BFI Head of Exhibition and Festival Director Clare Stewart announced today that the 57^th BFI London Film Festival, in partnership with American Express, will take place from Wednesday 9 October until Sunday 20 October 2013.

The highly regarded BFI London Film Festival champions creativity, originality, vision and imagination by annually showcasing features,documentaries, shorts, animation and experimental films from around the world, attracting large public audiences to venues across London and bringing leading international filmmakers, new talent, industry professionals and the media to the capital for a twelve day celebration of cinema.

Much anticipated within Europe’s cultural calendar, last year’s Festival hosted 227 feature films and 111 short films from 57 countries including 13 World Premieres. There were 570 filmmaker guests, drawing the highest ever audience attendance of 151,000 and a record number of Industry delegates. The Festival opened with the European Premiere of FRANKENWEENIE, closed with the European Premiere of GREAT EXPECTATIONS and included ARGO, AMOUR, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK and the World Premiere of CROSSFIRE HURRICANE.       

The BFI London Film Festival is now accepting submissions for 2013 and the full programme will be announced in September.