The full 2022 BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val line-up has been announced

Cel­e­brat­ing pas­sion­ate and inspired glob­al film­mak­ing, the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val has put forth a robust and mul­ti­fac­eted range of 164 fea­tures for its 66^th edi­tion, which runs 5 – 16 Octo­ber. These will run across the festival’s icon­ic flag­ship venue, BFI South­bank, the South­bank Centre’s Roy­al Fes­ti­val Hall, as well as select cin­e­mas and venues in London’s West End and across the country.

Cut­ting this year’s Fes­ti­val rib­bon is Roald Dahl’s Matil­da the Musi­cal (a big screen adap­ta­tion of the smash-hit stage musi­cal) which will screen at Roy­al Fes­ti­val Hall on 5 Octo­ber. Rian Johnson’s fol­low-up to Knives Out, Glass Onion, will wrap up the fest on 16 Octo­ber. Ani­ma­tion lovers are espe­cial­ly in for a treat this year, with Guiller­mo del Toro’s Pinoc­chio and Car­toon Saloon’s My Father’s Drag­on mak­ing their world pre­mieres at LFF.

“Secur­ing world pre­mieres for their own sake is nev­er an aim of our audi­ence-fac­ing Fes­ti­val,” says Fes­ti­val Direc­tor Tri­cia Tut­tle, who explains that this year’s selec­tion of 22 world pre­mieres, includ­ing films from Asif Kapa­dia, Edward Lovelace, Neil Maskell and Nora Twom­ey, is the rich­est in the festival’s his­to­ry. ​“It is an hon­our that these film­mak­ers and artists entrust us help them to launch their beau­ti­ful work. And this is, at least in part, down to the pas­sion and com­mit­ment of our audiences!”

Make sure to add our 95^th cov­er film, Park Chan-wook’s Deci­sion to Leave, to your view­ing cal­en­dars. Oth­er excit­ing titles include Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winning Tri­an­gle of Sad­ness, Car­la Simón’s Gold­en Bear-win­ning Alcar­ràs, Lau­ra Poitras’ Nan Goldin doc, All the Beau­ty and the Blood­shed, Noah Baumbach’s White Noise, Marie Kreutzer’s Cor­sage, Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light, Joan­na Hogg’s The Eter­nal Daugh­ter, Mia Hansen-Løve’s One Fine Morn­ing, Lucien Cas­taing-Tay­lor and Ver­e­na Paravel’s De Humani Cor­poris Fabrica.

The organ­is­ers are push­ing for gen­der par­i­ty and diver­si­ty across all the the­mat­ic strands that make up the Festival’s struc­ture. As ever, these strands – Love, Debate, Laugh, Dare, Thrill, Cult, Jour­ney, Cre­ate, Exper­i­men­ta, Fam­i­ly, Trea­sures and Shorts – are in place to encour­age dis­cov­ery and open up the Fes­ti­val to new audi­ences. Fol­low­ing the suc­cess of last year’s tele­vi­sion strand, this year’s Series Spe­cial Pre­sen­ta­tion will host eight new series, includ­ing world pre­mieres of new TV work by Jez But­ter­worth, Alexan­der Cary and Hugo Blick.

A spe­cial­ly curat­ed pro­gramme of 25 fea­tures will be avail­able between 14 – 23 Octo­ber for audi­ences across the whole of the UK on BFI Play­er as part of LFF for Free. The wide-rang­ing open access pro­gramme is made up of short films, immer­sive art­works, pan­el dis­cus­sions, film­mak­er Q&As, book launch­es and more.

Final­ly, Waterloo’s famous street art haven, the Leake Street tun­nel, is host­ing the third iter­a­tion of LFF’s Expand­ed Immer­sive and XR strands. Expect a polit­i­cal­ly charged selec­tion of 20 immer­sive works, instal­la­tions, live per­for­mances and audio expe­ri­ences by artists work­ing with vir­tu­al, aug­ment­ed and mixed real­i­ty media, expand­ing the breadth of cin­e­mat­ic storytelling.

The 66^th BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val runs from 5 – 16 Octo­ber, 2022. Vis­it bfi​.org​.uk or the full programme

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