LFF head Kristy Matheson on curating her fourth edition, funding changes

Programme lock is the busiest and most stressful time for any film festival team, but for BFI London Film Festival (LFF) director Kristy Matheson, curation for the 2026 edition came with an extra pressure: the Australian was also taking the UK government’s Life In The UK test to achieve indefinite leave to remain status.

“I was doing a lot of studying about the history of the UK while I was locking programme,” says Matheson. “There’s a lot about laws and bylaws. There’s a lot of courts here – the sheriff court, the magistrates’ court. The questions are quite random, and it’s a whole book. It was a lot of gymnastics for my brain.”

The test now happily passed, Matheson can focus on hosting her fourth LFF as festival director and the 70th edition overall, kicking off on October 7 with Simon Stone’s Elsinore, and closing 11 days later with Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut. This year’s edition includes a strong roster of talent in the Screen Talks strand, as well as providing world premieres for a pair of high-profile animated features – Laika’s Wildwood and Brad Bird’s Netflix-backed Ray Gunn.