Another year, another BFI London Film Festival, and another extraordinary list of nominees. There can only be a handful of winners though, and that select few have now been revealed.
The Best Film award went to Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage, starring Vicky Krieps, for its mesmerising and original interpretation of the life of the Austrian Empress Elisabeth. Manuela Marteli’s 1976, about Chile under the dictatoriship of General Pinochet, took the Sutherland Award for a filmmaker’s first feature, with a Special Commendation from the jury going to Saim Sadiq’s Pakistani family drama Joyland.
The Grierson Award for Documentary went to Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes, with a Special Commendation for What About China by Trinh Minh-ha. The winner in the Immersive Art and XR Competition was Charlie Shackleton’s As Mine Exactly, with Special Commendations for In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats and On the Morning You Wake (To The End of the World). The Short Film award went to Yue Li’s I Have No Legs, And I Must Run, with a Special Commendation for A Sod State for its "propulsive punk energy".
And finally, the Audience Award went to Blue Bag Life by Lisa Selby, Rebecca Hirsch Lloyd-Evans and Alex Fry.
See you at the South Bank again next year…