The London Film Festival Closes on Sunday With Eisenberg's The Debut, and the Best Film Winner Is Named

The 70th BFI London Film Festival closes on Sunday 18 October with the UK premiere of Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut at the Royal Festival Hall. The BFI's closing-night page names Eisenberg, Julianne Moore, Paul Giamatti, Halle Bailey, Havana Rose Liu and Bernadette Peters in the cast. Fundraising tickets are £250 each, limited to four per person; they include walking the red carpet but not red-carpet photography, and all proceeds go to the BFI.

The Best Film Award is announced the same day, the BFI said when it named the Official Competition in August. The ten films are 7 Miles Out, Act 3, Glaxo, Imperium, Ketticè, Look Back, My Notes on Mars, The Difficult Bride, The Idiot(s) and Woman Unknown. The BFI has not published a time or venue for the announcement.

The juries

• Best Film: Sam Pollard (lead), Mariano Llinás and Julie La Bassiere.
• First Feature, the Sutherland Award: Amir El-Masry (lead), Alemberg Ang and Rosa Bosch.
• Documentary, the Grierson Award: Sandhya Suri (lead), Kate Fitzpatrick and Andee Ryder.
• Short Film: Helen Simmons (lead), Leo Reich and Jack Casey.

Wednesday's evacuation

Not everything ran to plan this week. On Wednesday afternoon a screening of Wicker in NFT1 at BFI Southbank was evacuated after an audience member's device overheated and produced smoke, setting off the fire alarms. The BFI said screenings resumed within around 15 minutes, Screen Daily reported.

For anyone planning to submit a short to next year's festivals, the technical side of the finish line is covered in our delivery checklist.