"No official quotas, but lots of pressure": How does London Film Festival strike such a diverse balance?

It's no easy feat, but it's one that London Film Festival programmer Grace Barber-Plentie takes in her stride, with this year marking her fifth in the role. As the film programmer for LFF and BFI Flare, there's a certain amount of pressure on Barber-Plentie and her team that they put on themselves, she admits, but it really is a case of teamwork makes the dreamwork.

As Barber-Plentie explains below, there aren't any official quotas in terms of diversity and representation within the LFF line-up, so it's a job that comes with personal responsibility, as well as a genuine desire to see the festival represent the breadth of experiences and people that London has to offer, the best it can.

How far in advance do you plan everything or even start having those initial conversations about what you want the LFF line-up to look like?

I mean, it sounds kind of crazy to say because October is so far into the year, but we really do kind of start in January, in terms of the beginning of the film festival year. Sundance in January – that's when we start viewing films. There's quite a lot of films that we've got in the festival this year that we watched way back in January. Things heat up in the springtime, really from May to July. It's a really busy period where we're just viewing, viewing, viewing, viewing. Then, somehow that gets us to October! It's really crazy how quickly this job makes the year pass.

Does it involve you going to a lot of other film festivals in person as well then?

We're really lucky with Sundance, we do it all virtually just because it would obviously be quite expensive. But we all go to Cannes. That's obviously a very crucial festival for us, just like it is for a lot of the film industry. Some of the team go to Berlin as well. We go to a lot of work-in-progress, pitching events and things like that. We're looking at this year's festivals but we're also always looking towards the future as well.

Are there any like titles that you feel a personal affiliation with, that you've known about for so and that are having their screenings during LFF this year?

We get to see a lot of things that are in the later autumn festivals that come just before us, like Venice and TIFF, throughout the summer. So with a film like The Voice of Hind Rajab, we saw that during the summer and were obviously just floored by it. We were just so moved and so impressed. It's obviously such a tricky line to to walk with the subject of that film. But we were just so stunned by how well it was done and we knew it was going to be very, very special. Seeing how a film like that had such an amazing reaction at Venice, it's so nice to know that then we're going to be able to show that to our audiences as well.

It's a film that will be an LFF must-watch for many, especially after its world premiere at Venice last month. But it obviously won't be an easy watch ...

It's not an easy watch, but I think it is an important watch. I think beyond that and maybe sometimes people aren't necessarily highlighting this so I'll just use the opportunity to – but it's also incredibly well made and really interestingly made as well. There are so many things going on all at once in that film. It's really special.

So many people have rightfully praised the breadth of content and the films that are on offer at this year's festival. Do you feel as though this year is even more of a celebration of diverse storytelling, now more than ever?

It's a good question – I think yes. This is my fifth year working on LFF now and I've definitely seen a shift during that time to be more diverse. But I think it's also kind of hard because you can't program films that aren't there, especially when we want things to be as diverse as possible at all times.

I think it's a case of being lucky with a lot of the films that are coming out when they're coming out. I think we've got some really amazing stories from British filmmakers this year that are of Black and global majority backgrounds. Also, first filmmakers as well, making really accomplished films. A couple of debuts that we've got are More Life by Bradley Banton and High Wire by Calif Chong. I think they're very authentic at representing their communities. It's nice to see diversity, but it's also really nice to see diversity specifically within British filmmaking. They're really exciting, they're going to be huge, they're such talented filmmakers.

Having been in the job for a while now, what have kind of the differences have you seen over the course of programming LFF across five years?

I don't know if this is necessarily a difference, but it's something that I love so much, is seeing filmmakers during my time on the festival returning. Say, you screen someone's first film and then they come back a couple years later with their second or third film.

I love kind of bookmarking filmmakers and thinking like, 'Okay, I've got to keep track of them and I've got to see what they're going to be doing'. I mean, filmmakers like Yemi Bamiro, who we're having the world premiere of his film, Black is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story, which is such an incredible documentary.

During my time at the festival, this is the second film of his that we've had, but it's the third film of his we've had in total. I think all of his documentaries are amazing, but they're just getting bigger in scope and he's just telling more unique stories. It's just so exciting – just over five years to see how much like his filmmaking is expanding and continuing to go from strength to strength.

