FIVE BRAZILIAN FILMS ARE PART OF LONDON'S FIRST LATINO FILM FESTIVAL

London gets its first festival dedicated entirely to Latin American cinema this October, and Brazil has five films in the lineup.

The London Latino Film Festival (LoLaFF) runs October 2–6, 2026, across the Barbican, the ICA, Ciné Lumière and BFI Stephen Street, opening night at the Barbican. It's the project of Ketty Rodriguez, who moved to London in 2025 and, by her own account, built the festival out of a gap she couldn't ignore: "I couldn't find my people... very few people know about Latin cinema. It's extremely underrepresented, so I decided to do something about it." The first edition brings 60 films from more than 25 countries and around 55 filmmakers, split across five strands — Official Competition, Environmental Competition, Rising Stars Competition, Family Cinema and Latin Legacy — built around themes of migration, identity, memory, the environment and community.

THE BRAZILIAN SELECTION

Brazil's presence runs across nearly every strand of the programme. In the Official Competition's feature category, Márcia Faria's À Procura de Martina (Martina's Search, Brazil/Uruguay, 2024, 88 minutes) follows a woman with Alzheimer's who has spent thirty years searching for her grandson. Two Brazilian shorts sit in the Official Competition alongside it: Eu Não Sei se Vou Ter que Falar Tudo de Novo (I Don't Know if I'll Have to Say Everything Again), directed by Vitoria Fallavena and Thassilo Weber, and Talvez o Vento Saiba Seu Nome (Maybe the Wind Knows Your Name), directed by Alexis Müller and Duda Machado. In the Environmental Competition, Janaina Wagner's short Quebrante rounds out the shorts field, and in the Rising Stars Competition, Ato Final (Final Act), directed by Babi Astolfi and Lisa Soares, represents Brazil's newest filmmaking voices.

WHO ELSE IS THERE

The festival's guest list includes Cuban ballet dancer Carlos Acosta and Argentine actor Óscar Martínez, alongside masterclasses at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and an exhibition of hand-printed Cuban film posters at Eclectic Gallery. It's a first edition built at festival scale rather than as a pilot — five days, four venues, and a programme wide enough to put Brazilian filmmakers from Alzheimer's dramas to environmental shorts on the same London bill as Cuban ballet and Argentine cinema.

Sources & further reading

• London Latino Film Festival, official site
• London Latino Film Festival, official selection announcement
• Huck, "UK's first ever Latino film festival is coming to London"
• Time Out London, "London Latino Film Festival"
• BBC, "Latino film festival to launch in London"