The 70th BFI London Film Festival has revealed the films selected to screen in Official Competition, contending for the festival’s prestigious Best Film Award.
Competing are new films from internationally celebrated filmmakers – Hirokazu Kore-eda, Sergei Loznitsa, Carol Morley, Lili Horvát, Benjamín Naishtat, Christine Molloy & Joe Lawlor, Giovanni Tortorici, Malgorzata Szumowska, May el-Toukhy & Michal Englert, and Rubaiyat Hossain.
The 10 films in Official Competition are 7 Miles Out directed by Carol Morley, Act 3 directed by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, Glaxo directed by Benjamín Naishtat, Imperium directed by Sergei Loznitsa, Ketticè directed by Giovanni Tortorici, Look Back directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, My Notes on Mars directed by Lili Horvát, The Difficult Bride directed by Rubaiyat Hossain, The Idiot(s) directed by Małgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert, and Woman Unknown directed by May El-toukhy.
Kristy Matheson, BFI London Film Festival Director, said, “As we celebrate the 70th edition of the BFI London Film Festival, it’s an honour to have a number of alumni filmmakers represented in the Official Competition alongside those making their first appearance at the festival. Our 2026 competition selection brings an astounding array of filmmaking styles to the screen. As ever, it’s been creatively nourishing for myself and the team to encounter each of these works – we’re excited to share these with audiences in October.”
The 70th BFI London Film Festival takes place from Wednesday 7 October to Sunday 18 October 2026.
7 MILES OUT (UK, Dir-Scr. Carol Morley)
Carol Morley (Dreams of a Life, The Falling) adapts her moving semi-autobiographical novel, which documents her adolescence in Stockport during the 70s and 80s. Morley’s film follows Ann, who struggles to come to terms with her beloved father’s suicide and finds escapism in the emergence of the new wave punk movement. Featuring a soundtrack that perfectly encapsulates the era, this intimate portrait also serves as an ode to friendship, youth and the discovery of one’s creativity, as Ann grapples with grief and healing while edging towards adulthood.
ACT 3 (Ireland-UK, Dir. Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor)
The latest in Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s series of cinematic essays is a rich and thought-provoking journey through aging, legacy and the intersection between artistic and personal relationships. Molloy and Lawlor (Baltimore, LFF 2023) engage in a witty and moving conversation that explores family history and their latest project, a film about groundbreaking artists Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore. As they analyse this decades-long relationship, they identify parallels between these two artists and their own lives. Act 3 celebrates the power of connection, of artistic exploration, and the importance of memory in shaping our present and future.
GLAXO (Brazil-Argentina, Dir. Benjamín Naishtat)
An act of betrayal between a close group of friends has terrible consequences in Benjamín Naishtat’s atmospheric period-noir thriller. Four young men in the provincial Argentine city of Chivilcoy find their lives disrupted when a retired police officer and his glamorous young wife move into the area. Add two visiting American Mormons into the mix, along with a volatile political situation, and tensions soon escalate. Pitch-perfect performances and a lush score by Japanese composer Shigeru Umebayashi further distinguish Naishtat’s impressively taut drama.
IMPERIUM (Germany-France-Italy-Lithuania, Dir. Sergei Loznitsa)
Archival footage master filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa reframes Soviet history once again, via the revealing gaze of Italian cameramen who captured life there in the early 1970s. The footage Loznitsa uncovered at Rome’s Audiovisual Archive of the Labour and Democratic Movement left him marvelling at the contrast with official Soviet productions from the same era. Opening in Moscow, the film shifts into territories where different traits, beliefs, and ethnographic features emerge, revealing the power relations between natives and colonisers. The result is a compelling indictment of Russia’s historical and present-day imperialism.
KETTICÈ (Italy, Dir. Giovanni Tortorici)
Following his debut with Diciannove (LFF 2024), Giovanni Tortorici continues his collaboration with producer Luca Guadagnino on this vibrant coming-of-age story, set in early 2000s Palermo. Giulio a dissatisfied 16-year-old, drifts through life with no enthusiasm for his education or his future, much to his family’s dismay (particularly his endlessly frustrated mother, brilliantly played by Monica Bellucci). Ketticè articulately explores the challenges of adolescence, the generational divide, and the expectations placed on Giulio by the adults as he and his friends attempt to escape the monotony of their daily existence.
LOOK BACK (Japan, Dir. Hirokazu Koreeda)
Spanning more than a decade, Hirokazu Koreeda’s tender coming-of-age story follows two girls who bond over their passion for and dream of becoming manga artists. Fujino, a gifted artist and aspiring manga artist, meets Kymoto, a shy admirer of her work. Seemingly opposites, they create the perfect team with their shared love of the form. But as their work draws praise and attention, they find themselves confronted with decisions that threaten their artistic collaboration. Koreeda’s beautiful love letter to friendship and the creative process offers keen insight into the craft.
MY NOTES ON MARS (Hungary-Austria, Dir. Lili Horvát) In Lili Horvát’s beguiling third feature, the sudden return of Sam’s missing wife, who has no memory of anything except her scientific research, gives their relationship another chance. A talented scientist goes missing while hiking with her husband. Weeks later, she reappears at the family home but is not herself; all memories, save for those of her recent research on Mars, have mysteriously disappeared. This suspenseful domestic drama follows the couple as they navigate a second chance at life together, while questioning how much we can really know those we love.
THE DIFFICULT BRIDE (France-Bangladesh-Portugal-Norway-Germany, Dir. Rubaiyat Hossain)
A bride-to-be wrestles with beauty rituals, social restrictions, and supernatural forces as her dream wedding approaches, in this gripping feminist body horror from Bangladesh. Zaineen is very excited about her upcoming wedding. But she soon bristles under the many planned makeovers intended to make her thinner, fairer, sleeker and more bride-like. Resistance takes root in her body, and she experiences strange changes and omens. Filmmaker Rubaiyat Hossain crafts a taut supernatural drama that dissects the patriarchy hiding beneath the veneer of a fairytale wedding.
THE IDIOT(S) (UK, Dir. Małgorzata Szumowska, Michal Englert)
Aimee Lou Wood and Johnny Flynn are superb as Anna and Fyodor Dostoevsky in Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert’s acerbic and joyful period film. Anna Dostoevsky loves her husband Fyodor. Fyodor loves his wife, but he also loves gambling and booze. Living in self-exile in Germany, Fyodor’s biggest obstacle to creative progress is himself. Anna tries desperately to rid him of his procrastination so he can deliver a new novel and they can avoid destitution. Sending up the myth of the male genius, The Idiots is also a beautiful love story about the writer and the wife who saved him.
WOMAN UNKNOWN (Denmark-Latvia-Sweden, Dir. May el-Toukhy)
Marie, a young nanny and housemaid, is about to marry the wealthy older widower, Christian, for whom she is working. But Marie guards a shameful secret. During World War II, she was in an intimate relationship with a German soldier. Now Marie’s past threatens to catch up with her, and she is forced to do everything in her power to preserve her new status as lady of the house in post-war anarchy.
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