Meet the programming team for the 66th BFI London Film Festival

Tricia Tuttle has been Director of BFI Festivals since 2019, prior to that she was Acting Artistic Director of the 62nd Edition of the BFI London Film Festival and worked for five years as Deputy Head of Festivals at BFI, including BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival. She was previously Film Programme Manager at BAFTA and Event Producer at The Script Factory, Tricia has also worked as a programmer, lecturer, writer and journalist.

Michael Blyth is the Senior Film Programmer for both the LFF and BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival. He also contributes to various print and online publications, specialising in queer cinema and the horror genre, and is author of the book Devil’s Advocates: In the Mouth of Madness.

Grace Barber-Plentie is a Film Programmer for BFI London Film Festival. Her programming specialities include cinema of the Black diaspora, in particular African American and Black British work, and queer cinema. She also programmes for BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival, and has previously programmed work for cinemas and festivals including the Barbican, London Short Film Festival, The V&A Museum and Genesis Cinema.

Hyun Jin Cho is a Film Programmer for the BFI London Film Festival, leading on South East and East Asian cinema and co-curating Experimenta. Specialising in political filmmaking with a focus on ecological and post-colonial cinema, she has curated projects at Tate, ICA, LUX, REDCAT and Il Cinema Ritrovato. Jin is currently undertaking research on the intersection of colonial history and the culture of cinema.

Laure Bonville is the LFF’s lead documentary programmer. She previously worked in the Cinema department of the BFI Southbank and at the Hamburg short film festival and Clermont-Ferrand short film festival.

Rowan Woods is the LFF’s Series & Episodic Programmer. She is also an acquisitions consultant for AMC and has previously worked at BBC Film and the British Council.

Silvia Angrisani is the LFF’s Industry Programmes Manager. She is responsible for the Industry talks and the Works in Progress Showcase taking place in the framework of the festival’s UK Talent Days. Silvia has previously worked in international sales, festivals and theatrical distribution as well as in evaluation of public policies in the international film sector.

Ulrich Schrauth is the BFI’s XR & Immersive Programme Lead and curates both LFF Expanded for BFI London Film Festival and the year-round programme at BFI Southbank. In addition to that, he is the artistic director of “VRHAM! — Virtual Reality & Arts Festival“ in Hamburg. Schrauth is also a speaker and presenter with a thematic focus on immersive arts, i.a. at SXSW Festival Austin/Texas, Film Festival Cannes/France, European Jazz Conference Novara/Italy.

Justin Johnson is a Programme Advisor for the LFF’s Family strand. He is also Lead Programmer for BFI Southbank and has been on juries for BAFTA and many international festivals.

Robin Baker is the Head Curator for the BFI National Archive and a co-Advisor of the LFF’s Treasures from the Archive strand.

Julie Pearce is a co-Programmer of the Treasures from the Archive strand. She is currently Head of Distribution & Programme Operations at the BFI. Previously, Julie was Head of Programme Planning for BFI Southbank, Programmer at the BFI IMAX and a book and CD buyer for Virgin.

Adrian Wootton OBE is a Programme Advisor for the LFF’s Italian selection. He is the CEO of Film London and the British Film Commission and also programme advisor for the Venice Film Festival; Noir in Festival, Milan; and Curator of Cinema Made in Italy. He is also the founding Director of Shots in The Dark Nottingham’s Crime and Mystery Festival.

Damon Wise is a Programmer Advisor for the LFF’s Thrill strand. As a freelance film writer, his features, interviews and reviews have been published widely in various UK and US publications since 1987. He is now full-time with Deadline.

Helen de Witt is a Programme Advisor for the Experimenta strand. She is a curator and lecturer in Film Studies at UCL and Birkbeck University of London. Helen was previously Head of Cinemas at the BFI.

Jonathan Romney is a Programme Advisor for French cinema for the LFF. He writes for Sight & Sound, The Observer, Screen Daily, Film Comment and others, and teaches at the NFTS.

Kalpana Nair is a programme advisor for the LFF’s South Asian selection. She leads Industry Relations at IMDb India and prior to that, was Head of Programming at the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. In her spare time, she writes about film and popular culture in publications like The Times of India, Firstpost, Film Companion and National Geographic.

Keith Shiri is an LFF Programme Advisor for African cinema. He is an international curator of African art and cinema.

