Daniel Kaluuya’s Feature Directorial Debut ‘The Kitchen’ to Close London Film Festival

The 2023 BFI London Film Festival has landed the world premiere of a much-hyped project from one of the U.K.’s biggest stars.

The Kitchen, co-directed by Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya in their feature debuts and co-written by Kaluuye and Murtagh, will close the festival Oct. 15.

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The Netflix feature, starring Kane Robinson, Jedaiah Bannerman, Hope Ikpoku Jr, Teija Kabs, Demmy Ladipo, Cristale and BackRoad Gee, is set in a dystopian London, where the gap between rich and poor has been stretched to its limits. All forms of social housing have been eradicated and only The Kitchen, a community that refuses to move out of the place they call home, remains. The story centers on Izi (Robinson), living there by necessity and desperately trying to find a way out, and a 12-year-old Benji (Bannerman), who has lost his mother and is searching for a family, as they struggle to forge a relationship in a system that is stacked against them.

“We both grew up in London, and The Kitchen is a love letter to our city, so it’s a true honor to premiere it here, in our hometown, on the closing night of BFI’s London Film Festival,” said Tavares and Kaluuya. “Starting a decade ago as a workshop in a local Barbershop, the film’s journey from script to screen has been a continued collaboration between us, and the community of cast and crew that came to make up our “Kitchen,” including our two amazing leads Kane Robinson and Jedaiah Bannerman whose performances anchor the heart of our story. Together we have aimed to make something fresh, thoughtful and cinematic — an allegory and homage to the residents of ‘The Kitchen’ in every city in the world.”

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