London Film Festival 2025 wrap – the asianculturevulture experience: Sholay, Hamlet, Giant and High Wire, more…

Our reflections from covering this year’s 69th edition…

SEEING ‘Sholay’ in a new remastered 4K print on the country’s largest screen was something special and brought the curtain down for us at this year’s London Film Festival.

The packed theatre at the British Film Institute (BFI) Southbank IMAX – said it all, though it was very English, ie very passive – no cheering or whooping…

We all heard Shivendra Singh Dungarpur from India’s Heritage Film Foundation explain how this great epic, made in 1975, and described by some in the West as a ‘curry western’, was restored in all its glory with a new Director’s Cut – a slightly altered closing sequence and two scenes that had been deleted, now restored.

The changes were not in themselves seismic, and the production is pristine and the sound and music, utterly glorious.

Director Ramesh Sippy’s direction, Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan excelling in the lead roles of Veeru and Jai, respectively, and the wide cinematic shots of the landscape of Ramanagara, Karnataka give it all a powerful edge, as Sippy explores that eternal tension of the Rural V the City and of course, Good V Evil.

Jai and Veeru are two low level petty criminals who are engaged in a revenge plot hatched by police chief Thakur Baldev (Sanjeev Kumar) who is fighting to keep the village safe from bandit Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan) and his gang.

Every name in this film now is an icon of Indian cinema – indeed there was sad news on Monday (October 20) when it was reported that Asrani, who plays the inept and comic jail chief with a Hitler-like moustache in the film, had passed away.

‘Sholay’ is an involving story with Veeru, the extrovert and cheeky chappie trying to win the heart of the village belle – Basanti (Hema Malini) – an overtalkative horse and cart driver – while the quiet, introverted Jai ( Amitabh Bachchan) has eyes for only for Radha (Jaya Bachchan) – and Khan as outlaw Singh is one of the great villains of cinema anywhere…

Dungarpur explained to www.asianculturevulture.com that Ramesh Sippy, the director had requested the film’s originals to be found during Lockdown (April 2020) – that set off a search – which yielded results in London and in Mumbai – with this film there in not great condition, found as it was in a shed; however, this allowed the films to be sent off to Italy, where a specialist company was able to restore and put back part of the ending that had fallen foul of the censors.

It’s worth remembering the film came out at one of the darkest periods of Indian political history, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi announced Emergency, suspended Democracy and threw lots of her political opponents in jail without trial.

The film’s simple but absorbing narrative about two not so bad guys (still petty thieves) taking on the vicious and merciless bandit Gabbar Singh, had deep resonances at a subconscious level and reminded people that the good fight is worth fighting for – even if it comes at considerable cost – because future generations will be spared and liberated…

And so what of the rest of the festival (October 8-19), we saw quite a few films, interviewed Riz Ahmed and Aneil Karia about their ‘Hamlet’ (video pending), which had its homecoming screening in London and is centred around a Hindu, well to do property development family, whose heir apparent Hamlet (Ahmed) is inconsolable over the sudden death of his father, sees a ghost (in this production, the ghost is visualised and speaks in Hindi – in most theatre productions – there is only the voice).

Of course, for the rationalists, this is all symbolic – the mental turmoil of grief induces a powerful psychosis in Hamlet, as he believes his father was actually murdered by his uncle (Claudius – Art Malik) who has now hastily announced nuptials with the widow, Hamlet’s mother (played by Sheeba Chaddha).
For those of you who enjoy your Shakespeare, this is something to savour; for others, it may be a harder ride, but Karia’s visceral, unflinching direction and Ahmed’s powerful cultural embodiment of a young man, lost in time and place, could still work.

His acv interview comments certainly throw light on his connection and his identification with the central character. We will publish in full at the time of its release on February 6 next year in the UK.

Almost at the other end of the scale in terms of accessibility is Rowan Athale’s ‘Giant’ – we were able to talk to the cast on the Red Carpet on Saturday (October 18) about their film.

