Who is popular today?

For those who still can’t be there in person, this year’s LFF is putting some of its best titles online, from a riotous Iranian family road trip to Stephen Graham as a chef on the edgeThe London film festival kicks off next week, and after a 2020 pandemic edition that played out mostly online, organisers of the UK’s premier film festival are stressing the joys of returning to the cinema in all its glory. That’s great news for some of us – but those elsewhere in the country might feel excluded from the feast after getting a virtual place at the table last year.Happily, the fest hasn’t forgotten the ground gained in terms of accessibility, and is offering a digital programme of 30-odd features available to stream on the BFI Player – each for a 24-hour window after its festival premiere – alongside a programme of free-to-view shorts. It’s a smaller menu than last year’s, but it’s a well curated one: while the presumption at hybrid festivals like this is often that the dregs of the programme are thrown online as a grudging concession, this selection contains a number of the very best films in the lineup. Continue reading...