The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival held in London, England, in collaboration with the British Film Institute. Founded in 1957, the festival runs for two weeks every October.
In 2016, the BFI estimated that around 240 feature films and 150 short films from more than 70 countries are screened at the festival each year.
History At a dinner party in 1953, at the home of film critic Dilys Powell of The Sunday Times, attended by film administrator James Quinn, guests discussed the lack of a film festival in London. Quinn went on to start the first London Film Festival, which took place at the new National Film Theatre (now renamed BFI Southbank) from 16 to 26 October 1957. The first festival screened 15–20 films that were already successful at other festivals, including Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood (which opened the festival), Satyajit Ray's Aparajito, Andrzej Wajda's Kanał, Luchino Visconti's White Nights, Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, Federico Fellini's Nights of Cabiria and Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd. The first edition was sponsored by The Sunday Times.
The second festival saw the introduction of the Sutherland Trophy, an annual award for "the maker of the most original and imaginative film introduced at the National Film Theatre during the year", which was awarded to Yasujirō Ozu for Tokyo Story. The third festival featured François Truffaut's The 400 Blows, for which he famously turned up to the festival without a ticket and unable to speak English.
Richard Roud became festival director in 1960, the first year that a British film was shown at the festival; the world premiere of Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. The fourth edition contained films from 14 other countries shown at seven other festivals, including Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura and Luis Buñuel's The Young One, plus five films not shown at other festivals, including Truffaut's Shoot the Pianist and Studs Lonigan.
The 1962 festival featured the first midnight matinee, Tony Richardson's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. Roman Polanski's first feature-length film Knife in the Water and Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre sa vie were also screened.
A new strand of the festival called London Choices was added in 1965 which featured debut and lesser-known features. One of the first London Choices features was Dear John, directed by Lars-Magnus Lindgren.
1967 saw the first features films directed by women screened – Shirley Clarke's Portrait of Jason, Agnès Varda's Les Créatures and Věra Chytilová's Daisies.
Jean-Luc Godard's first English language film, One Plus One, was shown under the London Choices strand in 1968. After the screening, Godard punched producer Iain Quarrier in the face on stage for changes Quarrier made to the film's ending. The world premiere of Lindsay Anderson's If.... closed the festival.
1970–1983 Ken Wlaschin became the festival director in February 1970 and expanded the size and diversity of the festival. His first festival featured 28 films, opening with Truffaut's L'Enfant sauvage and featuring Kurosawa's Dodes'ka-den and the world premiere of Anthony Friedman's Bartleby. A recently opened second screen at the NFT was also used. David Lynch's short film The Grandmother was also shown in 1970.
The 1971 festival was expanded to include a directors' section, featuring the premiere of Mike Leigh's feature film debut Bleak Moments. Between 13 and 29 November 1972, 44 films were screened in two categories; one for established directors and one for younger directors. The 1974 festival opened on 18 November and featured 60 films starting with the premiere of Peter Hall's Akenfield. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was screened in a members-only screening due to it not being classified by the BBFC. Similar screenings were held for The Beast in 1975 and Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom in 1977.
Due to financial restrictions, the 1978 festival was shortened from 21 to 16 days and there was hardly any publicity. It opened with a spotlight on new Australian cinema, starting with Phillip Noyce's Newsfront and films by Bruce Beresford and Donald Crombie. The festival made a special concession to allow six of the films selected for the festival to also be screened at Time Out's 10th Anniversary Film Festival in September 1978 without changing the regulation stating that LFF films must be British premieres.
The 25th festival opened on 4 November 1981 with a gala presentation of Gallipoli attended by Charles, Prince of Wales, the BFI patron, and Diana, Princess of Wales. It was the largest ever to date, featuring 127 films. It also expanded outside of London for the first time with 12 programmes playing in eight cinemas around the country. It closed on 22 November with the British film Priest of Love directed by Christopher Miles. The 1982 festival opened 11 November 1982 with 4 independent British films – Claude Whatham's The Captain's Doll, Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract, Barney Platts-Mills' Hero and Mai Zetterling's Scrubbers – and closed 28 November.
Expansion In 1984, Wlaschin's role as program director for the National Film Theatre (NFT) and festival director was split, with The Guardian film critic Derek Malcolm taking over as festival director, initially temporarily, and Sheila Whitaker as NFT program director. Malcolm expanded the festival to 7 theatres other than the NFT (Dominion Theatre; Odeon Leicester Square; Queen Elizabeth Hall; the ICA Cinema; The Lumiere; The Premiere and London Film-Makers' Co-op); introduced Festival on the Square, which showed more popular films; added a surprise film each year; and increased attendances, trying to change it from a festival for film buffs to one for the public. The 1984 festival opened with Gremlins at the NFT on 14 November and closed on 2 December with a gala presentation at the Dominion of a new print of the 1924 version of The Thief of Baghdad starring Douglas Fairbanks with the score composed and conducted by Carl Davis. It was the most popular festival to date with 57,000 tickets sold, and Malcolm was retained to organize the festival the following year.
