'A Thousand Blows' To Premiere at the 2024 London Film Festival

The British Film Institute's London Film Festival is one of the last significant chances for most films to get themselves into the Awards Conversation. (The AFI Film Festival in November is THE last chance.) It's also a good bellwether of which films think they can grab the spotlight and which do not. For example, the Gary Oldman-starrer, Parthenope, rung up the curtain at Cannes alongside films like Bird and Rumours. The latter two arrive in London for the October film fest with serious buzz; however, Parthenope, which was roundly panned, had disappeared, and who knows if it will ever be released in mainstream theaters.

Parthenope's absence is also worth remarking upon because the breadth and scope of LFF's lineup is enormous. For 2024's 68th festival edition, the organizers have rounded up 255 titles (including feature films, shorts, a couple of TV series, and even immersive works) from 80 countries. Some of these were known ahead of the full lineup reveal; Apple TV+ announced period film Blitz would be the Opening Night Gala presentation weeks ago. Some were shoo-ins simply from how well they did in earlier debuts, such as We Live In Time. But there are always surprises, especially when it comes to which streamers insist on debuting prestige series. Disclaimer already played in Toronto, so it's not a surprise that it will be rescreened in London. However, the announcement that Disney+ is bringing Steven Knight's A Thousand Blows to London was an attention-getter. 

We won't list all 255 titles playing over the two weeks here; that would be overwhelming. However, we've gone through the last and noted every UK-produced title that will screen, plus a few films that are all-British casts, even if they were made elsewhere, like the USA or Canada.

Headline Galas

• Opening Night Gala: Blitz (Director-Screenwriter Steve McQueen, UK)
• BFI Patrons’ Gala: Hard Truths (Director-Screenwriter Mike Leigh, UK-Spain)
• The Mayor Of London’s Gala: We Live In Time (Director John Crowley, UK-France)
• Cunard Gala: Joy (Director Ben Taylor, UK)
• Family Gala: That Christmas (Director Simon Otto, UK)
• The Apprentice (Director Ali Abbasi, Canada-Denmark-Ireland)
• Bird (Director-Screenwriter Andrea Arnold, UK)
• Conclave (Director Edward Berger, UK-USA)

Special Presentations

• Treasures Special Presentation: Silent Sherlock (Directors Maurice Elvey & George Ridgwell, UK)
• Endurance (Directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin & Natalie Hewit, UK-USA)
• Harvest (Director Athina Rachel Tsangari, UK-Germany-Greece-France-USA)
• Queer (Director Luca Guadagnino, Italy-USA)

Official Competition

• Bring Them Down (Director-Screenwriter Christopher Andrews, Ireland-UK-Belgium)
• The Extraordinary Miss Flower (Directors Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard, UK)
• Four Mothers (Director Darren Thornton, Ireland-UK)
• Memoir Of A Snail (Director-Screenwriter Adam Elliot, Australia)
• On Becoming A Guinea Fowl (Director-Screenwriter Rungano Nyoni, Zambia-UK-Ireland)

First Feature Competition

• Last Swim (Director Sasha Nathwani, UK)
• On Falling (Director-Screenwriter Laura Carreira, UK-Portugal)
• Santosh (Director-Screenwriter Sandhya Suri, UK-France-Germany)
• September Says (Director-Screenwriter Ariane Labed, Ireland-UK-Germany)
• To A Land Unknown (Director Mahdi Fleifel, UK-Palestine-France-Greece-Netherlands-Germany-Qatar-Saudi Arabia)

Documentary Competition

• Collective Monologue (Director-Screenwriter Jessica Sarah Rinland, Argentina-UK)
• Holloway (Directors Sophie Compton & Daisy-May Hudson, UK)
• Mother Vera (Directors Cécile Embleton & Alys Tomlinson, UK)
• The Shadow Scholars (Director Eloise King, UK)
• Witches (Director-Screenwriter Elizabeth Sankey, UK)

Love

• All Of You (Director William Bridges, UK)
• Motherboard (Director-Screenwriter Victoria Mapplebeck, UK)

Dare

• Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hourglass (Director-Screenwriters Quay Brothers, UK-Poland-Germany)

Laugh

• Audrey (Director Natalie Bailey, Australia)
• Rumours (Directors Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, Canada-Germany)

Debate

• 2073 (Director Asif Kapadia, UK)
• Black Box Diaries (Director Shiori Itō, Japan-USA-UK)
• The Listeners (Series Creator-Screenwriter Jordan Tannahill, UK)

Thrill

• A Thousand Blows (Series Creator-Screenwriter Steven Knight, UK)

Cult

• The Balconettes (Director Noémie Merlant, France)
• Fréwaka (Director-Screenwriter Aislinn Clarke, Ireland)
• Sister Midnight (Director-Screenwriter Karan Kandhari, UK)
• The Surfer (Director Lorcan Finnegan, Australia-Ireland)

Journey

• Layla (Director-Screenwriter Amrou Al-Kadhi, UK)
• Sebastian (Director-Screenwriter Mikko Mäkelä, UK-Belgium-Finland)
• Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (Directors Ian Bonhôte & Peter Ettedgui, UK-USA)
• Treading Water (Director-Screenwriter Gino Evans, UK)

Create

• Grand Theft Hamlet (Director-Screenwriters Pinny Grylls & Sam Crane, UK)
• One To One: John & Yoko (Directors Kevin Macdonald & Sam Rice-Edwards, UK)
• Pauline Black: A 2-Tone Story (Director Jane Mingay, UK)
• The Stimming Pool (Directors The Neurocultures Collective & Steven Eastwood, UK)
• Twiggy (Director Sadie Frost, UK)
• Two Strangers Trying Not To Kill Each Other (Director Jacob Perlmutter & Manon Ouimet, UK-Denmark-USA)

Experimental

• The Treasury Of Human Inheritance (Director-Screenwriter Alexis Kyle Mitchell, Canada-UK)
• Forms Of Circulation #1 (Director-Screenwriters Paul Stewart & Sarah Perks, UK)
• Notes: Remembered And Found (Director-Screenwriter Maria Anastassiou, UK-Cyprus)
• The Flesh Of Language (Director-Screenwriter Amanda Rice, Ireland)
• Hemel (Director Danielle Dean, UK)

The 68th BFI London Film Festival runs from Wednesday, October 9 to Sunday, October 20, 2024.