BFI London Film Festival Welcomes Steve McQueen, Andrea Arnold And Mike Leigh As The 2024 Line-Up Is Revealed

La Biennale and TIFF haven’t truly and well started, and there’s already another film festival on the horizon we can look forward to as the BFI London Film Festival revealed their official programme for the 2024 edition. Over twelve days, from the 9th of October until the 20th of October, the festival will present 253 features, shorts, series and immersive works, which will be screened in person in different cinemas throughout the UK and online.

And what a star-studded programme it is! From Steve McQueen’s World War II Blitz, starring Saoirse Ronan and Harris Dickinson, as the opening film, to Palme d’Or-winner Anora by Sean Baker and from Andrea Arnold’s heartbreaking but also mystical Bird to Hard Truths by director Mike Leigh, which will be this year’s BFI Patrons’ Gala. Other headline galas included eagerly anticipated films such as We Live in Time (dir. John Crowley), Conclave (dir. Edward Berger) and Nightbitch (dir. Marielle Heller). The festival doesn’t only welcome back prominent alumni filmmakers such as François Ozon (When Fall is Coming), Pablo Larraín (Maria) and Sam Mendes (The Franchise) but also embraces new filmmaking talent with their first feature competition. In that strand, we find the mesmerizing debut features of Neo Sora (Happyend), Sylvia Le Fanu (My Eternal Summer), and Ariane Labed (September Says).

This year, you once again will be able to discover thought-provoking, transformative and thrilling movies in the different strands: Love, Laugh, Debate, Thrill, Dare, Journey, Cult, Create, Family, Experimenta and Treasures.

As previously announced, the BFI Film Festival will also host Screen Talks, in-depth conversations with renowned directors, actors, and other leaders in contemporary films, including Andrea Arnold, Mike Leigh, Steve McQueen, Daniel Kaluuya, Lupita Nyong’o, Zoe Saldaña, and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, Denis Villeneuve.

London’s BFI Southbank and The Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall will once again be the home of the festival. At the same time, cinemas across central London and the UK, including Curzon Soho, The Prince Charles Cinema, Institute of Contemporary Arts, HOME, Showroom Cinema and more, will showcase a curated selection of movies.

Tickets for the BFI London Film Festival 2024 go on sale on the 17th of September here (the 10th of September for BFI Members and the 13th of September for American Express Cardmembers), so you have plenty of time to discover the full line-up here:

BFI London Film Festival 2024 trailer | BFI

Headline Galas

Opening Night Gala – Blitz (Writer/Director Steve Mcqueen)
Closing Night Gala – Piece By Piece (Director Morgan Neville)
American Express Gala – Elton John: Never Too Late (Directors R.J. Cutler, David Furnish)
BFI Patrons’ Gala – Hard Truths (Writer/Director Mike Leigh)
Cunard Gala – Joy (Director Ben Taylor)
Family Gala – That Christmas (Director Simon Otto)
The Mayor Of London’s Gala – We Live In Time (Director John Crowley)
Anora (Writer/Director Sean Baker)
The Apprentice (Director Ali Abbasi,)
Bird (Writer/Director Andrea Arnold)
Conclave (Director Edward Berger)
Emilia Pérez (Writer/Director Jacques Audiard)
Maria (Director Pablo Larraín)
Nightbitch (Writer/Director Marielle Heller
The Room Next Door (Writer/Director Pedro Almodóvar)

Special Presentations

Experimenta Special Presentation – The Ballad Of Suzanne Césaire (Director Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich)
Documentary Special Presentation – Dahomey (Writer/Director Mati Diop)
BFI Flare Special Presentation – A Nice Indian Boy (Director Roshan Sethi)
Treasures Special Presentation – Silent Sherlock (Directors Maurice Elvey)
All We Imagine As Light (Writer/Director Payal Kapadia)
Endurance (Directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin and Natalie Hewit)
Harvest (Director Athina Rachel Tsangari)
I’m Still Here (Director Walter Salles)
Nickel Boys (Director Ramell Ross)
The Piano Lesson (Director Malcolm Washington)
Queer (Director Luca Guadagnino)
A Real Pain (Director-Screenwriter Jesse Eisenberg)
The Seed Of The Sacred Fig (Writer/Director Mohammad Rasoulof)
The Wild Robot (Writer/Director Chris Sanders)

