About the BFI

We are a cultural charity, a National Lottery distributor, and the UK’s lead organisation for film and the moving image.

Our mission is:

Founded in 1933, the BFI is a registered charity governed by Royal Charter.

The BFI Board of Governors is chaired by Tim Richards.

The BFI London Film Festival

BFI London Film Festival is Britain’s leading film event and one of the world’s best film festivals. It introduces the finest new British and international films to an expanding London and UK-wide audience and attracts significant international film industry participation. LFF is a compelling combination of diverse films, red carpet glamour, friendly audiences and vibrant exchange. LFF provides an essential profiling opportunity for films seeking global success; promotes the careers of British and international filmmakers through its industry and awards programmes and positions London as the world’s leading creative city.

Tricia Tuttle Biography

Tricia Tuttle continues her role as Director of BFI Festivals for the fourth year. She was appointed following working as Artistic Director of the 62nd Edition of the BFI London Film Festival in 2018, and five successful years as Deputy Head of Festivals at BFI, including BFI Flare and BFI London Film Festival. Tricia has been instrumental in evolving BFI Festivals, meeting the challenges of a global pandemic head on and creating a new hybrid model for the LFF in 2020 and evolving the structure for 2021. Her work has seen an expanded audience reach year on year both in the UK and internationally. Tricia has introduced impactful initiatives such UK-wide cinema venue partnerships, digital screenings, LFF For Free and also BFI Flare’s FiveFilms4Freedom, in partnership with the British Council. Tricia has worked to broaden the scope of the Festival, spearheading new strands including LFF Expanded which sees the Festival present virtual, augmented and mixed reality works and co-commissions, as well as the Festival’s new focus on series and episodic work. On the industry side, she is also working to turn LFF into a globally recognised destination for the discovery of new British Talent. Under her tenure, the LFF has welcomed some of the world’s finest filmmakers and creatives to London, offering UK audiences unique opportunities to see some of the most anticipated new films and awards contenders. Particular highlights include opening the 64th edition of the Festival with Steve McQueen’s MANGROVE in 2021 in the first time the Festival has opened with a work made for broadcast, and the international premiere of THE IRISHMAN in 2019 which saw Martin Scorsese, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci grace the red carpet. Significant world premieres in her tenure include Pixar’s Oscar winning SOUL, Peter Jackson’s THOU SHALL NOT GROW OLD and this year’s Festival opener THE HARDER THEY FALL from Londoner Jeymes Samuel.

Moving from North Carolina in 1997 to complete a joint MA at BFI and Birkbeck, University of London in Film and TV Studies, Tricia’s passion for film has seen her work as a programmer, lecturer, writer and journalist. Her career has spanned a five year tenure at BAFTA, starting in 2008 and with her appointment as Film Programme Manager in 2011; programming the BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (the pre-cursor to BFI Flare) and as Event Producer at London’s The Script Factory.

Ulrich Schrauth Biography

BFI London Film Festival’s Expanded curator, Ulrich Schrauth, is seated at the center of the Metaverse. He simultaneously brings a niche expertise and global perspective to the London landscape, having repeatedly catapulted VR projects into the public eye through his various leadership roles with international organizations. In 2020, Schrauth became the inaugural curator for LFF Expanded’s strand of Immersive Art and XR programming, and was largely responsible for shifting the Festival’s full slate into the virtual realm. In 2021, he’ll revise this format to be both an on-the-ground and online hybrid offering, leveraging his many years of experience in theatre and music festival production and furthering the accessibility of XR.

Schrauth’s impact resonates throughout many 360 spheres, where he’s known for his diverse contributions to the medium of Virtual Reality; he serves as the Creative Director of the “VRHAM! Virtual Reality & Arts Festival” in Hamburg, is a known Speaker and Moderator at revered SXSW Festival, Cannes Film Festival, the European Jazz Conference and others, and often juries the Fedora Digital Art Prize, Laval Virtual, and the VREFEST. His undeniable zeal for and dedication to art and technology makes him an interdisciplinary asset and integral part of the projects he engages.

Ulrich Schrauth Curatorial Statement

‘What is left of reality?’

None of us is able to answer this question with certainty in these unpredictable times. Every social, political and personal conviction has wavered – nothing seems to make sense anymore. The global pandemic, a rise in hate and violence, and the impending climate collapse are just external signs of a world that no longer seems to make any sense. It’s also a world in which reality and fiction have become inseparable. As a result, we exist in a constant state of trying to reorient ourselves – to question our perspective on the world and in relation to each other.

It’s this state that the artists and filmmakers in our LFF Expanded programme explore. Each adopts a distinctive route, by way of the most innovative technologies, to present new realities. These works embody the uniqueness of each artist’s voice and imagination in asking us to question the world as we see it; from the tension between the public and the private, and in redefining the boundaries between intimate and collective experience.

The artists in the LFF Expanded programme come from a wide variety of disciplines: film, visual art, theatre, dance, design and architecture. Each approaches the world with distinctive narrative styles, aesthetic means and adoption of immersive technologies.

We’re excited to invite you to view the world from a different perspective and to experience it through the rich imagination of our artists and filmmakers.

-Ulrich Schrauth