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BFI London Film Festival

The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival held in London, England, in collaboration with the British Film Institute. The festival runs for two weeks every October. In 2016, the BFI estimated that around 240 feature films and 150 short films from more than 70 countries are screened at the festival each year.[1]

Location

London, England

1957 (1957)

Galas

Special Presentations - Focus on new works from major directors. This section includes Documentary, Experimenta, BFI Flare and other Special Presentations.

Strands

extended reality (XR)

In Competition

The Festival is organized in various sections:[68][69]

Surprise film[edit]

Derek Malcolm introduced a screening of an unannounced film during the festival each year.[26]


Surprise films have included A Chorus Line (1985), The Color of Money (1986),[26] Sideways (2004), Capitalism: A Love Story (2009), Silver Linings Playbook (2012),[70] The Grandmaster (2013), Birdman (2014), Anomalisa (2015),[70] Sully (2016),[71] Lady Bird (2017),[72] Green Book (2018)[73] Uncut Gems (2019),[74] C’mon C’mon (2021),[75] and The Menu (2022).[76] With the most recent being Ferrari (2023).[77]


For the 50th anniversary of the festival, rather than one surprise film, there were 50 screenings of a surprise film around London.[43]

The – for the most original and innovative first feature in the London Film Festival. Named after the BFI's patron, The 5th Duke of Sutherland, this award boasts recipients as noteworthy as Ray, Bertolucci, Fassbinder, Godard and Antonioni.

Sutherland Trophy

The Grierson Award – for the best feature-length documentary in the festival. This award is given jointly by the LFF and the Grierson Trust which commemorates the pioneering Scottish documentary-maker (1898–1972), famous for Drifters and Night Mail. The Grierson Trust has a long-standing tradition of recognising outstanding films that demonstrate integrity, originality and technical excellence and social or cultural significance.

John Grierson

British Film Institute Fellowship

| Old site

Official website

A brief history of the BFI London Film Festival

Every London Film Festival opening and closing night film