The winner of the Best Film Award will be announced on Sunday 19 October.
The 69th BFI London Film Festival, running from October 8 to 19, has announced a diverse lineup of 13 films by Arab directors, showcasing compelling stories and bold perspectives from Palestine, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Sudan and the UAE. Spanning documentary, drama and short films, the selection highlights the urgency of contemporary Arab storytelling for British audiences.
Among the standout titles is The Voice of Hind Rajab by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, whose hybrid feature follows the haunting real-life story of a five-year-old girl trapped in a car in Gaza. Blending documentary and re-enactment, the film comes to London fresh from winning the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.
Jordanian filmmaker Zain Duraie presents Sink (Gharaq), a visually arresting drama set on the windswept outskirts of Jordan. Duraie, who previously gained acclaim for her Venice-winning short Give Up the Ghost, explores themes of despair and endurance in her latest feature.
From Iraq, Hasan Hadi’s The President’s Cake, which won both the Caméra d’Or and the Directors’ Fortnight People’s Choice Award at Cannes, continues its global journey. The film tells the story of nine-year-old Lamia, whose desperate mission to bake a cake in honour of Saddam Hussein’s birthday unfolds as an allegory of survival under sanctions.
Emirati director Majid Al Ansari returns to the big screen with The Vile, his first feature since Zinzana. The psychological drama examines the quiet terrors that unravel a marriage when trust is broken.
In Palestine 36, acclaimed filmmaker Annemarie Jacir revisits the 1936 Palestinian revolt against British rule, with a cast led by Hiam Abbass, Saleh Bakri, Jeremy Irons, Liam Cunningham and Dhafer L’Abidine. The film arrives in London following screenings in Venice and Toronto.
Tunisian filmmaker Erige Sehiri brings Promised Sky, a moving drama about three Ivorian women building new lives in Tunisia, which opened the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes earlier this year.
Lebanese director Cyril Aris contributes A Sad and Beautiful World, an epic romance set over three decades that explores love, loss and the longing to stay or leave amid Lebanon’s ongoing turmoil. The film stars Mounia Akl and Hasan Akil.
Khartoum, directed by Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim “Snoopy” Ahmad and Timeea Mohamed Ahmed, with creative director Philip Cox, combines real and dramatised footage to document five Sudanese residents displaced by conflict, weaving their testimonies into a portrait of survival and memory.
In the festival’s Experimenta section, Jad Youssef’s Radius Catastrophe unfolds as a dreamlike coastal journey along Lebanon’s shoreline, while Basma Al Sharif’s Morning Circle meditates on repetition, image and resistance in daily life, continuing her exploration of political and personal space.
Tunisian-Danish filmmaker Maja Ajmia Yde Zellama makes her feature debut with Têtes Brûlées, the story of a 12-year-old girl navigating grief and rediscovering hope after her brother’s sudden death.
Moroccan director Maryam Touzani’s Calle Malaga, starring Spanish icon Carmen Maura, returns to London after its Venice premiere, where it won the Audience Prize. Set in Tangier, the film continues Touzani’s signature focus on women’s emotional landscapes.
Finally, Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari presents With Hasan in Gaza, a reflective work built from rediscovered footage shot in 2001. The film, which premiered in Toronto, transforms archival material into a meditation on loss, memory and endurance amid erasure.
