70th London Film Festival

The 70th London Film Festival commenced with a 12-day program featuring world premieres and award contenders. The event opened with Simon Stone’s biographical drama ‘Elsinore’ and was scheduled to conclude with Jesse Eisenberg’s musical comedy ‘The Debut’. Highlights of the program included animated works such as Laika’s ‘Wildwood’ and Brad Bird’s ‘Ray Gunn’.

Following the festival program, the BFI London Film Festival announced its competition award winners. Sergei Loznitsa’s documentary ‘Imperium’ received the Best Film Award in the Official Competition; the film uses archival footage to examine Soviet history through the lens of Italian cameramen from the early 1970s.

Other major award recipients include Sompot Chidgasornpongse, who won the Sutherland Award in the First Feature Competition for the family drama ‘9 Temples to Heaven’. Asmahan Bkerat received the Grierson Award in the Documentary Competition for ‘Concrete Land’, a film following a Bedouin family in Jordan, while Rahul Roye won the Short Film Award for ‘Aman’, a narrative regarding a trans man’s identity.

Voting for the LFF Audience Awards, including the Best Feature Film and Best British Discovery categories, remains open until Wednesday, 21 October.