Leeds International Film Festival announces 2025 Programme
Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF) has launched the Festival programme for our 39th edition running from 30 October to 16 November 2025.
For 18 days, LIFF 2025 will screen 260 films showing at more than 300 screenings at venues across Leeds including Vue in The Light, Everyman, Hyde Park Picture House, Cottage Road Cinema and Howard Assembly Room. LIFF is supported by the BFI National Lottery Audience Projects Award.
The films are presented in five distinct programme sections including new feature filmmaking in Constellation, documentary strand Cinema Versa, the UK’s largest festival selection of new genre films in Fanomenon, unique retrospectives in LIFF Spotlights and honouring the tradition of the world’s first short film made in Leeds in 1888 by Louis le Prince, LIFF Shorts.
Constellation previews many of the most talked about films of the year and presents UK Premieres of films from exciting new filmmakers in its feature film competition. Major highlights this year include two films from filmmaker Richard Linklater – opening film Blue Moon and Nouvelle Vague; Jafar Panahi’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident, the latest film from Lynne Ramsey, Die, My Love, Mary Bronstein’s dark comedy If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, and Kaouther Ben Hania’s drama The Voice of Hind Rajab.
The Constellation Feature Film Competition line-up includes nine UK Premieres: Cotton Queen (Suzannah Mirghani/Sudan, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar); Fantasy (Kukla/North Macedonia, Slovenia); Happy Birthday (Sarah Goher/Egypt); The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo (Diego Céspedes/Chile, Germany, France, Belgium, Spain); Omaha (Cole Webley/USA); Perla (Alexandra Makarová/Austria, Slovakia); Pinch (Uttera Singh/India); That Summer in Paris (Valentine Cadic/France); We Believe You (Charlotte Deville, Arnaud Dufeys/Belgium).
British film highlights in Constellation this year include three outstanding debut features: Harry Lighton’s Pillion, Imran Perretta’s Ish, and Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor’s Dreamers plus two films made in West Yorkshire: Paul Andrew Williams’s Dragonfly starring Andrea Riseborough and Nicholas Hytner’s The Choral starring Ralph Fiennes.
Opening night film Blue Moon from filmmaker Richard Linklater (Boyhood), sees Ethan Hawke deliver a career-best performance as legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart. With superb performances from Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, and Andrew Scott as Rodgers, Blue Moon is a witty yet melancholic portrait of friendship, art, and faded glory.
Closing night film The Love That Remains is Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason’s follow-up to his acclaimed film Godland and is a tender and playful portrait of a family in flux, shot on luminous 35mm. Pálmason delicately captures the changing seasons and shifting family dynamics with warmth, humour and touches of absurdity, crafting an intimate meditation on love, nature, and unconventional families.
Cinema Versa assembles some of the most immersive and fascinating documentaries of the year including the UK premiere of The Shepherd and the Bear, a beautifully shot film made on the frontline of the rewilding project in the French Pyrenees. Environmental themes reoccur throughout Cinema Versa, from a group of schoolkids uncovering a toxic waste dumping scandal in Middletown, to the first American climate change refugees in Lowland Kids. The Festival has UK premieres of Maciej Drygas’s extraordinary collage film Trains; Yalla Parkour about Palestinian resistance on the streets of Gaza; One of Us about LGBTQIA+ asylum seekers; a survey of the new generation of Irish folk musicians in Celtic Utopia. Plus the UK Premiere of the latest from the legendary Werner Herzog as he pursues Ghost Elephants in South Africa.
Fanomenon is the home at LIFF for fantastic genre films – including fantasy, sci-fi, horror, anime, dark comedies, thrillers, mixed genre films, and much more. Highlights this year include the Fanomenon opening film – the apocalyptic road trip Sirāt from Oliver Laxe, previews of Julia Ducournau’s Alpha and Bugonia from Yorgos Lanthimos, wonderful family films like Kid Koala’s Space Cadet and The Girl Who Stole Time from Yu Ao and Zhou Tienan, and award-winners like Paolo Strippoli’s The Holy Boy and A Useful Ghost from Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke. We also present two competitions in Fanomenon for the new generation of genre filmmakers.
