The 63nd BFI London Film Festival has revealed the lineup of ten titles for its Official Competition, and sixty percent of the films in the bracket having a female director or co-director, and sixteen countries represented across the producers and co-producers. The members of the jury for the competition will be announced in the upcoming weeks.

There is British involvement in four of the entries, with Maxine Peake taking the title role in Fanny Lye Deliver'd, a woman living on an isolated Shropshire farm in the 17th Century with her puritain husband and young son, in writer / director Thomas Clay's third feature, while writer / director Rose Glass makes her debut with the psychological drama Saint Maud, dealing with a young nurse, played by Morfydd Clark, who has recently discovered God, being unpleasantly reminded of a dark and sinister past after a chance encounter with an old colleague. Irish directing and writing duo Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor helm the Irish / UK co-production Rose Plays Julie, with Ann Skelly as Rose, a veterinary student studying animal euthanasia, who decides to contact Julie (Orla Brady), the birth mother who gave her up for adoption, but Julie, now a successful London-based actress, doesn’t want to make contact, but Rose is undeterred and will not be ignored, while South African / UK co-production Moffie, directed by Oliver Hermanus, whose previous The Endless River played the LFF in 2015, concerns the brutal and violent persecution of gay men in South Africa during the apartheid years.

In addition, Monos, directed by Alejandro Landes, played the Cannes Film Festival to acclaim, dealing with a band of child soldiers in an unnamed South American country, waiting for orders from unseen superiors while keeping hold of their captive, a American female doctor, played by Julianne Nicholson, while Honey Boy, directed by Alma Har'el from a screenplay by Shia LaBeouf and dealing with his difficult and often emotionally abusive early years as a child actor, won the Special Jury Prize at the '19 Sundance Film Festival. La Llorona, Jayro Bustamante's adaptation of the old South American folk tale, recently featured in the US horror film The Curse Of La Llorona, sites the story in present-day Guatemala, still struggling after a civil war thirty years earlier, and also played in Venice and was a prize winner at the San Sebastián FF.

Tricia Tuttle, BFI London Film Festival Director said of the selection - "Our Official Competition showcases the best in global filmmaking. These filmmakers each have unique and distinctive voices and their films by turns reveal truths about human existence; explore stories we haven't seen before or examine familiar ones in new ways; address pressing social and political issues, and make audiences feel and think. It's striking that so many of the filmmakers here are telling strongly political stories, but never dogmatically so. We have selected 11 directors in these ten films who invite viewers to probe and ponder, to be changed – either subconsciously or wildly and irrevocably - by their work".

The 10 films in Official Competition are
Fanny Lye Deliver'd - dir-scr. Thomas Clay (UK / Germany)
Honey Boy - dir. Alma Har'el (USA)
La Llorona - dir. Jayro Bustamante (Guatemala / France)
Lingua Franca - dir-scr. Isabel Sandoval (USA)
Moffie - dir. Oliver Hermanus (South Africa / UK)
Monos - dir. Alejandro Landes (Colombia / Argentina / Netherlands / Germany / Sweden / Uruguay / USA)
The Other Lamb - dir. Magorzata Szumowska (Ireland / Belgium / USA)
The Perfect Candidate - dir. Haifaa Al Mansour (Germany / Saudi Arabia)
Rose Plays Julie - dir-scr. Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor (Ireland / UK)
Saint Maud - dir-scr. Rose Glass (UK)

The London Film Festival runs between 2nd-13th October.