BFI London Film Festival unveils 2021 programme

Pablo Larrain’s Spencer, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter and Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch are among the 159 features that will play the 65^th BFI London Film Festival (LFF, October 6-17), which will also screen the first two episodes of the third season of HBO’s Succession, making it the European premiere of the anticipated series.

The festival will play 21 world premieres in its feature programme, including Sarah Smith and Jean Philippe-Vine’s Ron’s Gone Wrong, the first feature from UK animation studio Locksmith Animation.

Titles will play both at cinemas in London and UK-wide at 10 LFF partner venues, with select virtual premieres also hosted on the BFI Player online platform.

In a first for the festival, gala titles will play each night at the Royal Festival Hall in London’s Southbank Centre as part of the festival’s new Southbank hub that will also include BFI Southbank. The Royal Festival Hall has a capacity of 2,700; its usage for LFF will be over 2,000, with the exact number to be confirmed.  Audience capacity is yet to be confirmed.

“In early 2020, we set out how we would build on the vibrant established film programme at LFF to expand the festival,” said LFF director Tricia Tuttle. “While we had to adapt those ambitions for the pandemic, we are back in full force this year and you’ll really see that vision played out in the model for the Festival this year.”

Spencer, The Lost Daughter and The French Dispatch are three of 11 Headline Gala titles playing at the festival, alongside Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta, and Edgar Wright’s London-set Last Night In Soho.

Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard, with Will Smith playing Richard Williams, father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams; and Eva Husson’s Mothering Sunday are also in the line-up.

Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir: Part II will play as the Londoner Gala, with Jane Campion’s The Power Of The Dog a previously-announced Gala selection.

Also playing at the venue will be 12 Special Presentations, including Julia Ducournau’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner Titane; Clio Barnard’s Ali & Ava; Craig Roberts’ The Phantom of the Open; and the Succession episodes.

Competition

For the second successive year, the LFF awards ceremony will take place online, with prizes including the best film, first feature and audience awards, as well as the IWC Schaffhausen Filmmaker Bursary in association with the BFI.

This year’s First Feature Competition includes Costa Brava Lebanon, set in a near-future Lebanon where the refuse crisis has made Beirut uninhabitable, from Screen Arab Star of Tomorrow 2016 Mounia Akl; and Lee Haven Jones’ Welsh-language horror The Feast.

Andrea Arnold’s Cannes title Cow, Alonso Ruizpalacios’ hybrid documentary A Cop Movie and Liz Garbus’ Becoming Costeau are among eight titles in the Documentary Competition.

The festival is maintaining the thematic strands from previous additions: Love, Debate, Laugh, Dare, Thrill, Cult, Journey, Create, Experimenta, Family and Treasures. For the first time this year, many of the strands will feature series titles.

LFF Expanded, the programme of immersive and extended reality works, also returns, with titles including the world premiere of Laika, a virtual reality animation from Oscar-winning filmmaker Asif Kapadia. The LFF Expanded section will have a physical exhibition at 26 Leake Street and the National Theatre in London, as well UK-wide and internationally on virtual exhibition space The Expanse.

The 159 features in the line-up this year is down from the 229 that played in 2019. (Last year’s pandemic-era online edition screened 58 features). The festival said 39% of feature films in the 2021 selection are by female and non-binary directors or co-directors, while 40% are made by ethnically diverse filmmakers.

“I’m in awe of all of the filmmakers across the world who have found the ways and means – practical, creative, emotional – to get their stories told in such challenging and turbulent times and I want audiences to immerse themselves in the sweet glow of the cinema screen and celebrate their very existence,” said BFI CEO Ben Roberts.

Netflix title The Harder They Fall, the debut feature of London filmmaker Jeymes Samuel, was previously announced as opening the festival in its world premiere; with Joel Coen’s Shakespeare adaptation The Tragedy of Macbeth closing the festival in its European premiere. Both films will be available at LFF partner cinemas across the UK.

For full details on the programme and booking, head to the festival’s site.