London Short Film Festival 2026 unveils 300-film programme across the capital

Short films are where cinema quietly reinvents itself. It’s where Martin Scorsese, Lynne Ramsay and Paul Thomas Anderson sharpened their instincts long before the spotlight arrived, and for more than two decades, the London Short Film Festival (LSFF) has been one of the UK’s most reliable launchpads for that kind of talent.

Now returning for its 23rd edition, LSFF 2026 runs from 23rd January to 1st February, bringing 300 films across more than 60 programmes to cinemas, community venues, and creative spaces across London. Screenings will take place everywhere from BFI Southbank, ICA and Curzon Soho to Rich Mix, Rio Cinema, SET Peckham, and a growing network of outer-borough venues, a city-wide takeover that reflects the festival’s roots in both film culture and grassroots creativity.

This year’s programme is threaded together by a guiding idea: Cinema Remembers What We Forget. It’s a theme that runs through films confronting memory, identity, grief and resistance, the fragments that linger beneath the surface, often ignored by mainstream cinema but perfectly suited to the short form.

Highlights from the 2026 programme

The festival opens at Curzon Soho with This Time It’s Personal, a night of deeply autobiographical filmmaking featuring new work from John Smith and Andrea Luka Zimmerman, reflecting on decades of artistic life, from 1970s art-school Britain to 90s music and fashion culture.

Elsewhere, standout strands include Trans Sister Seventies!, curated by Jaye Hudson, which uncovers newly unearthed archival films documenting trans-feminine lives in the 1970s; My Eye Is My Ear, spotlighting Deaf lives, culture and identity through contemporary UK shorts; and Everybody’s Darling, a punk-inflected exploration of melodrama, queerness and underground cinema in the 80s and 90s.

There’s also a night dedicated to early-2000s emo subculture, a CoreCore Mixtape exploring internet-born collage aesthetics, and curated programmes tackling grief, Palestinian perspectives, Bangladeshi heritage and post-colonial identity, each leaning into LSFF’s strength for pairing personal filmmaking with wider cultural conversations.

A festival built into the city

Beyond cinemas, LSFF 2026 expands further into community and creative spaces, from Blinkink animation studio to Toynbee Hall, Nunhead Community Cinema and the Zoroastrian Centre in Harrow, underlining the festival’s commitment to access, experimentation and local audiences. The festival is supported by the BFI, with National Lottery funding helping to drive this most expansive edition yet.

As Artistic Director Philip Ilson puts it, this year’s programme “holds memory, identity and experience in ways that are intimate, urgent and impossible to ignore.” Festival Director Aleks Dimitrijevic echoes that ambition, positioning LSFF "as a platform for voices that reflect the energy and diversity of London itself".

The competition strands bring together emerging talent and returning alumni. In the UK Competition, Screen Star of Tomorrow Naqqash Khalid presents FLINT, while BAFTA-winner Mark Jenkin returns with I Saw the Face of God in the Jet Wash. Past international winners Julia Mellen and Dorien Jespers are also back with new work.

Comedy fans can expect appearances from Joe Lycett, Michael Spicer, Parminder Nagra and Alice Lowe, while experimental filmmaker Andrew Kötting returns as both alumnus and provocateur.

In short: if you want to see where cinema is heading next, this is where to look.

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