In the most accessible version of the BFI Film Festival to date, movie lovers can enjoy both live and digital screenings across the 12 days of the Festival.

Instead of the traditional 12-day feast of movies mainly screened in West End venues, the streamlined London Film Festival will be a predominantly virtual event between October 7 and 18. Taking place in cinemas across the UK for the first time in its 63-year history, there will be 13 film previews available to cinemagoers, to accompany more than 50 films that will be available via VOD.

 

Featuring a range of fiction, documentary, animation, artists’ moving image, and restored classics from the world’s archives, every film will be presented with an intro or Q&A. The programme will also include a range of free-to-access additional works and events such as an international short film programme, Screen Talks with major filmmakers and actors, salons and roundtables and a brand new Virtual Exhibition of XR and Immersive Art.

 

Kicking off the Festival will be Steve McQueen’s race drama ‘Mangrove’, starring Letitia Wright, on October 7. The closing gala film will ‘Ammonite’, writer-director Francis Lee’s highly-anticipated follow-up to ‘God’s Own Country’. Starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, ‘Ammonite’ will be shown for the Festival’s finale on October 18, with simultaneous screenings at cinemas across the UK and a virtual introduction from the cast.

 

The full BFI Film Festival programme will be announced at an online launch on 8 September 2020.

www.bfi.org.uk