London Independent Film Festival

The London Independent Film Festival is, in its own words, “devoted to the advancement of first- and second-time filmmakers telling amazing stories with limited budgets”. Founded in 2004 by Erich Schultz, it has spent over twenty years bringing London the best of international independent cinema, and Time Out has called it “a treasure trove of undiscovered cinematic gems, one of Europe’s top indie film fests”.

Unusually, LIFF runs twice a year — a spring edition and an autumn one — and both are hosted at the Genesis Cinema on Mile End Road, which the festival describes as “repeatedly voted the best cinema in the UK”. Each edition stretches over ten days and screens the work of almost a hundred filmmakers from around the world.

The competition is organised around what a film cost to make as much as what it is: alongside the documentary, sci-fi/horror, LGBT and female director awards sit prizes for the best low-budget, micro-budget and no-budget feature, the last of them for films made for under £10,000. Shorts, animation, experimental work, music videos and screenplays are judged in their own categories. Around the screenings run industry events, training programmes led by working professionals, and a pitching Mini-Market where filmmakers put projects in front of sales agents and producers for feedback.