The 1985 festival was expanded to feature 161 films and ran from 14 November to 1 December, opening with Akira Kurosawa's Ran and closing with Michael Cimino's Year of the Dragon and Peter Greenaway's A Zed & Two Noughts. The best films of the festival were to be shown around 15 towns around the country after the event.
The films were grouped into regional categories. In 2009, these were: Galas and Special Screenings, Film on the Square, New British Cinema, French Revolutions, Cinema Europa, World Cinema, Experimenta, Treasures from the Archives, Short Cuts, and Animation.
Since 1986, the festival has been "topped and tailed" by the opening and closing galas, which have become major red-carpet events in the London calendar. The opening and closing galas are often world, European, or UK premiere screenings, which take place in large venues in central London. They are attended by the cast and crew of the films and are introduced by the festival director, the film's director or producers, and often the actors themselves.
The 30th edition of the festival in 1986 opened with Nicolas Roeg's Castaway on 13 November and closed with Ken Russell's film Gothic on 30 November.Daily Telegraph October 10, 1986 The festival had a "post script" the next day on 1 December with a Royal charity performance of Labyrinth attended by the Prince and Princess of Wales.
1987–1996 Sheila Whitaker, who had been the manager of the National Film Theatre, replaced Malcolm in 1987. The 1987 festival was the first to open at the Empire, Leicester Square on 11 November 1987. It was due to open with A Prayer for the Dying, a film about an IRA member but was pulled 2 days before the opening following the IRA's Remembrance Day bombing in Enniskillen on 8 November. The film was replaced with Dark Eyes. The closing gala was held on 29 November featuring Stephen Frears' Sammy and Rosie Get Laid.
During her period as director, Whitaker continued to expand the festival. By the end of her tenure as director in 1996, the festival had grown to include screenings of over 200 films from around the world, more venues had been added, and more tickets were sold to non-BFI members. She also began the festival's practice of including newly restored films from the National Film Archive and overseas institutions.
The 1989 festival expanded the number of venues, with the festival showing films in South London for the first time with the addition of the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton and the Brixton Village Cultural Centre. The Screen on the Green in Islington and the Rio Cinema, Dalston were also added as venues. It featured Max Ophüls La signora di tutti (1934) in tribute to former festival director Richard Roud who had died in February 1989. The junior section of the festival was separated out into a Junior London Film Festival which ran from 21 to 29 October over the half term holiday featuring ten feature films, starting with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.
The 1990 festival featured 180 films compared to 145 in the previous year. It included a section Focus on Hong Kong which featured the world premiere of Jackie Chan's Armour of God II: Operation Condor. The festival also featured the world premieres of Mike Leigh's Life Is Sweet and Anthony Minghella's Truly, Madly, Deeply (under the title Cello).
The 1991 festival was dedicated to David Lean, who had died earlier in the year. The festival opened with the world premiere of Mike Newell's Enchanted April and closed with the European premiere of Mark Peploe's debut film Afraid of the Dark.
In 1993, the Children's London Film Festival was re-incorporated into the main festival. The opening night film was the European premiere of James Ivory's The Remains of the Day.
The 1994 festival opened with the world premiere of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein directed by Kenneth Branagh. The festival featured an expanded programme at the Odeon West End in Leicester Square, with the festival taking over the cinema for its duration. A 12-film sidebar was added for Arabian and Middle Eastern films, in addition to sidebars for French and Asian films.
Due to classification issues, special permission was needed from Westminster City Council to screen Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers in 1994 and David Cronenberg's Crash in 1996. The 1996 festival featured Shane Meadows' debut film Small Time.
1997–2011 Adrian Wooton was appointed festival director and Sandra Hebron as festival programmer in 1997.
From 2000, the festival was sponsored by Regus and became known as the Regus London Film Festival. The first festival under Regus opened with Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous on 1 November 2000 and closed on 16 November with Born Romantic. The 2001 festival opened with the premiere of Robert Altman's Gosford Park on 7 November and closed on 22 November with Iain Softley's K-PAX. The 2002 festival was held 6–21 November, attracting a then record 110,000 visitors, opening with Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things and closing with Thaddeus O'Sullivan's The Heart of Me.
Hebron became artistic director of the festival in 2003, replacing Wooton. The same year, the festival's sponsor was changed to The Times and became known as The Times BFI London Film Festival.
The fiftieth edition of the festival opened 18 October 2006 with the European premiere of Kevin McDonald's The Last King of Scotland. It also featured the European premieres of Todd Field's Little Children and Anthony Minghella's Breaking and Entering. It closed on 2 November with Babel.
Previously a number of festival awards were presented at the Closing gala, but in 2009, with the aid of some funding from the UK Film Council, a stand-alone awards ceremony was introduced. The UK Film Council helped fund the festival for three years until it was abolished in 2011.