Five Days of Independent Film, New Connections and a Step Towards Leicester Square: London Rolling Film Festival XVI
The 16th edition of the London Rolling Film Festival has come to a close, leaving behind five days of screenings, premieres, conversations, new collaborations and, above all, a remarkable celebration of independent filmmakers.
Held from 17 to 21 September across central London, LRFF XVI brought 48 selected films from 12 countries to Vue Piccadilly, alongside industry events at the Royal Society of Arts and The Queens Head Piccadilly. Every selected film was represented by its filmmaker in person, maintaining the festival’s distinctive approach of putting the people behind the films at the centre of the experience.
And it was a programme with considerable range.
Features, documentaries, shorts, animation, experimental work and AI-assisted filmmaking sat alongside one another, offering audiences films that could hardly have been more different in subject, style or scale. The diversity of the programme was one of the edition’s defining strengths, with filmmakers arriving from different countries and backgrounds and bringing very different perspectives to the screen.
Conversations that went beyond the usual festival panel
The industry programme was equally varied.
AI in filmmaking was inevitably one of the major topics, but the discussion led by Palm Tree Films’ Robbie Moffat approached the subject through the practical realities and questions surrounding the technology, rather than treating AI as a simple answer to the challenges facing independent production. The full festival programme is available here.
The festival also put accessibility, class and representation firmly on the agenda.
The closing industry discussion, Representation Matters: Disability, Class and Queerness in Film, was led by actor, director and writer Helen Oakleigh. The festival also hosted the Women Driving Change in Film & Television panel with Yes She Cannes, bringing together Yes She Cannes founder Faith Elizabeth and Daphne Schmon of Breaking Through the Lens for a practical conversation around women working in the industry and the challenges of getting independent projects made.
These conversations felt particularly relevant to an independent film community, where questions about who gets to make films, who gets to be represented and how new technologies may change access to production are impossible to separate from the films themselves.
A jury with very different perspectives
The festival’s 2026 jury brought together a broad range of experience.
Jury President Stephanie Takyi was joined by actor Genevieve Chenneour, filmmaker Stéphanie Tumba, filmmaker and publisher Tamara Orlova, film critic Rino Lu and actor, director and writer Helen Oakleigh.
For Chenneour, whose screen credits include Bridgerton, the festival offered the opportunity to look closely at independent work from the other side of the table. During the festival she spoke to the press about her experience as a jury member and the importance of independent filmmaking.
That range of professional perspectives was reflected in the awards, which recognised everything from directing and performance to cinematography, casting, music, animation, documentary and AI filmmaking.
The filmmakers made the festival their own
Perhaps the most striking aspect of LRFF XVI was what happened between the scheduled events.
Filmmakers repeatedly described the value of being able to bring audiences to their screenings, watch one another’s films and meet the people behind the work. Many stayed beyond their own screening, supporting other filmmakers from the audience and using the five days to build relationships that could continue beyond the festival.
The result was a festival where the networking did not exist separately from the screenings. People met because they wanted to see each other’s films, discovered potential collaborators because they were sitting next to one another in the cinema, and found new audiences by simply inviting people into the room.
The festival’s support for filmmakers also extended beyond the official selection. Through its educational partnership with Stage 32, all filmmakers who submitted to LRFF XVI, whether selected for the festival or not, received access to a Stage 32 educational course. It meant that the benefit of entering the festival was not limited to those whose films made the programme, giving every submitting filmmaker an opportunity to continue developing their skills and knowledge.
In that sense, LRFF’s Connect, Inspire, Support philosophy became something tangible rather than simply a line attached to the programme.
The films that stood out
From an editorial perspective, Quiet on Set: The Class Division in the Film Industry? was one of the defining films of the edition.
Mark Forbes’ documentary opened the festival at Vue Piccadilly and examined class access within the British film and television industry. The film featured contributions from Maxine Peake, Vicky McClure, Paul Laverty and Christopher Fairbank, and became one of the films that generated discussion beyond its screening.
