The 68th London Film Festival, like the past three years, unfolded against a backdrop of profound grief and relentless turmoil. In 2021, the loss of Hamidreza Sadr, the influential Iranian film critic, cast a sombre shadow over the festival, followed by the harrowing youth protests of 2022 in Iran, where countless lives were shattered in the fight against injustice and for freedom. Last year, tragedy struck anew with the unsolved murders of Dariush Mehrjui and his wife, Vahideh Mohammadifar, alongside a wave of loss within Iranian cinema, marked by the deaths of beloved actors and the devastating suicide of director Kiumars Pourahmad. This year, the ongoing Gaza war weighed heavily, with its rising death toll, unrelenting cycle of violence, and the looming threat of its expansion into Iran and the broader region. Amidst such sorrow, the festival became more than a celebration of cinema—it was a fleeting respite and a moment for reflection, where art intersected with the anguish of the world outside.
For the past three years, I have written about this cinematic celebration in the form of letters—some addressed to the living, others to those we have lost. This year, however, I felt compelled to write to my four-month-old daughter. At the outset, I owe an apology to my wife—for stubbornly clinging to the ritual of cinema, for refusing to surrender this annual pilgrimage even as we stumble through the uncharted chaos of early parenthood. And then, to my daughter, Nikoo, I wanted to write about the beauty that cinema brings. I wanted to tell her about its magic—that it is more than just moving images on a screen. Cinema can entertain you, thrill you, and transform the way you see the world. It can liberate you, crack open windows and doors you never knew existed, offer you solace, hope, and understanding. It has the power to calm your heart and make you smile.
I wanted, above all, to whisper hope into her life and to remind her, over and over again, that even in these most troubled of times, there is still beauty to be found—perhaps nowhere more powerfully than in the shared experience of watching a story unfold on screen. I wanted to constantly whisper hope to her, as if from Rumi’s verses:
A sun’s own servant, of the sun I speak,
No man of night, no night-adorer meek,
To tell of dreams that fading visions keep.
A sun’s envoy, in ways of rendering true,
From it I ask in secret, answer bring to you
But alas, what a sorrowful reflection on my own state, these relentless times, and the deepening pessimism that has crept over me like an unshakable shadow. It has robbed me not only of hope and solace but has even stifled my desire to write that letter. Films, which once stirred my soul and ignited boundless emotions, now pass before me like fleeting images, leaving me untouched. I can’t say if it’s the weariness of middle age settling in or the weight of living through these bitter days, with their unrelenting truths that are as harsh as they are inescapable.
I find myself disillusioned with people—each step forward only deepens my fear and frustration, and the world feels increasingly bereft of joy. If I am honest, the state I see in myself, in so many of my fellow countrymen, and indeed in so many others across the globe, seems far more aligned with the sombre closing verses of Rumi’s poem than with its hopeful opening lines:
If the envious inquire, my heart shrinks from delight,
To plaints I turn, of sorrow and of fright.
My tongue I hold, a heart consumed I keep,
Lest yours should burn, if of its flames I speak
I wished I could write to my daughter about the films of her birth year, to capture something of this fleeting moment in time. Yet I cannot help but wonder—will she, ten or fifteen years from now, share this same fascination with cinema and its nuances as I do? Will moviegoing, as I know it, even exist in her world, or will the inexorable rise of artificial intelligence redefine the very essence of the art form? Will her grasp of Persian be strong enough to read these words, or will the whirlwind of life and history erase this text entirely, like so much dust swept away?
Even if the answers to these questions are disheartening—and I suspect they are—something within me insists on preserving a fragment of my emotions and state of mind in this report, much like the filmmakers of this year embed themselves into their work. Perhaps unconsciously, as I sifted through the films of this season, I found myself drawn to moments, scenes, and themes that reflected my own internal weariness, my distrust of the world, and the exhaustion of navigating these unsteady times. It is no stretch to say that my experience of these films became a mirror of my own anxieties, a canvas onto which I projected my fears and fatigue.
If, one day, my daughter—or someone else, driven by curiosity—looks back at the notable films of 2024 and this London Film Festival, they might see traces of her father in them. She might notice how many filmmakers, like her father, were grappling with uncertainty, disillusionment, and despair, as though these films held a dialogue with the collective anxiety of the age. Perhaps she will think her father sought out his own reflections in these stories, that he rummaged through the films of the year and, whether consciously or not, crafted a narrative of the festival that mirrored his troubled state of mind.
And maybe, just maybe, she will understand—understand how cinema, even when heavy with despair, can still hold a flicker of connection and catharsis.
***
This year’s festival opened with Blitz, Steve McQueen’s latest exploration of human endurance and fragility. Set during the German air raids on Britain in World War II—a period memorialized under the very name “Blitz”—the film begins as my heart wrestles with turmoil. My mind is restless, pulled from the screen to the tragedies unfolding in real time: the devastating war in Gaza with over fifty thousand lives lost, the staggering toll of more than half a million deaths in Ukraine, and the chilling whispers of further escalation. The sense of helplessness is suffocating; the world seems indifferent, paralyzed by its inability—or unwillingness—to stop these spirals of destruction.
