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Sergei Loznitsa’s Imperium has won the best film award in the Official Competition at BFI London Film Festival (LFF).
The 175-minute long documentary reframes Soviet history through the gaze of Italian cameramen who captured life there in the early 1970s.
Scroll down for the full list of winners
It was selected by a jury headed by documentary filmmaker Sam Pollard, alongside filmmaker Mariano Llinas, and DDA chief strategy officer Julie La Bassiere.
The jury described it as “an extraordinary film that explores the Soviet Union in the early 1970’s from a rich archive with a wide-ranging perspective that looks at life in a country with an extraordinary social and cultural landscape that has rarely been seen. The film is richly evocative and emotionally engaging on all levels giving us a visually arresting perspective of life before the Soviet Union was broken apart.”
Imperiumlaunched in the out of competition Open section at Venice Film Festival last month. It is produced by Philippe Bober and Anne-Claire Martin for France’s Coproduction Office, Uljana Kim for Lithuania’s Studio Uljana Kim, and Giovanni Pompili for Italy’s Kino Produzioni.
Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s 9 Temples To Heaven won the Sutherland award for best film in the First Feature Competition. The family drama sees a man take his sick mother and nine family members on a pilgrimage to a temple, after his boss predicts she may die soon. The film premiered in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes this year; the Thailand-Singapore-France-Norway co-production is produced by Kissada Kamyoung and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
“An accomplished first feature paving his own path in the well-established tradition of filmmaking in the Southeast Asian region,” noted a jury led by actor Amir El-Masry, alongside producer Alemberg Ang and sales, distribution and awards strategy executive Rosa Bosch. “The film is visually outstanding, spiritual, and meditative where a story about life and death transcends borders and generations.”
A special mention in the section went to Masc, the debut feature of ScreenStar of Tomorrow Bertil Nilsson.
Asmahan Bkerat’s Concrete Land won the Grierson award for best film in the Documentary Competition, for its portrait of a mixed-race family fighting displacement and hostility in Jordan.
Voting for the LFF audience awards closes on Wednesday, October 21. The festival closes this evening with the UK premiere of Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut.
BFI London Film Festival 2026 winners
Official Competition
Best film – Imperium, dir. Sergei Loznitsa
First Feature Competition
Sutherland award for best film – 9 Temples To Heaven, dir. Sompot Chidgasornpongse
Special mention – Masc, dir. Bertil Nilsson
Documentary Competition
Grierson award for best film – Concrete Land, dir. Asmahan Bkerat
Special mention – Queer Edward II, dir. Theo Rollason
Short Film Competition
Best film – Aman, dir. Rahul Roye
Special mention – Daughters Of The Late Colonel, dir. Elizabeth Hobbs
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