Do you ever feel any pressure in 'getting it right' each year, having that great mix of documentaries, short films as well as big, glitzy Hollywood name attached films as well?

I think with the glitzy Hollywood stuff, we're so lucky in terms of the fact it's such a machine, [cinema] is always churning out. But it's actually even within that and then even within the program in general, it's like, how are we getting the right balance and the right mix of things? We're always thinking about female directors, non-binary, trans directors, Black and global majority directors. We don't have official quotas, to be hitting certain marks. But we still have that pressure on ourselves as a team. I think actually working as part of a programming team is really helpful because we don't really have specific focus areas, but someone might be like 'Oh, maybe we had more films from this area of the world last year'. And then that can push us to try and find more or at least the same amount of them every year.

Then I think it just it takes a lot of research and a lot of detective work. We can't program a film that doesn't exist, but we can find a film that maybe hasn't been in that many film festivals, just needs a bit of love, and we think London audiences would really react to. It's our duty as well to just make sure the festival represents London as best it can. Obviously, we're such a diverse city in so many different ways, with so many different types of people. We just want to make sure there's something for everyone.

Because there aren't any official quotas attached to LFF, is there like a sense of personal responsibility on the shoulders of all the programmers to make sure that you are platforming different intersectionalities of identity as well?

I think so, yeah. Maybe sometimes we are harder on ourselves than we should be. That we feel like just because maybe we haven't got this one film, doesn't mean that the rest of the festival isn't a success. Sometimes, when you're so deep in it as well, it can be hard to see the bigger picture. I think the fact that we take it so seriously does show that we do really care about these films.

When the programme is this big, sprawling thing, it feels like we could have just picked up these films at random and put them in. But like, when we're programming, it's really like ... even something from the thematic strands that we have, we spend so much time, agonising. Like, 'Oh, is this the right strand for this film?' and 'Is this a film that we should play in the morning or evening? What screen should it go in?'. Things like that, it's very fiddly. I think we do take personal responsibility.

For me as well, because I work on BFI Flare, which is our queer film festival that happens in the spring, I'm always thinking as well about what queer work we're screening in LFF. I think it's really nice for those festivals to speak to each other, for it not to just be like, 'Oh, all of the queer work is just put in Flare'. There needs to be a crossover and continuing narrative that both these festivals are happening and they're both run by the same people.

Is there a hidden gem title that you're hoping that people will be talking about this year, one that you maybe haven't seen loads of people talking about as much, but that you're hoping that people will take the time out and see?

I don't know if it's necessarily a hidden gem, because I think it was talked about a lot at the beginning of the year when it premiered, but it definitely deserves some love is BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions by Kahlil Joseph. People might be familiar with him, he's a very prolific music video director, he directed a lot of Kendrick Lamar's early videos. It's a really hard film to describe because it's so many things.

It's a sprawling, essayistic documentary about the Black diaspora told through memes, videos and serious academic works. It's also a very personal documentary about his family, and then it's also a kind of Afro-futurist piece, exploring the potentials of where Black people and especially Black art could go in the future. It's really special. I'm really jealous I haven't seen it on the big screen yet. To get to see that film in the cinema is going to be such a treat and such an experience, it looks really gorgeous.

A lot of the strands of LFF are seeking to reflect the world. With the outside world seeming more divisive than ever, what do you think about the power of cinema in being able to bring people together?

I don't know if I necessarily believe in the power of just watching a film. I think the power of having something like LFF is that it's taking over not the whole city, but a big chunk of the city and bringing in different people. What's really nice sometimes is I've had, for example, a film that's by an African filmmaker and people come up to me afterwards, and they'll be like, 'Oh, I didn't even know there was a film festival on, I just saw that there was a film by an African filmmaker and I wanted to see it.' And I can be like, 'Well, did you know about all of these as well?'.

People go crazy over LFF, I can't believe sometimes that people will be telling me about the spreadsheets and the timetable. It really does feel like it's a fully engrossing experience for 12 days. There's so much to do as well. If you just come to BFI Southbank, there's club nights, talks, lots of stuff. I don't know if LFF is necessarily going to – or any cinema because the world is just in such a crazy place at the moment – but I think it's definitely somewhere where everyone can find something that's for them.