Official Competition

April (Writer/Director Dea Kulumbegashvili)
Bring Them Down (Writer/Director Christopher Andrews)
The Extraordinary Miss Flower (Directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard)
Four Mothers (Director Darren Thornton)
Living In Two Worlds (Director Mipo O)
Memoir Of A Snail (Writer/Director Adam Elliot,)
On Becoming A Guinea Fowl (Writer/Director Rungano Nyoni)
Thank You For Banking With Us (Writer/Director Laila Abbas)
Under The Volcano (Director Damian Kocur)
Vermiglio (Writer/Director Maura Delpero)
The Wolves Always Come At Night (Director Gabrielle Brady)

Memoir Of a Snail - Official Trailer | HD | IFC Films

First Feature Competition

Crocodile Tears (Writer/Director Tumpal Tampubolon)
Hanami (Director Denise Fernandes)
Happyend (Writer/Director Neo Sora)
Last Swim (Director Sasha Nathwani)
My Eternal Summer (Director Sylvia Le Fanu)
Olivia & The Clouds (Writer/Director Tomás Pichardo Espaillat)
On Falling (Writer/Director Laura Carreira)
Santosh (Writer/Director Sandhya Suri)
September Says (Writer/Director Ariane Labed)
To A Land Unknown (Director Mahdi Fleifel)
Who Do I Belong To (Writer/Director Meryam Joobeur)

Documentary Competition

Collective Monologue (Writer/Director Jessica Sarah Rinland)
Holloway (Directors Sophie Compton and Daisy-May Hudson)
Kamay (Directors Ilyas Yourish and Shahrokh Bikaran)
Mother Vera (Directors Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson)
Rising Up At Night (Writer/Director Nelson Makengo)
Seeking Mavis Beacon (Director Jazmin Jones)
The Shadow Scholars (Director Eloise King)
Witches (Writer/Director Elizabeth Sankey)

Short Film Competition

Adura Baba Mi (Writer/Director Juliana Kasumu)
Cold Snap (Writer/Director Ellen Evans)
Dragfox (Director Lisa Ott)
I Don’t Want To Be Just A Memory (Director Sarnt Utamachote)
Magic Candies (Director Nishio Daisuke)
Mother’s Day (Writer/Director Emily Burnett)
See It, Say It (Writer/Director Nez Khammal)
Stomach Bug (Writer/Director Matty Crawford)
Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?) (Director Suneil Sanzgiri)
Vibrations From Gaza (Writer/Director Rehab Nazzal)

Love

All Of You (Director William Bridges)
All Shall Be Well (Writer/Director Ray Yeung)
At Averroes & Rosa Parks (Director Nicolas Philibert)
Grand Tour (Director Miguel Gomes)
I’m Your Venus (Director Kimberly Reed)
Motherboard (Writer/Director Victoria Mapplebeck)
Patrice: The Movie (Director Ted Passon)
Pavements (Writer/Director Alex Ross Perry)
Queens Of Drama (Director Alexis Langlois)
Sex (Writer/Director Dag Johan Haugerud)
Tarika (Director Milko Lazarov)
Weightless (Director Sara Fgaier)
When Fall Is Coming (Director François Ozon)
When The Light Breaks (Writer/Director Rúnar Rúnarsson)

Debate

2073 (Director Asif Kapadia)
Black Box Diaries (Director Shiori Itō)
The Cats Of Gokogu Shrine (Director Kazuhiro Soda)
Families Like Ours (Series Creator-Director Thomas Vinterberg)
I Am Nevenka (Director Icíar Bollaín)
The Invasion (Writer/Director Sergei Loznitsa)
Israel Palestine On Swedish TV 1958-1989 (Writer/Director Göran Hugo Olsson)
Julie Keeps Quiet (Director Leonardo Van Dijl)
The Listeners (Series Creator-Screenwriter Jordan Tannahill)
Three Kilometres To The End Of The World (Director Emanuel Pârvu)
Youth (Homecoming) (Director Wang Bing)

Laugh

Audrey (Director Natalie Bailey)
The Gutter (Directors Isaiah Lester and Yassir Lester)
The Other Way Around (Director Jonás Trueba)
Rumours (Directors Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson)
Sofa, So Good (Writers/Directors Kyle Thiele, Eli Thiele and Cole Thiele)
A Traveler’s Needs (Writer/Director Hong Sangsoo)
Triumph (Directors Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov)
Universal Language (Director Matthew Rankin)

