#London Film Festival: Cannes-Winning ‘Heli’ Director Amat Escalante to Lead Main Competition Jury

With the 67th BFI London Film Festival gearing up to start on Oct. 4, the juries for the various competitions have been named.

Leading the official competition jury is acclaimed Mexican director, producer and screenwriter Amat Escalante, who won the best director honor at the 2013 edition of the Cannes Film Festival for Heli and the Silver Lion for the best director in Venice in 2016 for The Untamed. Escalante’s latest feature, Lost in the Night, is playing in the London Film Festival’s Thrill Strand.

Joining Escalante on the main jury are Kate Taylor, program director of the 2023 Edinburgh International Film Festival, and Niven Govinden, the English novelist and author of Diary of a Film.

The films in the official competition that the trio will be judging include:

Baltimore, Christine Molloy, Joe Lawlor
Dear Jassi, Tarsem Singh Dhandwar)  
Europa, Sudabeh Mortezai
Evil Does Not Exist, Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Fingernails, Christos Nikou
Gasoline Rainbow, Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross
I Am Sirat, Deepa Mehta And Sirat Taneja
The Royal Hotel, Kitty Green
Self Portrait: 47 Km 2020, Zhang Mengqi
Starve Acre, Daniel Kokotajilo
Together 99, Lukas Moodyson

Elsewhere, Brit director Raine Allen-Miller (Rye Lane) will oversee the jury for the first feature competition, also known as the Sutherland Award, BAFTA Breakthrough recipient Rubika Shah (White Riot) will head up the Grierson Award for Best Documentary jury, and Charlotte Regan (Sundance winner Scrapper) will lead the jury for best short film.

“I’m honored to have such esteemed filmmakers, curators and industry leaders join us in London this year and look forward to the unique perspective that each jury member will bring to the films in competition,” said LFF director Kristy Matheson.

The BFI London Film Festival runs Oct 4.-15 and will launch with the European premiere of Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn.