This year’s London Breeze Film Festival runs from 21-25 Oct. I am reviewing a handful of films from this year’s 11th edition, with its biggest in-cinema programme to date.
Such A Vivid Imagination (Ina Lüders, 2026)
Written by David Fedash.
The dangers of the countryside and nature are the topic of Celia’s school talk at the start of Such A Vivid Imagination, a film showing as part of the London Breeze Film Festival.
Celia (Sheherazade Farrell) lives with her mother (Laura Ashcroft), but when a secret comes to light, she heads to the woods where something unsettling happens.
With her cousins, Kerry (Nancy Breheny) and Hannah (Cherry Walters), Celia retreats into a world of troubled adolescence and fractured reality.
The last third of the film is more of a murder mystery where the three children try to piece together what happened to the body in the bushes. Tied in with bedtime discussions about puberty and tense exchanges with the neighbourhood boys, Such A Vivid Imagination looks into how growing up is never easy.
Although Farrell is very good as Celia, who lets flights of fancy rule her life and fill her loneliness, the screenplay wanders around and takes a long time to get going to the interesting twin mysteries. It’s a family folk tale that takes time to unwind.
Filmed in a very realistic style, without any flourishes in its grading or settings, Such A Vivid Imagination is best explored as a glimpse into the teenage psyche. The adult characters (Dad – Simon Chadwick, Mum, and a few shopkeepers) are rarely featured, and only in a partial form of overheard conversations and arguments, or misconstrued situations.
By the ending, we see the reality behind the situation; the mystery is solved, and we are more than a little bit shocked. This is a film that builds on its own intelligence and leaves us guessing to the closing moments.
Such A Vivid Imagination is the Gala Closing Film at the London Breeze Film Festival at Riverside Studios, 25 Oct.