Written by Shayan Mukherjee
Earlier this month, three screenings at the BFI London Film Festival-La Bola Negra, Artificial, and Wild Horse Nine-fundamentally transformed how I experience cinema.
For years, I was vehemently opposed to film festivals on principle.
Films do not exist to be critiqued. They do not exist to be ranked, praised, criticised, or pitted against one another in prestige sweepstakes. I watch roughly 200 films a year, and every single one leaves a mark. The soppiest rom-com can offer solace on a rainy day; the most unhinged action movie riddled with plot holes can still drop your jaw. Every completed film is a miracle of persistence, existing despite the system rather than because of it. A director spends years navigating quiet compromises, funding droughts, and endless friction just to have their vision heard above the noise. The least an audience can do is surrender to that world-flaws, eccentricities, and all-for two hours. That process of surrendering, of losing yourself in other perspectives, is inherently uncompetitive. No film is any less valuable than another.
As a filmmaker myself, I know the visceral sting of having your work passed over for an award. It is nearly impossible not to conflate rejection with a verdict on your personal voice, your craft, and your self-worth. Too often, the triumph of having made something true to yourself gets eclipsed by the vanity of a podium.
So, it is no exaggeration to say that I walked through the doors of the magnificent Royal Festival Hall with a mix of trepidation and frustration.
What I encountered dissolved that cynicism entirely.
The audience inside wasn’t there to adjudicate; they were there to champion every film they watched. In a culture saturated with reviews and hot takes, the atmosphere at Southbank Centre was defined by pure, collective receptivity. Viewers were acutely aware of the privilege of being in the room with some of the most talented individuals in the filmmaking industry. Rather than dissecting what they watched, each film was greeted with raucous applause and profuse, sincere encouragement.
It was a vital reminder of why we gather in dark rooms with strangers in the first place. Cinema isn’t a tournament. It is a shared shelter.
It is in that spirit of celebration that I want to reflect on La Bola Negra, Wild Horse Nine, and Artificial. Each gave me something distinct, and each deserves to be met entirely on its own terms.
La Bola Negra
I opened my festival run with the Gala Premiere of La Bola Negra, fresh off its Best Director win at Cannes. Before the lights dimmed, the filmmakers (Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, colloquially referred to as Los Javis) took to the stage alongside Penelope Cruz, Miguel Bernardeau, and Guitarricadelafuente to ground the audience in the historical context informing their work.
Hearing Los Javis speak about the impact of Federico García Lorca, a homosexual playwright operating during the Spanish dictatorship, was profoundly moving. Lorca, murdered by nationalist forces at the dawn of the Spanish Civil War, left behind just three surviving pages of an unfinished play titled La Bola Negra. Los Javis took on the weight of that silence, conceptualising a sprawling triptych story that spans generations and reframed Lorca’s unfinished fragment as a totem of both artistic expression and queer resilience across modern Spanish history.
That preamble enriched the viewing experience, transforming the screening into an act of collective remembrance. Across two hours, the film unfolded with ferocious emotional clarity, guiding an audience-many likely unfamiliar with the specifics of this history-directly into the fear, quiet defiance, and enduring solidarity of those communities. When the credits rolled, the Royal Festival Hall erupted with deafening, cathartic applause.
Main takeaway: The raw, unashamed vulnerability of the writing and performances. By threading three distinct eras together, the film charts how each protagonist grapples with their sexuality against a conservative landscape that isn’t shifting as much as it claims to be. Watching these men conceal their identities, survive them, and endure being reduced to them-when their lives held so much else-cut deep. It ultimately forces a confrontation with our own present: how much progress have we genuinely made, and how much intolerance has simply learned to express itself with more subtlety?
Wild Horse Nine
Despite having performed in one of Martin McDonagh’s stage plays, I went into Wild Horse Nine having somehow missed The Banshees of Inisherin and his earlier cinematic work. Largely unfamiliar with his unique brand of dark tragicomedy, the film hit me like a ton of bricks–bracingly funny, desolate, and profound.
Set against the beautiful, largely uninhabited Easter Island, the narrative moves between pitch-black comedy, an estranged Father-and-son dynamic, and an existential political thriller. At its centre is an astonishing performance by John Malkovich as an aging CIA veteran who is slowly losing his grasp on reality. Malkovich disappears completely into the character’s unravelling psyche. Her unearths astounding layers: the weight of unresolved guilt over his past killings, an absolute cynicism regarding the ability of the common man to resist institutional cruelty, and sudden, razor-sharp flashes of lucidity that cut through his vacant demeanour to remind you just how lethal he once was. Opposite him, Sam Rockwell proves the perfect comedic and dramatic foil; their rapport crackles with effortless chemistry.
Main takeaway: The naturalism of the dialogue. For all its grand, philosophical themes, the film functions ay its best as a character study disguised as an off-kilter “hangout” movie. The conversations roam across fatherhood, moral decay, political paralysis, and the futility of performative protests, yet none of it ever feels written to make a point . You sit with these two men on a remote island, laughing through grim revelations, only to be ambushed by an ending that leaves you grappling with uncomfortable questions long after the screen cuts to black.
Artificial
None of the expectations I brought into Artificial prepared me for something that daringly unhinged. Equal parts tech satire and psychological horror, the film acts as a scathing indictment of the blind vanity steering modern Silicon Valley, gambling with our collective futures.
The opening act disarms you completely. For the first forty minutes, it is breezy, fast-talking, and entertaining, populated by arrogant founders who are convinced that they are on the cusp of a life-changing, epoch-defining invention. Gradually, the comedy is stripped away to reveal a portrait of profound moral decay. The film’s dramatisation of Sam Altman paints him as a hollow prophet, insulated by sycophants, entirely indifferent collateral damage so long as his company’s profits continue to grow.
Main takeaway: The sharpness of its pacing and tone. The descent from euphoria into paranoia mirrors the exact trajectory of our collective perspective on AI: the honeymoon phase where we viewed the phenomenon as a breakthrough tool, followed by the cold dread of realising what we’ve actually unleashed.
All three of these films did what cinema at its best is designed to do: they challenged assumptions, stirred deep empathy, and lingered long after the lights came up. More than that, the festival environment itself dismantled my long-held skepticism. Watching these stories alongside hundreds of receptive strangers was a testament to why communal filmgoing matters: it requires us to drop our defenses and allow ourselves to be taken in by a director’s vision. Most importantly, these events present an opportunity for celebration.
After all, there is a reason they are called “festivals”.
