BFI London Film Festival pick of the day – Liyana

Nick Roddick picks his lesser known must-see for tomorrow, Saturday October 7
Part real, part mythical: Liyana
Nick Roddick6 October 2017

The festival’s middle weekend has traditionally been the time for a key bit of audience building, with kids’ films programmed in many venues during the daylight hours.

The festival’s films are, of course, a long way from the ice princesses and talking cars that make up the children’s menu in most cinemas. But it’s hard to see how kids could fail to respond to Liyana, executive-produced by Thandie Newton, the part-documentary, part-animated story of a brave young girl created and told by a group of orphaned Swaziland kids under the insistent tutelage of South African children’s author Gcina Mhlophe (that’s the documentary part).

As they create and plot Liyana’s adventures, the character comes to life in a series of gorgeously coloured drawings (that’s the animation part). The world in which Liyana lives is part real – poverty, an abusive drunken father, mother dying of AIDS – and part mythical: she is accompanied on her travels by a talking cow and most cross crocodile-infested rivers).

It’s a testament to the power of the story and the enthusiasm of the kids’ storytelling that it takes a while to register that the drawings do not move – and to realise that this contributes to rather than detracts from the enchanting power of the film.

Screening: Saturday, 15:30, Curzon Soho; also Monday, 13:30, NFT3

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