London Film Festival Winners Announced

The 68th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express closed with the European Premiere of Academy Award® winning documentarianMorgan Neville’s PIECE BY PIECE, a vibrant journey through the life of cultural icon Pharrell Williams, all told through the lens of LEGO® animation.

In addition to Morgan Neville and Pharrell Williams, the event was attended by an exciting array of special guests from the worlds of music, fashion and sport. The Closing Night Gala took place at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, which returned as the Festival’s Headline Gala and Special Presentationvenue for a fourth time since its inaugural year in 2021. 

BFI London Film Festival Director Kristy Mathesonsaid:“Our biggest thanks go to the artists and industry colleagues from the UK and across the globe who fueled our collective curiosity this year. It was a delight to see audiences engage with each other and this programme – proving once again the joyand comfort we all find in screen culture.”

The Mayor of London’s Gala of WE LIVE IN TIME took place on 17th October at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall and was attended by the film’s director John Crowley and lead Andrew Garfield as well as Mayor Sadiq Khan who introduced the film andcommented on the importance of the festival to our city and the power of cinema in bringing audiences together.

Placing audiences at the heart of the Festival, the winners of this year’s LFF Audience Awards, as chosen by members of the public who saw the films during the Festival (including at UK-wide venues) are also announced today. Darren Thornton’sfunny and heartwarming comedy drama FOUR MOTHERS, about one Irish son juggling four very different mothers, takes the Audience Award for Best Feature; Sophie Compton and Daisy-May Hudson’s HOLLOWAY, whichfollows six women who were formerly incarcerated at what was once the largest women’s prison in Europe is the winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary; and Jamie Benyon’sTWO MINUTES, wins the Audience Award for Best Short Film, for a tale about two brothers, who are interrupted while they are robbing  an off licence by their grandmother.

Audiences flocked to the Festival’s vibrant and bustling cultural hubs – the South Bank where the Headline Gala venue Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall sits alongside BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX; andLondon’s West End, where partner venues Vue West End, the Prince Charles Cinema, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Curzon Soho and Curzon Mayfair showed an array of titles from across the programme. 

The Festival also hosted this year’s Archive Special Presentation at Alexandra Palace, which hosted the World Premiere of SILENT SHERLOCK: THREE CLASSIC CASES, the inaugural programme from the BFI National Archive’s major new project, funded by Iron Mountain’s Living Legacy Initiative, to fully restore Stoll’s epic Sherlock Holmes film series. 13 features screened at nine UK-wide partner cinemas with additional screenings of THE WILD ROBOT and ENDURANCE also playing in cities across the UK’s nations and regions; ten short film nominees were available digitally on BFI Playerand an Industry Forum took place at Picturehouse Central, a busy hub for industry delegates. 

The 68th edition welcomed more than 815 international and UK filmmakers, immersive art and extended reality artists and series creatives to present their work at venues across the capital. The festival kicked off with a press conference for the world premiere of Opening Night Film BLITZ led by Steve McQueen with Saoirse Ronan, Elliott Heffernan, Stephen Graham and Benjamin Clementine.

The festival’s highly anticipated series of Screen Talks included acclaimed filmmakers Andrea Arnold, Steve McQueen, Sean Baker, Mike Leigh, Denis Villeneuve, Elizabeth ChaiVasarhelyi, remarkable acting talents Lupita Nyong’o and Zoe Saldaña as well as the versatile DanielKaluuya discussing his career in front of and behind the camera. 

The Festival featured an exciting range of 252 titles (comprising features, shorts, series and immersive works) hailing from 79 countries, and featured 63 languages with 44% of works from female and non-binary filmmakers. All features and series screened to UK audiences for the first time, including 38 World Premieres (14 features, 2 series, 19 shorts, 3 immersive), 12 International Premieres (6 features, 4 shorts, 2 immersive) and 21 European Premieres (17 features, 1 series, 3 shorts)

Across the programme, including events for industry delegates and the immensely popular LFF for Freeprogramme, the Festival had 230,342,attendances, the highest in-person attendance in the last ten years. Around half of this year’s bookers for London screenings and events (49%) were new to the LFF and occupancy across the Festival’s London screenings and events has increased to 92%, up from 90% in 2023.

The winners of this year’s BFI London Film Festival Awards were announced at the festival’s close. They were chosen by juries, presided over by Alexandre O. Philippe,(Official Competition), Dionne Edwards (First Feature Competition), June Givanni, (Documentary Competition) and Chloe Abrahams (Short Film Competition). The winners of the competitive awards were: 

LFF Expanded, the immersive and extended reality strand of the BFI London Film Festival, returned for 2024 with a three-week showcase of 12 groundbreaking projects from UK and international artists, filmmakers and creative teams. With four major installations, plus a free programme of XR and gaming works, the programme, presented across multiple London venues, including BFI IMAX, BFI Southbank, Outernet London and the Southbank Centre’s Undercroft, platformed artists working at the cutting-edge of screen technology, incorporating augmented and virtual reality, screen-based installations and immersive sound.

Our LFF Expanded programme showcased the very best in thought-provoking experiences, with artworks that reimagined the future of health, explored the merging relationship between games and cinema, and invited audiences to gain insight into real-life experiences of ADHD, breast cancer and aphasia.