World Wars I and II, with their monumental destruction and collective trauma, are Europe’s recurring cinematic haunt, a historical nightmare to which their filmmakers ceaselessly return. Yet for the people of the Middle East, war is not a distant spectre—it is a present and lived reality, a constant feature of daily life. McQueen, however, uses the Blitz as more than a historical reenactment of London’s devastation; he threads through it his own persistent concerns about humanity’s darker nature. Beneath the veneer of national unity and collective resilience, Blitz exposes the cracks in the façade. Racism—ever insidious—persists even amid the rubble. McQueen amplifies this with a harrowing subplot: a black child’s desperate search for his mother leads him through wartime London’s underbelly, where survival brings out grotesque inhumanity. Criminal gangs, far more sinister than Dickens’ Fagin, loot bodies crushed under the ruins, severing fingers to collect jewellery—a chilling testament to how war accelerates the decay of morality and compassion.
McQueen’s vision reminds us that war, for all its grand narratives of heroism and solidarity, is at its core an agent of ruin—physical, moral, and spiritual. It spreads darkness, magnifies human cruelty, and obliterates the very values we claim to defend. And as I sit there watching London fall, the parallels gnaw at me: outside that cinema hall, another world is still burning. A world where some eagerly stoke the flames of war, and others watch passively, as though anticipating its inevitable spread. War, in all its guises, reveals who we are—and perhaps that is the most terrifying truth of all.
With this in mind, I find myself questioning the very purpose of these films. A scene in Blitz—claustrophobic and harrowing—depicts people seeking refuge in an underground metro station during a night of bombardment, only to find themselves trapped, struggling to survive as floodwaters rise. It is undeniably powerful, but to what end? These films neither prevent war nor awaken the conscience of their audiences. They no longer incite action or serve as a warning. Instead, they exist as sombre elegies, offering yet another depiction of historical suffering for the privileged viewer—another worry to add to the ever-growing collection of distant tragedies.
What does it all amount to? The early decades of the 20th century were consumed by war, and now, in the early decades of the 21st century, we are following the same bloody trajectory. The same nations that mourn their past traumas on screen—their Blitz, their battles, their victories—now fund and fuel conflicts elsewhere. Those who once united to stop Hitler now stand by as economic extremism, racism, and anti-immigrant fervour spread unchecked. Genocide continues with chilling ease, and we have come full circle, only to find ourselves trapped in the same patterns of violence and indifference that have defined humanity for centuries.
The images of human suffering—beamed endlessly through television screens, mobile phones, and cyberspace—no longer shock us. News of suicides, massacres, imprisonments, and protests roll across our timelines in predictable, unrelenting waves. The repetition has numbed us, collectively drowning us in apathy. Gone are the days when a single image—like the execution of a man in Vietnam or the fiery self-immolation of a Buddhist monk—could ignite global outrage and action. We live in a world where suffering is not only constant but diluted by its relentless visibility. These films, for all their artistry and intention, feel like echoes in an empty room—testimonies to a grief no longer felt deeply enough to provoke change.
No, we haven’t become better people, and we haven’t learned our lessons. These films haven’t changed the world, nor will they. Did Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice prevent Trump’s rise to power? Did those who understood the horrors depicted in Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here, revisiting the brutal years of Brazil’s military dictatorship, manage to stop voters from electing a president who openly glorified being a torturer just a few years ago? The answers are bitterly clear. We remain trapped in an unbreakable cycle—one where history’s darkest chapters are not heeded as cautionary tales but instead resurface as grim reminders of our collective inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to change.
These thoughts lingered throughout the festival, gnawing at me as I watched film after film, forcing me to confront something profoundly uncomfortable: I have become the very person I once opposed in my youth. Those weary souls who had given up on humanity’s future, whose cynicism and resignation I swore I would never share. And yet, here I am, in middle age, walking the same path of disillusionment, my doubts and despair mirroring theirs. I can no longer escape the unsettling question: Was I wrong to bring an innocent child into a world so drenched in fear, turmoil, and uncertainty? This question haunts me, its weight growing heavier with every moment of reflection.
If, one day, my daughter looks her mother and me in the eye and says, “You were good people, good parents,” I dread the weight of what might follow. That unspoken accusation. That silent, inevitable but—a single word loaded with more blame than any outburst could carry. “But why did you bring me into this? Into a world like this?” What answer could I possibly give her? What defence is there when hope feels so threadbare, when the cycle of suffering turns with such brutal inevitability?
And if, in her frustration, she were to recite Rumi’s verse to lay her blame upon me:
A cord you flung, and lifted me on high,
Now I drift in air, that cord broken by.
Pleade look for Part 2