BFI London Film Festival reveals experimental programme of cinema

The BFI has just announced a jam packed programme of experimental cinema for its 68th London Film Festival (LFF) this Autumn.

Running from October 9 to 20, the BFI LFF will capture audiences with a celebration of storytelling that aims to revolutionise and reshape the idea of cinema. 

This year’s festival will take place across a series of venues including the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, the BFI’s own South Bank Cinemas, Vue West End, the Prince Charles Cinema, Curzon Soho, Curzon Mayfair and the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in The Mall.

The 2024 Experimenta programme will present feature films, documentaries and curated shorts that offer a platform for both leading and emerging UK and global filmmakers, including from Palestine, Singapore, Philippines, Iran, Colombia and more. 

Highlights include The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire by Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich. A tribute to the pioneering Martinican writer and activist, this film interweaves Ms Césaire’s writing with testimony from her family, creating a moving feature that is rooted in feminist creativity and production.

Also screening is the UK Premiere of Palestinian artist Kamal Aljafari’s A Fidai Film, which employs a striking editing technique that re-imagines images and footage from the Palestine Research Centre in Beirut.

A further collection of films will reflect on the idea of human and non-human forms including three short films: I Don’t Want To Be Just a Memory, a document of the Berlin queer community; Forms of Circulation #1, a silent meditation on the impact of bioscience, and The River That Never Ends, which tells the story of a sole carer who looks after their father.

For the first time, Experimenta will also introduce a new Works in Progress initiative. Selected filmmakers will showcase their projects in different stages of development – from research to post-production  – before opening out into a panel discussion to shine a light on the wider artist filmmaking process. 

Projects include 15 Iranian Years by Adonia Bouchehri, CTRL + Z by Parwana Haydar and Edd Carr’s I Am A Dale. 

Elsewhere in the BFI LFF, audiences will be able to find experimental work that chimes with the work screening in Experimenta. 

In the Debate strand, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found offers an intimate portrait of the photographer’s work exposing apartheid’s horrors in South Africa. 

Or, A Stream of Echoes offers a programme that explores archives across colonial collections and personal testimonies.

This includes Two Refusals – Would We Recognise Ourselves Unbroken. Part documentary, part visual poem Suneil Sanzgiri’s video installation examines colonial resistance across India and Africa.

Tickets for the 68th BFI LFF will go on sale on September 17.

Pictured top: The Ballad of Suzanne Cesaire by Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich (Picture: BFI LFF)