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The 70th edition of the BFI London Film Festival has revealed its official competition, with 10 titles set to compete for the best film award.
The films selected represent 10 countries, including the U.K., Ireland, Brazil,
Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, and Poland. The winner will be chosen by the LFF awards jury.
Among the film are news works from Hirokazu Kore-eda, Sergei Loznitsa, Carol Morley, Lili Horvát, Benjamín Naishtat, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, Giovanni Tortorici, Malgorzata Szumowska, May el-Toukhy and Michal Englert and Rubaiyat Hossain. Star names among the casts include the likes of Aimee Lou Wood, Monica Bellucci, Mackenzie Davis, Rupert Friend and Johnny Flynn.
“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,” said festival director Kristy Matheson. “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 10 films in the official competition are:
“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 Anne, who struggles to come to terms with her beloved father’s suicide and finds escapism in the emerging of new-wave punk movement.
“Act 3” (Ireland-UK, 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.
“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.
“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.
“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).
“Look Back” (Japan, Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)
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.
“My Notes on Mars” (Hungary-Austria, 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.
“The Difficult Bride” (France-Bangladesh-Portugal-Norway-Germany, 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.
“The Idiot(s)” (U.K.-Poland, Dir. Malgorzata Szumowska, Michal Englert)
Aimee Lou Wood and Johnny Flynn play 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.
“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.
The 70th BFI London Film Festival takes place from Oct 7 — Oct 18.