Universal Language - Official U.S. Trailer - Oscilloscope Laboratories HD

Dare

Bionico’s Bachata (Director Yoel Morales)
Caught By The Tides (Director Jia Zhangke)
Cidade; Campo (Writer/Director Juliana Rojas)
Don’t Cry, Butterfly (Writer/Director Dương Diệu Linh)
Eight Postcards From Utopia (Writers/Directors Radu Jude and Christian Ferencz-Flatz)
Familiar Touch (Writer/Director Sarah Friedland)
My Stolen Planet (Writer/Director Farahnaz Sharifi)
The Nights Still Smell Of Gunpowder (Writer/Director Inadelso Cossa)
Pepe (Writer/Director Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias)
Praia Formosa (Director Julia De Simone)
Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hourglass (Writers/Directors Quay Brothers)
Soundtrack To A Coup D’êtat (Writer/Director Johan Grimonprez)
Sugar Island (Writer/Director Johanné Gómez Terrero)
Viêt And Nam (Writer/Director Trương Minh Quý)

Thrill

Aïcha (Writer/Director Mehdi M. Barsaoui)
Architecton (Writer/Director Victor Kossakovsky)
La Cocina (Writer/Director Alonso Ruizpalacios)
Eat The Night (Directors Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel)
Ghost Trail (Director Jonathan Millet)
Maldoror (Director Fabrice Du Welz)
Marco, The Invented Truth (Directors Aitor Arregi and Jon Garaño)
Misericordia (Writer/Director Alain Guiraudie)
Skincare (Director Austin Peters)
Stranger Eyes (Writer/Director Yeo Siew Hua)
A Thousand Blows (Series Creator-Screenwriter Steven Knight)

Cult

The Balconettes (Director Noémie Merlant)
Chain Reactions (Writer/Director Alexandre O. Philippe)
Fréwaka (Writer/Director Aislinn Clarke, Ireland)
Sister Midnight (Writer/Director Karan Kandhari)
The Surfer (Director Lorcan Finnegan)
The Wailing (Director Pedro Martín-Calero)
The Weekend (Director Daniel Oriahi)

THE SURFER (2024) - Official Trailer (HD) - Nicolas Cage

Journey

After The Long Rains (Writer/Director Damien Hauser)
Baby (Director Marcelo Caetano, Brazil)
Eephus (Director Carson Lund)
Flow (Director Gints Zilbalodis)
Good One (Writer/Director India Donaldson)
Layla (Writer/Director Amrou Al-Kadhi)
Look Into My Eyes (Director Lana Wilson)
My Everything (Writer/Director Anne-Sophie Bailly)
Sebastian (Writer/Director Mikko Mäkelä)
Shambhala (Writer/Director Min Bahadur Bham)
Sujo (Writers/Directors Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez)
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (Directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui)
Treading Water (Writer/Director Gino Evans)
The Village Next To Paradise (Director-Writer/Director Mo Harawe)

Create

Abiding Nowhere (Director Tsai Ming-Liang)
Ernest Cole: Lost & Found (Writer/Director Raoul Peck)
Grand Theft Hamlet (Writers/Directors Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane)
It’s Not Me (Writer/Director Leos Carax)
One To One: John & Yoko (Directors Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards)
Pauline Black: A 2-Tone Story (Director Jane Mingay)
The Stimming Pool (The Neurocultures Collective (Sam Chown Ahern, Georgia Bradburn, Benjamin Brown, Robin Elliott-Knowles, Lucy Walker), Steven Eastwood)
Superboys Of Malegaon (Director Reema Kagti)
Twiggy (Director Sadie Frost)
Two Strangers Trying Not To Kill Each Other (Directors Jacob Perlmutter and Manon Ouimet)
The Way We Talk (Director Adam Wong Sau-Ping)

Experimenta

The Treasury Of Human Inheritance (Writer/Director Alexis Kyle Mitchell,)
I Don’t Want To Be Just A Memory (Director Sarnt Utamachote)
Forms Of Circulation #1 (Writers/Directors Paul Stewart and Sarah Perks)
The River That Never Ends (Writer/Director Jt Trinidad)
Notes: Remembered And Found (Writer/Director Maria Anastassiou)
Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?) (Director Suneil Sanzgiri)
File No. 2304 (Writer/Director A.S.M. Kobayashi)
At The Verge Of Wordlessness (Writer/Director Alaa Abu Asad)
Avant Seriana (Writer/Director Samy Benammar)
Nido De Crocodilo (Writer/Director Jazmin Rojas Forero)
Non/Living (Writer/Director Müge Yildiz)
Two Stones (Director Noel Meek)
Hexham Heads (Writers/Directors Chloë Delanghe and Mattijs Driesen)
The Flesh Of Language (Writer/Director Amanda Rice)
Hemel (Director Danielle Dean)
Our Lady Who Burns (Writer/Director Alice Dos Reis)
Direct Action (Directors Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell)
A Fidai Film (Director Kamal Aljafari)
Undr (Director Kamal Aljafari)
A Night We Held Between (Writer/Director Noor Abed)
No Exorcism Film (Writer/Director Komtouch Napattaloong)
Small Hours Of The Night (Writer/Director Daniel Hui)

