French Film Festival
If you haven't yet set foot in the Institut Français, housed in an ornate red-brick building in south Kensington, then its annual film bonanza is a great excuse to visit. This November, its French Film Festival returns for its 33nd year with a hefty programme that showcases the freshest and best new films from across the Channel.
Taking place across two weeks in the venue's two-screen Ciné Lumière, this bigger-than-ever edition features more than 76 screenings of 33 Gallic cinematic treats, including plenty of UK premieres of newly released films, a number of which were released to critical acclaim at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Highlights include this year’s Palme d'Or winner It Was Just an Accident by the award-winning director Jafar Panahi, a thriller exploring political repression. In Black to the Future, comedian Jean-Pascal Zadi imagines the first African space mission as creating a place of refuge for a whole diaspora. And The Voice of Hind Rajab by Kaouther Ben Hania won a Silver Lion at Venice and an astonishing 23-minute standing ovation for its moving depiction of suffering in Gaza. There's also a classic cinema strand featuring freshly-restored copies of French landmarks, and some spectacular animated works aimed at families: browse the full programme for details.