LFF Expanded explores AI, virtual reality and immersive storytelling across London Film Festival

The BFI London Film Festival is once again looking beyond the traditional cinema screen with LFF Expanded, its programme of immersive art, extended reality and video games, returning for a sixth edition this October.

This year’s programme features nine projects spanning virtual reality, mixed reality, AI and interactive gaming, with several works exploring water, climate and environmental change.

At the centre of the programme is Water Body, created by Hackney-based studio Marshmallow Laser Feast with author Robert Macfarlane. Presented at St Martin-in-the-Fields, the immersive installation traces water through landscapes, ecosystems and the human body, exploring the connections between them.

Elsewhere, Red the Ocean Around U will premiere at BFI IMAX. Created by CROSSLUCID with writer Orion Facey, the AI-guided environment changes in response to each visitor, reversing the familiar relationship with artificial intelligence by asking what happens when the technology begins posing the questions.

Environmental concerns also run through Solwata, a mixed-reality documentary narrated by Mark Ruffalo about communities in the Solomon Islands facing the effects of rising seas, and The World Came Flooding In, which uses XR to reconstruct Australian homes lost to flooding through memories and recorded sound.

The Games Lounge returns to BFI IMAX with five international titles, including dementia-themed visual novel …and Roger, handcrafted coming-of-age story The Day I Became a Bird, puzzle adventure Lofsöng, gravity-shifting platformer Love Eternal and Mixtape, which follows three friends on one final adventure together.

With works ranging from disappearing homes to responsive AI environments, LFF Expanded gives festival audiences a chance to experience storytelling through spaces and technologies that sit somewhere between cinema, games and installation art.

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Image: Courtesy of LFF Expanded

LFF Expanded takes place as part of the 70^th BFI London Film Festival, which runs from 7^th to 18^th October 2026. For more information, visit the BFI London Film Festival website.