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story | Official Trailer

Experimenta Works In Progress:

15 Iranian Years (Adonia Bouchehri)
Ctrl+Z (Parwana Haydar)
The Krueger Institute (Mahenderpal Sorya)
I Am A Dale (Edd Carr)

Shorts

Trouble (Director Sarah Blok)
Pigs (Director Julia Jackman)
Cold Snap (Director-Screenwriter Ellen Evans)
Us Four (Director Alex Peake)
Mother’s Day (Writer/Director Emily Burnett)
Space(S) (Writer/Director Luke ‘Frsh’ Fannin)
Two Minutes (Writer/Director Jamie Benyon)
Midnight Rising (Director Aileen Ye)
Iranian Yellow Pages (Director Anna Snowball)
Irpinia (Director Jameisha Prescod)
Adura Baba Mi (Writer/Director Juliana Kasumu)
Travelling Home (Writer/Director Juliet Klottrup)
Roots That Reach Toward The Sky (Director Jess X. Snow)
Red Soil (Director Joshua Ighodaro)
Salone Love (Director Tajana Tokyo)
Not Surgery Hours (Director Tia Salisbury)
The Nobody (Director Razan Madhoon)
Happy Meat (Writer/Director Matt Green)
Gender Reveal (Writer/Director Mo Matton)
Dragfox (Director Lisa Ott)
Bob’s Funeral (Writer/Director Jack Dunphy)
The Real Thing (Writer/Director Charlie Fink)
Sylvia (Writer/Director Tárá Ayeni)
Mosquito Lady (Writer/Director Kristine Gerolaga)
The Awakening (Director Al Campbell)
Outside Noise (Director Ethan Evans)
Stomach Bug (Writer/Director Matty Crawford)
Dream Creep (Writer/Director Carlos A.F. Lopez)
Hermit (Director Daniel Raggett)
Karavidhe (Writer/Director Eoin Doran)
Rhoda (Director Alex Lawther)
Fierce-Ish Grace (Director Amaya Owen Rowlands)
In Heat (Writer/Director Rory Fleck Byrne)
See It, Say It (Writer/Director Nez Khammal)
And Granny Would Dance (Writer/Director Maryam Mohajer)
A Short Film About Kids (Writer/Director Ibrahim Handal)
Dawn Every Day (Writer/Director Amir Youssef)
Liminal Roots (Director Aliyah Harfoot)
What’s The Film About? (Writer/Director Poorva Bhat)
Vibrations From Gaza (Writer/Director Rehab Nazzal)

LFF Expanded

Impulse: Playing With Reality (Lead Artist – Anagram)
Arcade (Lead Artist – Darkfield)
Last Minute (Lead Artists – Adrien M & Claire B)
Superradiance. Embodying Earth (Lead Artists – Memo Akten and Katie Peyton Hofstadter)
The Great Endeavour (Lead Artist – Liam Young
Mammary Mountain (Lead Artists – Tara Baoth Mooney, Camille Baker and Maf’j Alvarez)
Emperor (Lead Artists – Marion Burger and Ilan J. Cohen)
Soul Paint (Lead Artists – Sarah Ticho and Niki Smit)
Stim Cinema (Lead Artists – The Neurocultures Collective And Steven Eastwood)
A Highland Song (Inkle Studios)
Playing Kafka (Charles Games)
Paper Trail (Newfangled Games)
Dome King Cabbage (Joe Buchholz, Cobysoft Co)
Closer The Distance (Osmotic Studios)

Family

Blink (Directors Edmund Stenson and Daniel Roher)
The Colours Within (Director Naoko Yamada)
Savages (Director Claude Barras)
Watership Down (Director Martin Rosen)

Animated Shorts For Younger Audiences

Coo-Rage (Director Alina Milkina)
Love At First Waf (Directors Louise Le Toullec and Helene Gouil)
Who’s Wrong? (Directors Stina Wirsén and Linda Hambäck)
The Brave Locomotive (Director Andrew Chesworth)
The Odd Carrot (Director Inese Pavēne)
Freelance (Directors Luciano A Muñoz Sessarego, Magnus I. Møller and Peter Smith)
The Child Of The Waves (Directors Valentine Hilarin, Gaelle Bejjani, Yuhan Wang, Martin Gross, Noam Szwarc and Sofian Pourquery-De-Boisserin)
Hello Summer (Writers/Directors Martin Smatana and Veronika Zacharová)
Magic Candies (Director Nishio Daisuke)