By contrast, the Seattle International Film Festival, my hometown festival, turned 50 in 2024, the Toronto International Film Festival turned 50 in 2025, the New York Film Festival--which coincides with LFF--turned 60 in 2022, and the Cucalorus Film Festival, for which I've been serving on the narrative judging committee, turned 30 in 2024.
Though LFF excludes the word "International," this year's festival includes 251 films from 88 countries, including 33 world premieres. Of those premieres, the most notable, from a PNW perspective, is Travis Knight's adaptation of writer/musician Colin Meloy and illustrator Carson Ellis's 2011 fantasy novel, Wildwood, produced by Oregon animation studio Laika (Kelly Reichardt adapted stories from Colin's sister, Maile Meloy, into 2016's Certain Women).
Compared to Cannes and Venice, LFF is relatively young, but of the festivals with which I'm most familiar, it's the oldest. If you haven't heard much about it, though, that's because it may have many high-profile films, but it doesn't have the highest-profile premieres. Instead, though it's a competitive festival, unlike NYFF, it's more about programming that culls from the best of the competitive festivals in a world-class city with ample opportunities to see actors and directors in person, whether at screenings, events, or as part of the Screen Talk series.
This year's jury presidents include Sam Pollard (MLK/FBI), Amir El-Masry (Giant), Sandhya Suri (Santosh), and Helen Simmons (100 Nights of Hero). The Official Competition includes judges Julie La Bassiere (DDA Global) and Mariano Llinás (La Flor, Trenque Lauquen), who will be at LFF with the 324-minute documentary Life of Jorge Luis Borges. Julia Loktev's 370-minute My Undesirable Friends: Part II - Exile will also be at LFF, though I doubt I'll have time for either. Jury award winners will be announced on Oct 18.
I don't arrive in London until Oct 8, so I won't be able to make it to the Oct 7 Talks with Sofia Coppola or Andrew Scott either, though I'm hoping to make it to Eleanor Coppola's documentary Making Marie Antoinette, which was completed by Sofia Coppola, and Simon Stone's Elsinore, the opening night film, in which Scott plays actor Ian Charleson, who gave his final performance in Richard Eyre's Hamlet before succumbing to complications from AIDS eight weeks later (I've been watching Netflix's Ripley to prepare).
This year's lineup also includes 109 female filmmakers or 43%, which is estimable, though 49% of SIFF 2026's filmmakers identified as female or nonbinary. I don't know if LFF counts female and nonbinary filmmakers in the same way, but I'm always happy to root for the home team when I can.
Though most of LFF's lineup includes films that haven't opened in the States, even if they've played other festivals, there are exceptions. If anything, I was surprised to find that Boots Riley's I Love Boosters hadn't opened in the UK. It opened SIFF in May, and I recommend it, unless you're allergic to bright colors, absurdist humor, or collective action. Riley came to Seattle with the film, but not with any of the cast members. Naomi Ackie, on the other hand, will be at LFF, though I don't know if she'll be at all three screenings. She's also doing a Screen Talk I hope to attend on Oct 10.
More: Lance Oppenheim's Primetime opened in the States on Sept 25; I wrote about it for The Stranger. (His Elizabeth Holmes documentary with Nathan Fielder, You Can See Everything, is also making the festival rounds, though it isn't playing LFF.) Hanna Bergholm's folk horror Nighborn, another new-to-the-UK title, opened in July and is now streaming on Shudder. I'll have more to say about Bergholm's second feature in a subsequent post.
There a few other films that fit this category, but there's something about seeing a film, any film, in a country other than your own that enhances or alters the experience, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that plays out.
LFF 2026 runs from Oct 7-18 at venues across London. Please see the festival site for more information. Poster images: the BFI and Kinoafisha