With its positioning in October after the likes of Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Toronto and Telluride have helped anoint most of the year’s buzziest and most talked about films, the BFI London Film Festival has long been an event where many of these films come together in one place for the first time. This year’s LFF is no exception, kicking off on Oct. 7 with the European premiere of “Elsinore” and a lineup including the likes of “Club Kid,” “Wild Horse Nine,” “The Debut,” “Ink,” “La Bola Negra,” “Primetime,” “Tender Loving Care” and many, many more.
But over the last few years, the LFF has also risen to become one of the most important first stops in awards season. For many, it’s now effectively the unofficial starter gun for the race, at least from an international perspective. Because alongside 12 days of public-facing screenings, for voters there’s now also wall-to-wall FYC screenings, tastemaker events, Q&As and cocktails. Filmmakers and stars who would previously turn up solely for their premiere are now given tightly-packed, days-long schedules in which they’re ferried between events to talk about their work and pose for selfies.
It’s something that festival director Kristy Matheson is well aware of, and says the festival’s increasingly important awards status just as the season kicks into gear is something that has been long in the works.
“I feel like where the festival is positioned now is really a testament to the former directors of the festival and how they really worked very hard to put this particular stop in the calendar on the map for people,” she says. “Obviously, there’s an enormous amount of awards voters who who are here in the U.K., but also the U.K. is a really important market for film releases.”
Matheson isn’t wrong about voters, who in the weeks before the festival have seen their inboxes stack up with invites to special events.
According to figures released last year, London had the largest concentration of AMPAS voters outside of the U.S, with some 800 — 7% of the total — residing in the U.K. Across Europe, the number more than doubles to 1,750 or 15%, with many expected to fly in for the festival. And these are figures that are only rising as the Academy expands its global outreach.
For Matheson, alongside the festival’s public events, having all the extra activity around the side “feels like a vote of confidence” in both the LFF and its selection of films.
“We don’t play films that we don’t really believe in or films where we don’t think we can help them find their perfect audience,” she says. “But it’s enormously satisfying that it feels like there is a vote of confidence from the industry in the festival.”
The awards focus is something that the festival has also been able to capitalize on itself with its scheduling, not least with its Screen Talks. This year sees arguably its biggest crop of names to date, with Andrew Scott, Cynthia Erivo, Sophia Coppola, Javier Bardem, Brad Bird, John Malkovich, Ava DuVernay, Naomi Ackie, Danny Boyle, Robert Eggers and James Gray sitting down for hour-long discussions. Several of these are already being touted as likely Oscar nominees.
“Most of them of here with a film,” says Matheson of the Screen Talk stars, who adds that, unlike the standard FYC Q&As about a specific title, these talks are often more of a career conversation, something generally more preferable for talent.
Of course, there another key factor as to why LFF has become awards season’s international launch pad: London itself.
It’s a capital that has long held the position as one of the world’s biggest filmmaking hubs, a status underlined with each and every major Hollywood tentpole that shoots there (the film many expect may become the most successful of all time, “Avengers: Doomsday,” filmed primarily in Pinewood). As Matheson notes, that means that much of the industry either lives in the city or has, at some point, probably worked in it.
“The whole world is here — it’s the epicenter of culture,” she says. “And, for filmmakers, they’re bringing their films to an audience that is incredibly savvy.”
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