IFFR-supported films at the 70th BFI London Film Festival

Several Hubert Bals Fund, IFFR Pro and IFFR 2026 titles feature in this year’s BFI London Film Festival (7–18 October 2026), across the First Feature Competition, Love, Thrill, Journey, Create, Dare and Expanded strands as well as the Displacement Film Fund short film collection as part of LFF for Free.

Displacement Film Fund: LFF for Free

The first five Displacement Film Fund (DFF) shorts, which had their world premieres at IFFR last edition, feature in this year’s LFF for Free programme: Allies in Exile (dir. Hasan Kattan, Fadi Al Halabi), Rotation (dir. Maryna Er Gorbach), Sense of Water (dir. Mohammad Rasoulof), Super Afghan Gym (dir. Shahrbanoo Sadat) and Whispers of a Burning Scent (dir. Mo Harawe). Each was backed with a €100,000 production grant through the DFF, spearheaded by actor, producer and UNHCR Global Goodwill Ambassador Cate Blanchett, who will present the programme in person alongside a selection of the filmmakers.

First Feature Competition

Ben’Imana by Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo, Rwanda, Gabon, France, Norway | HBF Development 2022

Dusabejambo made history at Cannes 2026 as the first Rwandan filmmaker in the festival’s Official Selection, and Ben’Imana went on to win the Caméra d’Or for best first feature. Her debut, backed by HBF Development in 2022, now competes for the Sutherland Award at LFF.

Love

Variations on a Theme by Jason Jacobs, Devon Delmar South Africa | IFFR 2026 Tiger Award-winner, HBF+Europe: Post-Production 2025

Ouma Hettie is an elderly goat herder in South Africa’s Kamiesberge. Drawn into a scam offering overdue reparations for her father’s unpaid wartime service, her rituals are unsettled and her independence imperilled in this lyrical portrait.

Variations on a Theme won the Tiger Award, at IFFR 2026, backed through HBF+Europe: Post-Production Support and is now South Africa’s submission to the Oscars.

Thrill

Elephants in the Fog by Abinash Bikram Shah, Nepal, France, Germany, Brazil, Norway | HBF Development 2021, HBF+Europe: Minority Co-production Support 2023

Set in a Nepalese village populated by wild elephants, the thriller follows Pirati, matriarch of a Kinnar community, as she investigates her daughter’s disappearance and weighs love against duty to her community.

Shah’s feature directing debut premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2026 where it won a Special Jury Award.

Moonglow by Isabel Sandoval, Philippines, Taiwan, Japan | Big Screen Competition, IFFR 2026

Late 1970s Manila, under dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Aggrieved by the inescapable corruption around her, Dahlia secretly commits a heist. Sandoval builds a story with controlled tension and rich atmosphere, tracing how desire and wrongdoing fold into one another.

Journey

No Good Men by Shahrbanoo Sadat, Germany, France, Norway, Denmark, Afghanistan | HBF Development, CineMart Selection 2021

A romantic tragicomedy about the only female camerawoman at a Kabul TV station, played by Sadat herself.

No Good Men opened the Berlinale in February 2026. The film was supported by the Hubert Bals Fund and presented at CineMart in 2021; Sadat later received Displacement Film Fund support for her short Super Afghan Gym (2026).

The Station by Sara Ishaq, Yemen, Netherlands, France, Jordan, Germany, Norway, Qatar | HBF Development 2018, CineMart 2020, NFF+HBF 2021, HBF+Europe 2022

Set in a village ravaged by civil war, sisters Layal and Shams carve out a fragile sanctuary for women in war-torn Yemen, reuniting despite their contrasting survival approaches to protect their younger brother from forced military enlistment.

Create

Supporting Role by Ana Urushadze, Georgia, Estonia, Türkiye | Tiger Competition, IFFR 2026 Tiger Competition: Special Jury Award

A faded film star in Georgia returns to acting and discovers an industry that has left him behind. Urushadze’s wry and reflective examination of wounded pride and possibility, led by a magnetic Dato Bakhtadze, navigates comedy and melancholy with guile. 

Dare

Hearing by Lê Bảo, Singapore, Vietnam | CineMart 2026

“Known for his precise and enigmatic filmmaking, here Lê Bảo crafts a meditative anti-love story revealing fragile connections between humans, sounds and unseen worlds.” Lê Bảo’s debut feature Vị (Taste) (2021) won the Special Jury Award in the Encounters strand at the Berlinale. 

La Nuit (At Night) by Beatrice Gibson ,United Kingdom, France | CineMart 2024, Best Emerging Director Award

Six women in Paris traverse the anxiety of the city after dark, over a single night that intertwines dream, fiction and reality, liquefying one into the other.

Franco-British artist filmmaker Gibson is a two-time winner of the Tiger Award for best short film at IFFR (2009 and 2013). At Night won her the Best Emerging Director Award in Locarno.

Let Them Be Seen by Nolitha Refilwe Mkulisi, South Africa, Germany | Bright Future, IFFR 2026

An affectionate portrait of the forgotten town of Tapoleng, where church once served as a sanctuary for its residents during the old apartheid order. Here, a new religion emerges – one tethered to a new spiritual practice, community and self-determination.

Expanded

The World Came Flooding In by Isobel Knowles, Van Sowerwine, Australia | Art Directions IFFR 2026, CineMart 2024

An immersive VR documentary reconstructing memories of the eastern Australia floods of 2022, representative of similar events that have struck various parts of the world. Artists Knowles and Sowerwine recover the disappearance of spaces, objects and voices, transforming loss into reflections on community and overcoming, with a call for action on the climate emergency as its backdrop.