We recently received the following email, we will follow up on this with an additional post shortly:
“Following your post of December 26, 2023, this is an update that the BFI are continuing to select their own BFI-backed films for the BFI-backed London Film Festival (see related links below). In my opinion, this is a clear conflict of interest and astounding arrogance considering that filmmakers unrelated to the BFI (or for that matter other state-funded collaborators such as Film4, BBC, etc.) are encouraged to pay submission fees for consideration.
I’m not sure how many short and feature-length films have been selected for screening this year, but some are also in competition! Examples include ‘Tuesday’ (2023) from last year’s festival, and Rose of Nevada (2025) for this year’s event in October.
Related links:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/british-film-institute_bfibacked-nationallottery-activity-7377001510565752832-fRg1
https://filmindustrywatch.org/bfi-london-film-festival-potential-conflicts-of-interest/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14682800
