In her second edition as director of BFI London Film Festival, Kristy Matheson is keeping a steady hand to see out the final phase of its five-year plan.
BFI London Film Festival (LFF) director Kristy Matheson is gearing up for her second edition in the job, with no industrial action or pandemics to contend with in the weeks leading up to the festival, after a tricky four years of pivoting for festival heads. But that does not mean she is taking anything for granted. “I’m a very superstitious person,” admits Matheson. “You don’t want to get too comfy.”
The pizzazz is back after last year’s Hollywood actors strike resulted in a muted red-carpet turnout for on-screen talent. “We’re expecting a very starry turn this year, and we have some big-name directors too,” says Matheson, pointing to Steve McQueen opening the festival on October 9 with the world premiere of his London-set Second World War drama Blitz, alongside the likes of US music superstar Pharrell Williams, who will attend as the subject of the closing-night film, animated biopic Piece By Piece, on October 20.
This year’s programme structure mimics previous editions, in keeping with Matheson’s commitment to a five-year plan already in place under her predecessor Tricia Tuttle, now director of the Berlinale, which concludes this year. The structure is also broadly the same as under Tuttle’s predecessor Clare Stewart, with the line-up carved between themed strands, the competition structures intact and roughly the same number of features as recent years: 168, compared to 171 in 2023 and 164 in 2022.
Matheson is not ready to reveal any changes she might be cooking up for the festival’s format from 2025 onwards, but it is clear where her ambition lies — broadening the festival’s audience. “How far can we crack open the idea of screen culture?” she asks. “We’re interested in how we can make the festival more welcoming and bring in people in different ways.”
Audience participation
One way Matheson has implemented that concept this year is through championing video games. “We are bringing video games into the festival in a modest — but what I think will be a very fun — way,” she says. A games lab will form part of this year’s LFF Expanded programme, presenting five new works and allowing the public to play for free. For Matheson, it is about making the festival as relevant as possible to as many people as possible: “How can we look at other work that may attract a different audience who may not currently be coming to the festival?”
There are no plans to follow in the footsteps of fellow autumn festival Toronto, which is launching an official industry market in 2026. “People can come here [to London] and get a lot of business done,” says Matheson. “They can network, see agents and other creatives in a short trip. That seems to be working effectively. We don’t have any desire to formalise that.”
One area that does need to be firmed up is that of the festival’s funding structure. LFF receives 76% of its total production cost from self-generated income and sponsorship. American Express has been the headline sponsor since 2010 and will remain so until the 2025 edition, with conversations around future sponsorship continuing.
The National Lottery funding mechanism from which the festival previously received backing ended with the 2022 edition, and the festival was supported through the BFI Audience Projects Fund in 2023. The UK government stepped up with backing for the 2024 edition, with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) under the previous Conservative government giving $2.2m (£1.7m) towards the 2024 edition via its Creative Industries Sector Vision funding pot.
“There will always be a need for public funding,” affirms Matheson. “We are having good conversations with [the] government about 2025 and beyond. The festival is funded for this year. Public funding will always be important, but it’s not the main source of our income.”
The politics of art
Addressing the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has been a difficult issue for festivals to navigate over the past year. Matheson is not shying away from highlighting the situation, with a strong selection of films from Palestine in the line-up, including the world premiere of Laila Abbas’s Thank You For Banking With Us in official competition, alongside Mahdi Fleifel’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight title To A Land Unknown, Kamal Aljafari’s pair A Fidai Film and Undr, and Noor Abed’s A Night We Held Between, plus Swedish filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson’s Venice documentary Israel Palestine On Swedish TV 1958-1989, which examines Sweden’s comprehensive reporting of the Israel-Palestine conflict over the years.
Matheson is keen to lean into the political nature of filmmaking. “Artists don’t work in a vacuum. They respond to the immediate world, or the world around them. We in turn as programmers are doing the same,” she says.
No Israeli films have been selected for this year’s edition. The last Israeli feature programmed was in 2021, with Nadav Lapid’s Ahed’s Knee.
Exiled Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof’s Cannes Fipresci award winner The Seed Of The Sacred Fig is also in the line-up. The filmmaker fled his home country during Cannes Film Festival in May, after receiving an eight-year prison sentence, a flogging, a fine and confiscation of his property from the Iranian state in response to his work. Matheson says the LFF team hopes Rasoulof — who is understood to be based in Germany — will be able to attend.
“I don’t think there is a world where artists are not being political,” says Matheson. “Art allows us to have hard conversations about the times we live in.”
Head start
Matheson arrived in the UK from Australia in 2022 to take the role of creative director at Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) before joining LFF. The Edinburgh job came with hidden baggage, and was forced to wind down after years of financial woes pre-dating Matheson’s single edition at the helm. She stayed in the UK and landed the LFF job in March 2023, while former Picturehouse executive Paul Ridd took up the mantel of the revived EIFF in December 2023.
Matheson was unable to attend Ridd’s first Edinburgh edition owing to LFF prep being in full swing. “Unfortunately, we don’t get to have fun in summer,” she says with a smile. “It falls at the same time that we’re finalising the programme, so I wasn’t able to make it. But it was a great line-up. I’ve spoken to people who went who seem to have had a great time.”
Under Matheson’s watch, EIFF moved back to August, shifting closer to the LFF date (EIFF had originally moved from August to June in 2008, to further distance itself from the busy autumn international festival corridor). Matheson does not sense any rivalry or overlap between the two festivals. “There’s a natural rhythm to the festival year. We’re in very different parts of the calendars,” she insists.
Ridd has been clear in his ambition to secure world premieres at EIFF; Matheson takes a different approach. “We have some of the biggest film festivals in the year that sit around us — Venice, Toronto, San Sebastian, New York — and we’re nestled in a corridor of world premiere events,” she says.
Matheson wants to take advantage of this competitive field. “By virtue of where we sit, we get to play some of the most exciting films that people are looking forward to seeing,” she says. “We get to play a lot of terrific awards-season films and some of the most interesting auteurs.”
This year’s headline galas include high-profile Cannes titles such as Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner Anora, Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez, Andrea Arnold’s Bird and Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice, plus Venice premieres like Pablo Larrain’s Maria and Pedro Almodovar’s Golden Lion winner The Room Next Door.
“World premieres are special,” says Matheson. “For us to have Blitz as an opening-night world premiere is beyond special — to be able to present that to audiences in London before anyone else is a hugely humbling gift that the filmmakers have put faith in us.
“Is that the only reason we would play that film? Certainly not. The film is extraordinary. We are always starting with the film, and we then work back from there.”
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