The 70th London Film Festival Shows Its Full Hand: 251 Titles

The BFI put the full 70th London Film Festival programme out at 11am on Wednesday. It runs to 251 titles — features, shorts, series and immersive work — from 88 countries, across 7 to 18 October. Inside that: 33 world premieres, 16 international premieres and 20 European premieres. The BFI states that 109 works, 43 per cent of the programme, are by female filmmakers.

Screen Daily counts 169 features, slightly up on last year's 166, with feature world premieres rising from seven to nine, plus 23 Gala screenings at the Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall and six Special Presentations. The Mayor's Gala is the UK premiere of Danny Boyle's Ink; the Patrons Gala is the international premiere of Tony Gilroy's Behemoth!. The festival opens with the European premiere of Simon Stone's Elsinore and closes with the UK premiere of Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut at the Royal Festival Hall on 18 October.

The world premieres are where the programme earns the anniversary. Sean Mathias's Frank and Percy has Ian McKellen and Roger Allam reprising their West End roles as two older men who meet walking their dogs on Hampstead Heath. Brad Bird's animated science-fiction mystery Ray Gunn has Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson. Travis Knight's stop-motion Wildwood comes from Laika. Anthony Wonke's In The Shadows stars Jasmine Jobson as Ramla Ali.

Kristy Matheson, Artistic Director, BFI Festivals: 'When this Festival first sprung to life 70 years ago... British society was in a period of rapid social change. Then, like now, we turn to artists to synthesise our times.'

The Screen Talks put Andrew Scott, Ava DuVernay, Cynthia Erivo, Jesse Eisenberg and John Malkovich at BFI Southbank, Sofia Coppola at the Royal Festival Hall, and Brad Bird, James Gray, Mahershala Ali and Naomi Ackie at Curzon Soho. One of them leaves town entirely: Danny Boyle's talk is at HOME in Manchester, which the BFI calls the festival's first Screen Talk outside London.

The BFI names its London partner venues as Vue West End, the Prince Charles Cinema, the ICA, Curzon Soho and St Martin-in-the-Fields. LFF Expanded, now in its sixth year, brings nine immersive, XR and video-gaming projects to BFI Southbank, BFI IMAX and St Martin-in-the-Fields, the last a new venue for the strand. LFF On Tour visits ten partner venues across the UK, and nominated shorts stream free on BFI Player from 7 to 25 October. Tickets go on general sale on 17 September; BFI Membership, which books earlier, starts at £39.