{"id":571769,"date":"2026-08-17T14:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T14:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/571769\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T14:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T14:26:09","slug":"london-film-festival-2026-competition-lineup-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/571769\/","title":{"rendered":"London Film Festival 2026 Competition Lineup Announced"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe 70th edition of the BFI London Film Festival<\/a> has revealed its official competition, with 10 titles set to compete for the best film award.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 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. <\/p>\n

\n\tAmong the film are news works from Hirokazu Kore-eda, Sergei Loznitsa, Carol Morley, Lili Horv\u00e1t, Benjam\u00edn 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<\/a>, Monica Bellucci, Mackenzie Davis<\/a>, Rupert Friend and Johnny Flynn. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs we celebrate the 70th edition of the BFI London Film Festival, it\u2019s an honour to have a number of alumni filmmakers represented in the Official Competition alongside those making their first appearance at the festival,\u201d said festival director Kristy Matheson. \u201cOur 2026 competition selection brings an astounding array of filmmaking styles to the screen. As ever, it\u2019s been creatively nourishing for myself and the team to encounter each of these works \u2014\u00a0we\u2019re excited to share these with audiences in October.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 10 films in the official competition are:<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c7 Miles Out\u201d\u00a0(UK, Dir-Scr. Carol Morley)\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tCarol Morley (\u201cDreams of a Life,\u201d \u201cThe Falling\u201d) adapts her moving semi-autobiographical novel, which documents her adolescence in\u00a0Stockport\u00a0during the 70s and 80s. Morley\u2019s film follows Anne, who struggles to come to terms with her beloved father\u2019s suicide and finds escapism in the emerging of new-wave punk movement. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAct 3\u201d (Ireland-UK, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe latest in Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor\u2019s series of cinematic essays is a rich and thought-provoking journey through aging,\u00a0legacy\u00a0and the intersection between artistic and personal relationships.\u00a0Molloy and Lawlor (\u201cBaltimore,\u201d 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. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGlaxo\u201d (Brazil-Argentina, Dir. Benjam\u00edn Naishtat)<\/p>\n

\n\tAn act of betrayal between a close group of friends has terrible consequences in Benjam\u00edn Naishtat\u2019s atmospheric period-noir thriller. Four young men in the provincial Argentine city of\u00a0Chivilcoy\u00a0find 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cImperium\u201d (Germany-France-Italy-Lithuania, Dir. Sergei Loznitsa)<\/p>\n

\n\tArchival footage master filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa reframes Soviet history once again, via the revealing gaze of Italian\u00a0cameramen\u00a0who captured\u00a0life there\u00a0in the early 1970s. The footage Loznitsa uncovered at Rome\u2019s Audiovisual Archive of the Labour and Democratic Movement left him marvelling at the contrast with official Soviet productions from the same era. <\/p>\n

\u201cKettic\u00e8\u201d (Italy, Dir. Giovanni Tortorici)<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing his debut with\u00a0\u201cDiciannove\u201d\u00a0(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\u2019s dismay (particularly his endlessly frustrated mother, brilliantly played by Monica Bellucci). <\/p>\n

\u201cLook Back\u201d (Japan, Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)<\/p>\n

\n\tSpanning more than a decade, Hirokazu Koreeda\u2019s 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\u00a0Kymoto, a shy admirer of her work.\u00a0Seemingly 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy Notes on Mars\u201d (Hungary-Austria, Lili Horv\u00e1t)<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Lili Horv\u00e1t\u2019s beguiling third feature, the sudden return of Sam\u2019s 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\u00a0home but\u00a0is not herself; all memories, save for those of her recent research on Mars, have mysteriously disappeared. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Difficult Bride\u201d (France-Bangladesh-Portugal-Norway-Germany, Rubaiyat Hossain)<\/p>\n

\n\tA 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.\u00a0Zaineen\u00a0is\u00a0very excited\u00a0about 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\u00a0body,\u00a0and she experiences strange changes and omens. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Idiot(s)\u201d (U.K.-Poland, Dir. Malgorzata Szumowska, Michal Englert)<\/p>\n

\n\tAimee Lou Wood and Johnny Flynn play Anna and Fyodor Dostoevsky in Ma\u0142gorzata\u00a0Szumowska\u00a0and Micha\u0142 Englert\u2019s acerbic and joyful period film. Anna Dostoevsky loves her husband Fyodor. Fyodor loves his wife, but he also loves gambling and\u00a0booze. Living in self-exile in Germany, Fyodor\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cWoman Unknown\u201d (Denmark-Latvia-Sweden, Dir. May el-Toukhy)<\/p>\n

\n\tMarie, a young nanny and\u00a0housemaid, 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\u2019s past threatens to catch up with her, and she is forced to do everything in her power to preserve her new status as\u00a0lady of the house\u00a0in post-war anarchy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 70th BFI London Film Festival takes place from Oct 7 \u2014 Oct 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 70th edition of the BFI London Film Festival has revealed its official competition, with 10 titles set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[26621,430,156,58051,281806,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-571769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-aimee-lou-wood","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-london-film-festival","tag-mackenzie-davis","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}