The 2021 BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val line-up has been announced

Fol­low­ing an all-vir­tu­al affair in 2020, the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val will return to its full glo­ry for its 65^th edi­tion, wel­com­ing 159 fea­tures from around the world to its flag­ship venue BFI South­bank and the South­bank Centre’s Roy­al Fes­ti­val Hall, as well as select cin­e­mas in London’s West End and 10 satel­lite venues across the UK.

As pre­vi­ous­ly announced, the LFF will open on 6 Octo­ber with the world pre­mière of Jeymes Samuel’s Black west­ern The Hard­er They Fall, with Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Mac­beth clos­ing pro­ceed­ings on 17 Octo­ber. Across those 12 days audi­ences will be able to soak up some of the best new films from this year’s fes­ti­val cir­cuit as well as 21 world premieres.

Most excit­ing­ly, the main pro­gramme is com­prised of 39 per cent female-cre­at­ed work, with 40 per cent made by eth­ni­cal­ly diverse direc­tors. And as before, BFI Play­er will host vir­tu­al screen­ings along­side LFF for Free, an open access pro­gramme of short films, immer­sive art­works and screen talks.

Among the head­line galas are Jane Campion’s The Pow­er of the Dog, Wes Anderson’s The French Dis­patch, Joan­na Hogg’s The Sou­venir Part II, Paul Verhoeven’s Benedet­ta, Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho, Mag­gie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daugh­ter, Pablo Larraín’s Spencer, Ken­neth Branagh’s Belfast, Eva Husson’s Moth­er­ing Sun­day, Reinal­do Mar­cus Green’s King Richard, and Sarah Smith and Jean Philippe-Vine’s Ron’s Gone Wrong.

There’s also spe­cial pre­sen­ta­tions of Clio Barnard’s Ali & Ava, Ter­ence Davies’ Bene­dic­tion, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Dri­ve My Car, Apichat­pong Weerasethakul’s Memo­ria, Julia Ducournau’s Titane, Jacques Audiard’s Paris, 13^th Dis­trict, Todd Haynes’ The Vel­vet Under­ground, Craig Roberts’ The Phan­tom of the Open, Sebas­t­ian Meise’s Great Free­dom, Andrea Arnold’s Cow, Mia Hansen-Løve’s Bergman Island, Joachim Trier’s The Worst Per­son in the World, Sean Baker’s Red Rock­et and a BFI Flare screen­ing of Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Flee.

This year also sees the return of LFF Expand­ed, which fea­tures work from a host of UK and inter­na­tion­al artists work­ing in vir­tu­al, aug­ment­ed and mixed real­i­ty media. And in a first for the fes­ti­val, a new strand ded­i­cat­ed to tele­vi­sion will show­case the hot­ly-antic­i­pat­ed third sea­son of Suc­ces­sion. The reg­u­lar fea­ture film pro­gramme is organ­ised as ever by themed strands – Love, Debate, Laugh, Dare, Thrill, Cult, Jour­ney, Cre­ate, Exper­i­men­ta, Fam­i­ly and Trea­sures – to encour­age audi­ence discovery.

Fes­ti­val Direc­tor Tri­cia Tut­tle had this to say about today’s announce­ment: ​“After this last 18 months so many of us are eager for oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­nect around shared cul­tur­al events, and we’re look­ing for­ward to bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er over the 12 days of the LFF to view this tru­ly excep­tion­al pro­gramme of film, series and immer­sive art.

“These are works which have moved us, pro­voked us, made us think and feel, and made us look at the world a lit­tle dif­fer­ent­ly this year. There is absolute­ly some­thing for every­one here and we can’t wait for peo­ple to join us for BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val – whether in Lon­don, around the UK or at home.”

Tick­ets go on sale 20 Sep­tem­ber. For full pro­gramme details vis­it bfi​.org​.uk/lff