A biopic on World Champion British boxer, ‘Prince’ Naseem Hamed, this is a brilliant, even handed tale of unimaginable success – a British immigrant story of power and majesty.

Told perhaps more from Brendan Ingle – another immigrant (Irish) and his trainer’s perspective, this doesn’t really take sides – the two fell out – and that is covered in the film – great ensemble acting; and would be shocked if Pierce Brosnan didn’t get an Oscar nomination – he is fantastic as the unorthodox, socially conscious boxing coach based in Sheffield, who had never trained a world champion before Hamed, whom he spotted when he was very young, dodging the racist bullies.

In a similar vein, the unexpected gem was ‘High Wire’ – shades here of ‘Billy Elliot’ – the makers of ‘Giant’ allude to it directly – and ‘Bend it Like Beckham’.

At the heart of this story set in Yorkshire is a british Chinese girl dreaming of stardom as a skater but has to work all hours in her father’s Chinese takeaway…

Her mother has gone and is but an inspiring memory…while her Dad just dreams of his daughter becoming a lawyer and not having to go anywhere near a Spring Roll.

It’s when a circus comes to the next village that Go-Wing sees an opportunity.

Calif Chong’s first feature is a delight. Read our review…

At the launch, we interviewed a number of directors – do watch those short red carpet style interviews and search out those films – among them Ahmed Jamal’s still powerful and highly relevant 1987 ‘Hotel London’ featuring Jonathan Pryce – and about an Asian family made homeless by the financial turmoil of the time.

Then there’s British Kiwi James Lucas’ ‘Moss & Freud’, also quietly powerful and Lucas is a first-time feature director to watch.

We didn’t see ‘Hamnet’ – the film that many said brought them to tears – we did, however, thrillingly for us, see Chloe Zhao at a screen talk and the Oscars buzz has already begun… Her way through indie filmmaking and blurred lines between fact and fiction were informative, as was her admission of neurodiversity…see here.

We also heard Jon M Chu – the director of ‘Wicked‘ who talked about what inspired him and when asked about his next project after ‘Wicked: For Good‘ – release date November 21 – said that he remains fascinated by the Tim Rice British musical, ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dream Coat‘ – watch this space!

So that’s a wrap, read all our reviews and everything in between… if you want the complete and comprehensive lowdown.

Thanks for getting so far down and all your interest and feedback – (do comment on our video interviews, especially if you have now seen those films!)
Goodbye for now…

Sailesh Ram, editor www.asianculturevulture.com (Bird No1)

Interview videos to follow: Giant and Hamlet (talking about LFF screening)

The directors we spoke to at launch…top: Andy Serkis (Animal Farm); Ahmed Jamal (Hotel London), Nabhaan Rizwan (Party Animal), James Lucas (Moss & Freud) Bottom: Yemi Bamiro (director – Black is Beautiful; The Kwame Braithwaite Story and Joanna Boateng producer), Rowan Athale (Giant); Hugh Stubbins (Writer – Moother Goose) – click on picture to go to Youtube Asianculturevulture to view…

Interview (s): Imran Perretta for ‘Ish’ – on Instagram speaking to Sailesh Ram and in Venice speaking to Tatiana Rosenstein – interviews are different…

Songs of Forgotten Trees interviews on on YouTube channel from Venice (world premiere screening)

Films reviewed: (from most recent): Blue Moon, Rental Family, Nouvelle Vague, Supernature, Saipan, Ish (full page), After The Hunt, Sentimental Values, My Father’s Shadow, Jay Kelly, Sirat, Dreams, High Wire, Khartoum, Hotel London (full page), Songs of Forgotten Trees…(all featured at LFF, though a few we saw in Cannes at their world premiere screenings)…

BFI LFF award winners –

https://www.bfi.org.uk/london-film-festival/news/award-winners-2025-bfi-london-film-festival