If they're also looking to be a bit more 'out there' and use cinema as a tool for change and education, I think there are definitely films in the programme that do that. I mentioned The Voice of Hind Rajab, but there's also an amazing film called Orwell: 2+2=5 by Raoul Peck, who's just such an amazing filmmaker.

He's looking initially at George Orwell, his texts and ideas. But then from that, he's essentially going 'By the way, everything that he predicted in this book is happening now' and then, applying that to what's happening in the world. Again, it's an intense film and it doesn't necessarily have answers. But you come out that film and you want to like mobilise and do something, it makes you think about the world differently. So I think maybe if we sat down a cross-section of people at the moment, made them watch that film, maybe some kind of good could come out of that, hopefully.

What are some other titles or filmmakers that you're most excited for this year as well?

Because we're running around everywhere, we don't get to see a whole load of stuff during the festival. But I always try and make sure I get to see at least a couple of films. I'm hoping I'm going to see more than the two films I have tickets for. But I actually think the two films are quite good examples of the breadth of the programme. I've got tickets to see Hamnet, Chloé Zhao is such an interesting filmmaker, the way that she's managed to do a bit of everything is just crazy.

We have a lot of archive titles in the festival, which are usually restorations of older films that will always be on the most gorgeous 4k restoration. So I've also got tickets to a film from Guinea Bissau called Mortu Nega. It's about a couple who essentially are just trying to make their like relationship survive and also just survive themselves under Civil War. The photos I've seen from it are just absolutely stunning, so I'm just ready to go and see that on a big screen.

There's so many titles this year that are exploring the Black diaspora and global majority stories as well. How does it feel to be part of programming that really is platforming such diverse storytelling that so many people are asking for in film?

I think outside of what the main remit of my job is, just as a programmer myself, showing as many films by the Black diaspora – especially films by Black female filmmakers – that really is what I consider to be my job and my responsibility to do. It's obviously not just my responsibility and there's so many amazing other people screening these films and promoting these films. But to me, it's so important. I don't want to just share films that are from my lived identity. I think films from Black British filmmakers to just show specifically where we're at at the moment as a society.

Having like More Life and Black Is Beautiful is really exciting. But then at the same time, I'm so excited by the films that are coming over from Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa at the moment. The breadth of the filmmaking that's happening in Sub-Saharan Africa at the moment is incredible. We've got a comedy, cop thriller film. We've got a first time feature from a female filmmaker that's all about land rights and NGOs. It's very funny, but also very political. I think it's a really exciting time. I love to see global Black cinema as well. I think it's always to remember that we are everywhere. I think these films do a really nice job of sort of reminding us of that.

And why do you think it is so important for LFF to platform so many multifaceted stories from the Black diaspora?

London is such a diverse city and I think especially historically, there's such a strong Black community from across the world in London. I think we just want to see ourselves represented. And also, you think about Black British filmmakers, we've got this incredible legacy. We've got someone like Steve McQueen, who is just like one of the best in the game. Obviously, we had Blitz open LFF last year and we've shown a lot of his films over the years. We just want to keep supporting this legacy really and reminding people that while Black talent is global, so often people just think of African American filmmakers. It's like, 'No, we're doing the work here as well.'.

Finally, in your own words, why are representation and diversity within film so important?

I think it's everything, really. I just think if we were coming to cinema and we were seeing the same homogenous stories over and over again ... I mean, there's an argument that we are, especially now we're sort of living in the era of the remake and the reboot. But then, actually, I think because often, like cinema, especially mainstream cinema, can feel so homogenous, that's when it's so exciting to see different stories being told. Like, look at the reaction to Sinners. To have an original Black film by a filmmaker who's really interested in big budget filmmaking was just so exciting.

Especially my work with Flare makes me realise this, you think that every story has been told or can be told. You think of a coming-of-age story, 'Oh, I've seen that a million times.' But then you'll see a film like DJ Ahmet that we've got in the festival, which is set in a rural Macedonian village and it's about a boy that finds a way to break free from tradition through DJing. You'll see a film like She's the He, which is by a mainly trans and non-binary cast and crew. It's a gender-swap comedy that's sort of riffing on early 2000s teen films. There's always a new way to tell a story that you think is familiar and there's always stories that haven't been told yet.

BFI London Film Festival 2025 runs until 19th October.

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