The director’s address is one of a series of speeches, forums and events that will take place at this year’s London Film Festival

Ken Loach is to deliver the keynote speech at the 54th BFI London Film Festival, which runs from October 13-28.

The British director, whose latest film Route Irish is screening at the festival, will be speaking to audiences at an event hosted by Skillset on October 14.

Sandra Hebron, the festival’s artistic director, said she was “especially thrilled” Loach has accepted LFF’s invitation and that director has a “very unique voice and place in British film culture”.

Loach’s speech is one of a number of events and forums announce today (September 17). New additions to this year’s festival will be a BAFTA-sponsored discussion panel aimed at coming up with ways to reduce the costs and carbon footprint of film production – “Greening the Screen - How to go Green without Going into the Red.”

Also on the agenda is a session aimed at undergraduate and recently graduated film-makers with a keynote address by Peter Carlton, head of Warp Films.

The festival will also be hosting a new one day forum, 3D-360°, aimed at exploring the practical and business opportunities that the new 3D technologies provide. The forum, which is being run by consultancy MediaXchange, will be the first of an annual programme that will tour film and TV festivals over the next year.

Meanwhile, a new event for distributors, sales agents, exhibitors and festivals will look at new ways of distributing foreign-language films. The Audience is Out There platforms such as video-on-demand and cinema-on-demand with presentations from VoD service MUBI (formerly The Auteurs) and Cinema on Request.

The LFF will also host the fifth annual professional development programme Think-Shoot-Distribute, which brings together 25 film-makers for a week of mentoring, workshops and master classes at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden.

Cross media forum Power to the Pixel will again take place during the festival, with its first Pixel Market, a two day event for international cross media projects.  

The annual production finance market, which is run by Film London, will also take place during the festival on October 20-21.

This year’s LFF will include four days of industry screeningsat the Curzon Soho, as well as its annual Meet The Buyer session, which will be overseen by Mary Davies, acquisitions executive for Cinefil Inc, and industry consultant at the Rotterdam and Dubai Film Festivals.

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