The BFI London Film Festival has adapted to the extraordinary challenges of 2020 to provide their most accessible version of the festival to UK audiences yet. Film lovers across the country will be given an opportunity to connect for a unique and innovative Festival experience, enjoying both cinema and virtual screenings across the 12 days of the Festival (from 7 to 18 Oct).

The Festival has teamed up with Watershed and other UK cinemas to offer audiences exclusive previews from the programme, and we’re pleased to be screening 11 titles in October.

They include Mangrove, the latest from Oscar®-winning director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave, Shame). Starring Letitia Wright and Malachi Kirby, it’s the rousing true story of the Mangrove 9, a group of Black activists who clashed with London police during a protest march in 1970, and the trial that followed.

Francis Lee follows up the BAFTA-winning God’s Own Country with Ammonite, about the 19th century palaeontologist Mary Anning (Kate Winslet), who falls in love with the wife (Saoirse Ronan) of a fossil collector.

We also screen Josephine Decker’s psychodrama Shirley, starring Elizabeth Moss as the horror writer Shirley Jackson, and Bassam Tariq’s directorial debut Mogul Mowgli, starring Riz Ahmed as a British-Pakistani rapper whose life spirals out of control.

Booking for the 11 BFI London Film Festival previews at Watershed will open 16 September (apart from Mangrove which will open on 1 Oct). Sign up to our Coming Soon list to be the first to hear when booking opens.

Mark Cosgrove, Watershed’s Cinema Curator, says:

‘It is a thrill to be part of the BFI London Film Festival this year and to bring this fantastic selection of premiere screenings to Bristol audiences. The programme provides previews of some of the most exciting and eagerly anticipated films coming up in the months ahead, from Steve McQueen’s topical Mangrove to Francis Lee’s Ammonite, starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan. A much needed celebration of film in the cinema awaits.”

The full list of BFI London Film Festival previews at Watershed:

• Mangrove (dir: Steve McQueen)
• Shirley (dir: Josephine Decker)
• Herself (dir: Phyllida Lloyd)
• Mogul Mowgli (dir: Bassam Tariq)
• Soul (dir: Pete Docter)
• Another Round (dir: Thomas Vinterberg)
• Time (dir: Garrett Bradley)
• David Byrne’s American Utopia (dir: Spike Lee)
• Nomadland (dir: Chloé Zhao)
• After Love (dir: Aleem Khan)
• Ammonite (dir: Francis Lee)

Sign up to our Coming Soon list and we’ll email you when booking opens.

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