strand. From Jigsaw Productions and Fine Point Films, the documentary reopens the case of the 1994 Loughinisland massacre in Northern Ireland. A murder mystery, it’s a true-crime investigation that uncovers a shocking case of collusion and cover-up. The doc has its world premiere at the New York Film Festival; this will be the international debut. Gibney’s Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, about clerical sex abuse, won the LFF’s Grierson Award for Best Documentary in 2012.

Also in the Debate section, Xavier Legrand’s two-time Venice winner Custody (Jusqu’à la Garde) is a tense drama about a woman who has recently left her husband and doesn’t want her youngest to see a father she claims is violent. But the judge rules otherwise, and the boy becomes a pawn in a bitter parental conflict. Legrand, who was nominated for an Oscar with 2014 short Avant Que de Tout Perdre, took the Best Director and Best First Feature prizes on the Lido earlier this month.

Another Venice winner, Nico, 1988, is joining the inaugural Create section. Directed by Susanna Nicchiarelli, it’s a biopic of the final two years in the often tragic life of the frustrated artist and iconic performer Nico, who’s played by Danish star Trine Dyrholm. The film took the top prize in the Horizons sidebar at Venice.

John Woo’s Manhunt, an Out of competition Venice title, is a return to the director’s hard-boiled style of action and will screen in LFF’s Thrill section. A contemporary remake of the 1976 Japanese classic that starred Woo’s idol Ken Takakura, the story centers on a Chinese man who is framed for murder in Japan and tries to clear his name as he dodges a police manhunt and the attacks of mysterious assailants. The pic, which world premiered in Venice, releases in China on November 24.

The London Film Festival runs October 4-16. Click here for the previously announced lineup.