BFI London Film Festival 2026 Industry Forum Puts Costume Design and Film Craft in Focus

The 70th BFI London Film Festival will bring filmmakers, producers, costume designers, programmers and immersive creators together for its 2026 Industry Forum from 8 to 15 October at Picturehouse Central. While the programme spans cinema exhibition, international co-production, screenwriting, archives and XR, one of its most relevant conversations for fashion and design comes through costume designer PC Williams, whose 10 October session with filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr will examine how clothing helps shape character, genre and visual storytelling on screen.

Costume Design as a Creative Discipline

Williams, whose credits include We Are Lady Parts, My Father’s Shadow and The End We Start From, will discuss the practical and creative processes behind costume design across different genres.

The conversation is set to look beyond costume as surface styling. It will consider collaboration between designers, directors, departments and production teams, as well as the space available for experimentation and the need to create opportunities for emerging talent.

For a fashion audience, that distinction matters. Costume exists in close proximity to fashion, but its purpose is different: garments must operate within a narrative, respond to character and movement, and function as part of a wider visual world. The discussion places that craft within the broader film-making process rather than treating clothing as an isolated aesthetic component.

The event, held in association with Variety, will be hosted by British-Nigerian filmmaker and visual artist Akinola Davies Jr.

Danny Boyle and the State of British Film

The Industry Forum will also host director and producer Danny Boyle in conversation with Matt Belloni for The Town podcast on 9 October.

Their discussion will address the state of the UK film industry alongside Boyle’s recent work as director and producer on Ink, a drama centred on Rupert Murdoch. The appearance forms part of Puck’s Stories of the Season programme and brings one of the festival’s most prominent film-making conversations into the professional forum.

The programme also includes individual Spotlight Conversations with producers Pippa Harris and James Wilson.

Harris will speak with Edith Bowman on 12 October about a career spanning film and television, including her work through Neal Street Productions and the forthcoming quartet of Beatles films directed by Sam Mendes.

Wilson will appear with journalist Danny Leigh on 8 October, reflecting on more than three decades of independent production and collaborations across films including The Zone of Interest, Under the Skin and You Were Never Really Here.

Audiences, Co-Production and Emerging Writers

Beyond individual career conversations, the Industry Forum places considerable emphasis on how films are financed, programmed and brought to audiences.

The opening panel on 8 October brings together programmers from Curzon, Picturehouse Cinemas and BFI IMAX to examine changing audience behaviour and the balance between mainstream and independent cinema.

A separate session on 12 October brings producers from Ireland, Spain, Norway and Brazil together to discuss international co-production, including funding structures, business opportunities and the creative complications that can arise when projects cross national borders.

Emerging writers are also given a dedicated platform through the fourth edition of Fade In. The programme features Travis Alabanza, Gemma Bedeau, Paul Carey, Alice Clark, Alex Mathias and Carly Mills, reflecting a range of experience spanning theatre, film, episodic drama, children’s programming, graphic novels and games.

Archives and the Material Life of Film

On 13 October, a panel organised with Sheffield DocFest will explore the use of archival material in documentary storytelling.

Directors Theo Rollason, Nanette Burstein and Rafael Guendelman will join Simon McCallum from the BFI National Archive to discuss how historical material can be recontextualised while building a new narrative.

The subject connects naturally with the wider programme’s interest in craft. Whether through costume, archives or production design, cinema is continually shaped by objects and images that already carry histories of their own.

Immersive Storytelling Moves Beyond the Screen

The Industry Forum concludes on 15 October with the return of LFF Expanded Industry Day, bringing together XR, gaming, immersive art and mixed-reality projects.

A Works-in-Progress showcase will feature six projects, including DARKFIELD’s participatory audio work PILGRIMS, AΦE’s augmented-reality reinterpretation of Peter and the Wolf, Comfort Arthur’s animated VR documentary Ursula and Keiken’s open-world project Morphogenic Angels: Alchemy of Perspectives.

The day will also include funding surgeries with BFI-backed funds and discussions around how venues and audiences are adapting to immersive work.

This broader definition of screen culture is important to the 2026 programme. Film is no longer being discussed only through conventional theatrical production. Costume, gaming, spatial design, archives, virtual reality and interactive experiences increasingly occupy overlapping creative territory.

The Industry Forum therefore functions less as a series of isolated professional talks than as a snapshot of how contemporary screen culture is being built: through collaboration between creative disciplines, new technologies and established craft.

The 2026 BFI London Film Festival Industry Forum runs from 8 to 15 October at Picturehouse Central. Full programme information is available via the BFI London Film Festival Industry Forum.