Leigh Singer is an LFF Programme Advisor for Comedy/US Indie. He is a freelance film journalist, programmer and video essayist for Sight & Sound, the BFI, Little White Lies, the BBC and other outlets, and teaches at the NFTS.

Lynn Nwokorie is a documentary programme advisor for LFF. She is an executive producer at Dorothy St Pictures and consultant for Scottish Documentary Institute, the Sundance Documentary Fund and the Gotham Film & Media Institute.

Maria Delgado is a Programme Advisor on Spanish and Latin American cinema for the LFF. She is an academic, critic and curator, working for the BFI and ICA among others.

Paul Ridd is a Programme Advisor for the LFF, with a specific focus on UK feature films in the festival. He is also Head of Acquisitions for Picturehouse Entertainment and an International Consultant for Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Peter Hames is programme advisor for Central and Eastern Europe and Russia for the LFF.   His books include ‘The Cinema of Central Europe’, ‘The Czechoslovak New Wave’, ‘The Cinema of Jan Svankmajer’, and (as co-editor) ‘Cinemas in Transition in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989’.

Sarah Perks is Programme Advisor for Artist Moving Image (or Experimenta!) for LFF. Sarah is an interdisciplinary curator, writer, producer and Professor of Curating at Teesside University, previously Artistic Director at Manchester’s HOME.

Sarah Lutton is a Programme Advisor for the LFF’s Nordic selection, specialising in films from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Sarah has been contributing to LFF in a variety of roles since 1998. She also works with a range of film organisations and companies including BAFTA, British Council and the BFI on programming, new talent, research and editorial projects.

Sophie Brown is a Documentary Programme Advisor for the LFF. She is a writer, documentary development/creative consultant and reviews projects for the Sundance Institute’s Sandbox Fund.

Philip Ilson is the LFF’s Senior Short Film Advisor. He is also the Artistic Director of the London Short Film Festival, which he co-founded in 2004, and has previously worked as a programmer at the East End, Cork and Branchage Film Festivals as well as Curzon Soho Cinema.

Aduke King is a Short Film Programmer for the LFF and has worked as a Short Film Programmer for several leading film festivals. She enjoys finding space in festivals for unseen work, using programming as a way to widen audiences, broadening perspectives and give filmmakers new opportunities. Having worked in different areas of the film industry, Aduke is excited by new voices and stories, seeing festivals as a way to further careers and establish relationships.

Elaine Wong is a LFF Short Film Programmer, and has worked on the festival since 2016. She is a founding member of the London Video Club, and has a passion for content across numerous formats and technologies, past, present and future.

Nellie Alston is a Short FIlm Programmer for the LFF. She has worked across the film industry, including in distribution and at many festivals over the years. She currently is working with T A P E collective on London Short Film Festival, 2023. When not freelancing, she works in Audience Development at Into Film, predominantly helping to organise the Into Film Festival and their other events throughout the year.

David Edgar is a Submission Viewer for the LFF. He’s a PhD candidate in the Anthropology department at UCL, and works as a freelance book editor and personal trainer. He was the Film Officer at the Royal Anthropological Institute 2018-19 and Events Programmer (Learning and Interpretation) at BFI Southbank 2012-2018.

Nadia Maria Oliva is a Submissions Viewer at LFF. Passionate about cultivating new, diverse voices in independent cinema, she’s also a Programmer on BAFTA’s Learning, Inclusion and Talent team where she develops and moderates talks series with film & TV creators from around the world. Nadia has led on programming Film London Labs since its inception in 2018, and previously cut her teeth on the year-round programming team at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), working across public talks, Cinemathèque and new release events over 8 years.

Beth Privitera is a Submissions Viewer for the LFF. Beth has curated panel discussions at the BFI Southbank, pre-selected films for BFI Future Film Festival, and is on the programming team for the London Short Film Festival 2023. Beth is currently based in Paris, where she is undertaking twelve months of research for a Master’s in Film.

Isabel Moir is a Submissions Viewer for the LFF. She is also a Film Programmer at ICO and previously worked at Overnight Film Festival and the Barbican Centre.

Wacera Kamonji is a submission viewer for the LFF. She has recently completed a film curation fellowship for early career programmers and curators with Aya film distribution/ Curate-it in partnership with Edinburgh Film festival. Previously she has worked with Africa In motion, Femspectives feminist film festival and works in digital focused roles within arts based festivals.