Following the very successful 2021 format of the BFI London Film Festival, in partnership with American Express, the BFI have confirmed it’ll retain the Festival format developed over the past two years for 2022, allowing the LFF to reach audiences across the UK.
As well as hosting from the iconic flagship venue BFI Southbank, the LFF will continue its partnership with the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall to ensure that London’s South Bank retains its position at the heart of the film festival experience. Alongside this, an additional 5 London venue partners will return with the West End remaining a key hub for the Festival’s film programme with wider availability at 10 UK-wide cinemas, and a broad range of films from the programme screening on BFI Player, alongside the in-cinema premieres!
I, for one, welcome this from the BFI London Film Festival and it’s great to see that they’ve learned that more people want to be involved, and it’ll also help limit that single-location London screening chaos but in the best possible way.
The cinemas involved, in no particular (well, London and alphabetical) order, are:
- Curzon Soho (Screens 1, 2 & 3)
- Curzon Mayfair (Screen 1)
- Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)
- ODEON Luxe West End (Screens 1 & 2) at the Londoner Hotel and Prince Charles Cinema
- Broadway (Nottingham)
- Chapter (Cardiff)
- Edinburgh Filmhouse (Edinburgh)
- Glasgow Film Theatre (Glasgow)
- HOME (Manchester),
- MAC (Birmingham)
- Queens Film Theatre (Belfast)
- Showroom (Sheffield)
- Tyneside Cinema (Newcastle)
- Watershed (Bristol)
The 66th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express takes place from Wednesday 5 October – Sunday 16 October, 2022. The BFI LFF Programme Launch, when the full programme will be unveiled, is on Thursday 1 September, 2022!
The 66th edition of the Festival will showcase over 160 features, 8 new series, 6 Screen Talks, breath-taking immersive art and XR projects as part of the LFF Expanded strand which returns to 26 Leake Street, a robust LFF For Free programme of events that will include panel discussions, a short film programme, book launches and more, the LFF Awards at the end of the Festival, and an expansive Industry programme. Accessible online to audiences across the whole of the UK, BFI Player will host a specially curated programme of 25 feature films which will screen from 14-23 October and will allow audiences to choose when they want to watch a particular title within the Virtual Festival’s dates.
The LFF has also revealed the newly-minted 2022 creative which will roll out across the UK in the coming months. Working with creative agency DBLG for the sixth year, and taking inspiration from Norman Engleback’s 1950s sign for the National Film Theatre, the BFI continues to build on the Festival’s existing ‘cascade’ iconography to create an identity that is both bold and playful that represents the LFF as the dynamic, diverse celebration of cinematic storytelling that it is.
critical popcorn 