Imperium, Sergei Loznitsa’s archive-based portrait of the Soviet Union in the early 1970s, has won Best Film at the 70th BFI London Film Festival, the British Film Institute (BFI) announced on Sunday, October 18, as the festival ended.

The BFI describes Loznitsa as a “master of archival film reconstruction” and says the film reframes Soviet history “via the revealing gaze of Italian cameramen who captured life there in the early 1970s.” Time Out listed the film as a Germany-France-Italy-Lithuania production.

The Official Competition jury was led by Sam Pollard, with Mariano Llinás and Julie La Bassiere. “We, as a jury, have chosen Sergei Loznitsa’s ‘Imperium’ as the BFI London Film Festival’s Best Film for 2026,” the jury said. It called the film “richly evocative and emotionally engaging on all levels,” giving “a visually arresting perspective of life before the Soviet Union was broken apart.”

The other winners

The Sutherland Award, for the First Feature Competition, went to 9 Temples to Heaven by Sompot Chidgasornpongse. The BFI describes the film, his fiction debut, as “a serene passage through family, faith and the cycles of life.” That jury was led by Amir El-Masry, with Alemberg Ang and Rosa Bosch.

The Grierson Award, for the Documentary Competition, went to Concrete Land by Asmahan Bkerat, a feature directorial debut that the BFI describes as an intimate, multi-generational portrait of a mixed-race family “fighting displacement and hostility in Jordan.” The documentary jury, led by Sandhya Suri with Kate Fitzpatrick and Andee Ryder, said: “This was a beautifully observed portrait filmed with mastery and confidence.”

The Short Film Award went to Aman by Rahul Roye, which follows a trans man who discovers he is pregnant on the eve of gender-affirming surgery. The short film jury was led by Helen Simmons, with Leo Reich and Jack Casey. The BFI said the film is available to watch free on BFI Player until October 25.

The juries also gave special mentions to Masc by Bertil Nilsson in the First Feature Competition, Queer Edward II by Theo Rollason in the Documentary Competition, and Daughters of the Late Colonel by Elizabeth Hobbs in the Short Film Competition. Queer Edward II is an all-archival look behind Derek Jarman’s film Edward II, according to the BFI.

A competition of 10 films

The 70th edition ran from October 7 to 18. It opened with Elsinore, a film starring Andrew Scott, and closed with Jesse Eisenberg’s comedy-drama The Debut, starring Julianne Moore, according to Time Out’s report on the line-up in August.

Imperium was one of 10 films in the Official Competition. The others were 7 Miles Out by Carol Morley, Act 3 by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, Glaxo by Benjamín Naishtat, Ketticè by Giovanni Tortorici, Look Back by Hirokazu Kore-eda, My Notes on Mars by Lili Horvát, The Difficult Bride by Rubaiyat Hossain, The Idiot(s) by Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert, and Woman Unknown by May el-Toukhy.

Previous winners of the festival’s Best Film award include Jacques Audiard for A Prophet, Ryusuke Hamaguchi for Evil Does Not Exist and Lucrecia Martel, who won in 2025 for Landmarks, Time Out reported.

Audience awards still to come

The festival’s audience awards had not yet been decided. The BFI said voting would close on Wednesday, October 21, and that the winners of Best Feature Film and Best British Discovery would be announced later. Last year’s audience awards went to Hamnet for Best Feature Film and Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story for Best British Discovery.

Why it matters

Best Film is the festival’s top competitive prize, which Time Out described as the London event’s equivalent of the Palme d’Or. This year it went to a film built from archival footage, and the jury framed its choice around how rarely the society it shows has been seen on screen.

Two of the other jury prizes went to debuts: 9 Temples to Heaven, Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s first fiction film, and Concrete Land, Bkerat’s first feature as director. For viewers, the winning short remains free to watch on BFI Player until October 25.

The caveats

The BFI’s announcement spells the Concrete Land director’s name two ways, as Asmahan Bkerat and as Ashman Bkerat. This article uses the spelling given with the award.

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