A Girl Called Alice, directed by Tristan Loraine and co-written by Loraine and Tegan Grace Muggeridge, was another memorable short in the programme. The film tackles the very real problem of mobile phone theft in London, and Muggeridge discussed the film’s journey and its experience at LRFF.
And then there was DAAL, which arrived at the festival as a World Premiere and sold out its screening. Richa Moitra’s feature, set in Darjeeling, added another international perspective to a programme already notable for its geographical and thematic variety.
All three were among the films that stood out to the Live London Post editorial team, alongside a selection that consistently demonstrated how much variety can exist within independent cinema.
A new address for the awards
The biggest surprise came on Sunday.
The LRFF Awards Ceremony was moved at short notice to Vue West End in Leicester Square. The ceremony therefore became the festival’s first official event at the cinema, placing LRFF directly in one of the most recognisable locations in London’s film landscape.
For a festival that began as a film night in a Shoreditch pub, the move was significant.
Leicester Square has long represented part of the ambition behind LRFF’s growth: a place where independent filmmakers can bring their films into the same central London cinema district associated with major premieres and established industry events.
So the obvious question now is whether Sunday’s move was simply an unexpected one-off or a glimpse of what is coming next.
There is already speculation that LRFF could establish a larger presence at Vue West End in future. No agreement for a permanent move has been publicly confirmed at the time of writing, but the festival’s first official event there will inevitably prompt the question: could Leicester Square become the festival’s next home?
For now, that remains one for the LRFF team to answer.
And the winners are…
The 2026 awards reflected the breadth of the programme.
RIP, directed by Alessandro D’Ambrosi and Santa De Santis, received Best International Feature Film, while Lawton Charman’s The Man Who Spoke Twice took Best UK Feature Film.
The international and UK short-film awards went to Liam Bosman’s My Private Yellowstone and Jevan Chowdhury’s Sylvia, respectively. Best Documentary went to Jimmy Hedger’s The Bridge, while Gary Apple’s OTP (One-Time Password) received Best Animation.
Vitali Pikalevsky’s The Black Cube: Hunting won Best AI Film, while Maeve Murphy received Best Director for The Wolf. Colin Elves won Best Cinematography for Dead Dreams Falling, with the production design team behind Sophie’s Bakes receiving Best Production Design.
Emma Jesse received Best Costume Design for Asking4It, Joe Lomas took Best Makeup and Hairstyling for Knock Knock, and Alex Marchisone won Best Music Score for Untouched.
Evie Jones received Best Screenplay for Truckload, the casting team of Plaster won Best Casting, and Allegra Capucci received Best Performance for The Audition.
The jury also gave a Special Mention to Jill Campbell’s Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue.
The Audience Award went to Alexandra Shaw’s Braced for the Truth, while Carrie Lederer’s Wild Horses at the Doorreceived the True Spark Award.
Maeve Murphy’s The Wolf also received the Yes She Cannes Impact Spotlight. Gabriela Bolton was presented with the Kimberley Marren Recognition Award, and Richard Stride received the Help To Roll Fund after presenting his project live during LRFF’s Pitch Corner.
Taken together, the winners tell a useful story about this year’s festival: recognition was spread across features, shorts, documentary, animation, technical craft, performance, AI filmmaking, audience response and projects designed to create wider impact.
What comes next?
LRFF XVI has grown considerably from its beginnings, but its defining feature remains surprisingly simple: filmmakers were there.
They brought their films, watched other people’s work, answered questions, sat on panels, pitched projects, exchanged contacts and, in many cases, left with new collaborators and new audiences.
The presence of people such as Genevieve Chenneour, Stephanie Takyi, Stéphanie Tumba, Tamara Orlova, Rino Lu and Helen Oakleigh on the jury, alongside industry voices such as Faith Elizabeth, Daphne Schmon and Robbie Moffat also gave this year’s edition a wider professional dimension, connecting the filmmakers with people working across different parts of the film and television ecosystem.
For five days, central London became a meeting point for independent filmmakers from around the world.
And with the festival having now taken its first official step into Vue West End in Leicester Square, the next chapter may already be taking shape.
For now, the wheels are still rolling.
(Photo credit: Vincenzo Albano)