The Fanomenon Feature Film Competition line-up includes 7 UK Premieres: The Black Hole (Moonika Siimets/Finland, Estonia); Dandelion’s Odyssey (Momoko Seto/ France, Belgium); Rains Over Babel (Gala del Sol/Colombia, USA, Spain); Roqia (Yanis Koussim/France, Algeria); Sirens Call (Miri Ian Gossing, Lina Sieckmann/Germany, Netherlands); Tinsman Road (Robbie Banfitch/USA); The Virgin of the Quarry Lake (Laura Casabé/Argentina, Spain, Mexico). The Fanomenon Short Film Competition includes 21 shorts in three programmes, with 10 from British filmmakers.
This year’s horror marathon Day of the Dead includes two of the most acclaimed independent genre films of the year, Redux Redux and Hellcat, and UK Premieres of The Book of Sijjin and Illiyyin from Indonesia and We Bury the Dead from Australia.
Night of the Dead returns for an all-night horror marathon at Hyde Park Picture House, with a new mix of outrageous horror, cult carnage and Midnight Mayhem. This year’s line-up includes Tina Romero’s queer zombie romp Queens of the Dead, the darkly comic French thriller Flush, and the 50s creature features spoof Zombie Vampires from Space. The night closes with Stephen Kostanski’s riotous remake of the cult swords-and-sorcery epic Deathstalker – a guaranteed crowd-pleaser and not to be missed.
In LIFF Spotlights, the Festival presents unique retrospectives and other special selections of rarely screened films. This year LIFF Spotlights opens with the beautiful The Arch (1968) from Hong Kong’s first woman filmmaker T’ang Shushuen, and closes with Compensation, Zeinabu Irene Davis’s landmark portrait of the struggles of Deaf African Americans – both new 4K restorations. The first of two main spotlights this year is Deslocamentos: Brazilian Cinema on the Move, with 6 features that reflect movements and displacements within Brazilian society, like the restored classic Iracema, and Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures which we are screening on 35mm. In our second main spotlight, We Gotta Get Outta This Place, we present 9 classic films about escaping from ordinary life and searching for new ways of living, including Barbara Loden’s Wanda and William Wyler’s Roman Holiday.
LIFF also presents a huge selection of hand-picked shorts from Yorkshire, around the UK, and across the world. LIFF SHORTS 2025 opens on 5 November a with a special selection of programme highlights. Over four days the Festival presents eight short film competitions that culminate with the awards night at Howard Assembly Room on 8 November where all the winning shorts will be screened. The competitions include the Louis le Prince International Short Film Competition, named after the Leeds pioneer who made the world’s first moving images in 1888, and the World Animation Competition. Our other competitions bring together new British and Yorkshire shorts, documentaries, queer shorts, screendance, and music videos.
Short films at LIFF with a Yorkshire focus include the World Premiere of Lewis’ Pashley’s The Caged which, without the use of dialogue, comments upon the beauty and simplicity of connecting with nature through the tale of a Yorkshire coal miner. The Colder the Water, the Deeper the Bonds, by Milk Teeth Productions’ languidly observed documentary joins a community of keen open water swimmers in Leeds. In The Long Away Game, Sabriah Nawroozi, the former Captain of the Afghan’s Women’s Football team, who fled the country in the wake of the Taliban’s takeover, reflects upon her life, love of football, and finding a new community with Harrogate Town FC.
"We’re presenting our most extensive programme yet at LIFF 2025, with an epic and diverse selection of films from around the UK and across the world over 18 days from 30 October to 16 November. From previews of some of the most anticipated new releases and UK Premieres of exciting new discoveries, to fantastic selections for genre fans and wonderful family films, we offer an exciting line-up for all with accessibility at the core of our programme. LIFF now includes three full weekends to increase opportunities for the audience to access the programme when they are most available, an expanded schedule of accessible screenings and community events, and more free or low-cost ticket offers and great value passes. A huge thank you to our audience, the LIFF team, Leeds City Council, our main funder the British Film Institute, and all our partners including leading venues Vue, Everyman, and the city’s historic independent cinemas Hyde Park Picture House and Cottage Road. We can’t wait to welcome everyone to the 39th Leeds International Film Festival!”
— LIFF Director, Chris Fell
