70th BFI London Film Festival programme launch: On the red carpet with the filmmakers

Now celebrating its 70^th year, the BFI London Film Festival has officially unveiled its programme for the 2026 edition, taking place from 7^th to 18^th October 2026. With it brings a line-up of films comprising entries from 88 countries featuring over 250 titles spanning diverse genres and different cinematic visions. The festival launch brought together a host of filmmakers on the red carpet, ready to frame the narrative around their work on debut feature films, compelling documentaries, shorts and immersive productions.

The Upcoming had the pleasure of attending the event at the BFI Southbank, where we spoke to writer and director Carol Morley about her film, 7 Miles Out, the premise behind her story and the cast she chose to portray a deeply personal venture.

We also spoke to Anthony Wonke about directing his film, In the Shadows, a true story about a pioneering female Somalian boxing champion who rose to prominence against the odds of her family and the challenges she faced.

Grace Harper-Brighouse chatted about her feature, Dependence, and the exploration of family addiction and patriarchal relationships that she delves into through this project.

Acclaimed producer Hannah Patterson spoke about collaborating with the writers on the film, Act 3, a portrayal of their own lives and those of surrealist artists. She spoke about the documentation of their lives and translating that for screen, as well as how she shaped their stories for audiences.

Filmmaker Olive Nwosu told us about her film, Lady, and how exciting it was to head back to her home town in Nigeria to shoot the project, the way in which the landscape was constantly evolving both in terms of the visuals and in which women are gaining agency there.

We then had the chance to speak to Calvin Demba, Tuli Litvak and Sheila Nortley about their film The Animals. They spoke about the fantastic cast that helped tell their story and the interesting way in which they explored gender and masculinity in their work.

Clio Barnard and Enda Walsh discussed their vision and collaboration on the film, I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning. Set in Birmingham, it explores the journey of five friends facing struggles in the city and the way in which music and friendship offer salvation.

Shalini Adnani and Sara Bonakdar spoke about their film, Our Share of Sand, and centring their story around family and the struggle between loyalty and conscience. They also talked about what it meant to be at the BFI film festival this year showing their work and how they’d collaborated together to bring it to screen.

Talking about his documentary on Adam Pearson called Zero Intention of Living Quietly, Edward Lovelace discussed how much he loved the BFI film festival, how pleased he was to be back this year to showcase his new documentary and why he felt it was such an interesting and important story to tell.

Luca Milillo spoke about working on his new film, Bundle, a psychological horror written by his brother. He talked about how it was crafted and where the story came from.

Ezelle Alblas

The 70^th BFI London Film Festival takes place from 7^th to 18^th October 2026.