BFI London Film Festival (LFF, October 7-18) has unveiled the 10 titles in its official competition, including the world premiere of UK filmmake
BFI London Film Festival (LFF, October 7-18) has unveiled the 10 titles in its official competition, including the world premiere of UK filmmaker Carol Morley’s 7 Miles Out.
7 Miles Out is the next feature from the The Falling and Typist Artist Pirate King writer-director. It adapts her semi-autobiographical novel that follows an adolescent in Stockport during the 1970s and 1980s, struggling to come to terms with her beloved father’s suicide and finds escapism in the emerging of new-wave punk movement. Lucy Halliday, Aidan Gillen and Gemma Whelan star.
Also competing for the best film prize, to be announced on October 18, are five Venice premieres.
There’s Look Back, a coming-of-age story from Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda; Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa’s archival Soviet documentary Imperium; Hungarian filmmaker Lili Horvát’s third feature, memory loss drama My Notes On Mars; Bangladeshi filmmaker Rubaiyat Hossain’s body horror The Difficult Bride; and Danish-Egyptian filmmaker May el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown, about a newborn housemaid who has progressed up the social ladder in 1945 Denmark, but is harbouring a gloomy secret.
Polish filmmakers Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert’s The Idiot(s) starring Aimee Lou Wood and Johnny Flynn is also competing. The film, about 19th century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky and his wife, has its Canadian premiere at Toronto, with a world premiere yet to be announced. It is lead produced by Gold Rush Studios. Earlier this year, the UK company opened a German office, with Berlin-based Feo Aladag as director.
Irish Baltimore filmmakers Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s Act 3 is a series of cinematic essays that explore the intersection between artistic and personal relationships and has its European premiere, with a world premiere yet to be announced.
Lucrecia Martel’s Argentine documentary Landmarks won best film at LFF in 2025.
The nominations for the Grierson Award for best documentary, the Sutherland Award for best first feature and the brief film award will be revealed in September. The winners are all selected by juries, who will be revealed in the coming weeks.
LFF 2026 competition selection
*denotes world premiere
7 Miles Out (UK)*
Dir. Carol Morley
Act 3 (Ire-UK)
Dirs. Christine Molloy, Joe Lawlor
Glaxo (Bra-Arg)
Dir. Benjamín Naishtat
Imperium (Ger-Fr-It-Lithuania)
Dir. Sergei Loznitsa
Ketticè (It)
Dir. Giovanni Tortorici
Look Back (Japan)
Dir. Hirokazu Koreeda
My Notes On Mars (Hun-Austria)
Dir. Lili Horvát
The Difficult Bride (Fr-Ban-Port-Nor-Ger)
Dir. Rubaiyat Hossain
The Idiot(s) (Ger-Pol)
Dirs. Malgorzata Szumowska, Michal Englert
Woman, Unknown (Den-Latvia-Swe)
Dir. May el-Toukhy
