The second version of SXSW London is sort of upon us, with Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day, starring Haley Bennett, Jack Whitehall, Lily Allen, Timothy Spall, Jennifer Saunders, Sally Phillips, Misia Butler and Elyas M’Barek, opening the 2026 Display Pageant on Monday, June 1.
The rom-com from director Tina Gharavi and screenwriter Justine Waddell is an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel Night time and Day. However the film is only one of some dozen, together with brief movies, which can be unspooling within the British capital all through the June 1-6 occasion.
Peter Glanz’s darkly satirical Savage Home, whose solid consists of Richard E. Grant, Claire Foy, Bel Powley and Jack Farthing, can also be among the many headliner premieres of this 12 months’s SXSW London, together with an unique first-look screening of the primary two episodes of Grownup Swim animated collection Get Jiro, primarily based on the DC/Vertigo graphic novel from Anthony Bourdain and starring the voice of Brian Tee (A Home of Dynamite), which is ready in a not-too-distant future Los Angeles the place grasp cooks rule the city and other people actually kill for a seat at one of the best eating places.
Amongst international options getting their U.Okay. premiere at SXSW London are The Different Facet of the Solar, directed by Tawfik Sabouni, Juan Pablo Sallato‘s The Red Hangar, Roya by director Mahnaz Mohammadi, Vladlena Sandu’s Reminiscence, Remake from director Ross McElwee, and Solely Rebels Win by director Danielle Arbid. SXSW London is owned and produced by Panarise, which operates below license from SXSW LLC, which is owned by Penske Media Company, the guardian firm of The Hollywood Reporter.
Anna Bogutskaya, the top of display screen at SXSW London, and her staff have had loads of work narrowing down an enormous variety of films that they seen heading into the 2026 second version.
‘Get Jiro’ nonetheless, courtesy of SXSW London
“This year, we had the benefit of having done one already last year with the same vision, [so] our programming process was a bit more refined,” she tells THR. “We had the same amount of slots, which is roughly 40 features.”
However there’s a core lens via which the staff evaluates movies. “Our vision is heavily focused on international filmmakers and genre-friendly and genre-pushing storytelling,” explains Bogutskaya. “The shared DNA of SXSW in Austin and the one that we’re trying to build here in London is always at the heart of our programming. The other thing is balance, which you only really see as a whole when the program is fully finalized. Do we have enough documentaries of this flavor, do we not have enough films from East Asian countries, or do we not have enough French, Spanish or Mediterranean films? We’re always looking for balance, so it never feels too overly weighted in one direction – not too many horror films, not too many documentaries of the same tone, not too many fiction films of the same tone, not too many war films, comedies or road movies.”
A variety of display screen time goes into finalizing the Display Pageant. “We watched maybe about 2,000, 3,000 films,” Bogutskaya tells THR. “You have to be extremely selective and extremely conscious of every decision. If we had a program of 200 films, we would have more leeway.”
Star energy is a part of the steadiness the staff strives for. “We have some interesting kind of star power, including in our headliners, five of six are world premieres this year,” the SXSW London head of display screen highlights. “We’ve got talent attending for all of them, from Claire Foy and Richard E. Grant to Haley Bennett. We have a lot of really strong British talent as well as international talent.”
‘Virginia Woolf’s Night time and Day’ movie nonetheless, courtesy of SXSW London
The U.S. and Latin America even have a key presence. “One thing that we are trying to do is share the platform with the core ethos of the Screen Festival, which is international genre-bending, genre-friendly,” says the display screen programming boss. “So, for instance, this year we have two international headliners that are both world premieres and both series – a huge Brazilian production called The Playoffs and Get Jiro, which is an anime series based on an Anthony Bourdain graphic novel. That is such an early get for us. I’m really proud of it, also because it is such an incredible show. It’s got that tone and humor and is just such a blast, so that screening is going to be such a wicked experience.”
The Playoffs, starring Cauã Reymond in a collection a couple of former soccer star turned agent who runs from the militia, his household, and himself on the best way to regaining glory, can also be a coup, given its nation of origin and the timing. “It is a huge production for Globo in Brazil that has an audience here, and also the timing with the World Cup was too delicious to ignore,” shares Bogutskaya. Certainly, the FIFA soccer World Cup within the U.S., Canada and Mexico runs June 11-July 19.
Are there any overarching themes throughout the Display Pageant? “That’s the sort of thing that always comes out after the program is done,” she says. “I can look at the films that we’ve programmed and see throughlines between them, but we never program with a theme in mind. What I can see looking at the program now is how characters, in both documentary and narrative films, are dealing with real-life, larger-than-life events, [whether] war or [other] challenges, by using art to make sense of them.”
One instance is Sandu’s Reminiscence, described on the SXSW London web site as “a haunting blend of documentary and dream.” Born in Crimea and raised in war-torn Chechnya, Sandu appears again at her previous via “fragments: family secrets, rumours, and the stories no one was allowed to tell,” notes a synopsis. “Using reconstructions and evocative, poetic imagery that recalls a childhood growing up in the Soviet Union.”
‘Memory’ movie nonetheless, courtesy of SXSW London
Equally, the doc Remake sees McElwee coping with the demise of his son via filmmaking and The Different Facet of the Solar “is an incredible documentary where they’re using puppetry to process the damage and the trauma of having been captured and tortured” in Syria. Plus, Joan Porcel’s La Carn (The Flesh), about “a queer performance artist who gets dangerously close to a stranger in an online chat room,” per a synopsis, contains a younger man who’s “creating a theater piece out of internet hookup culture and the really fleeting connections that you can establish with people through a ChatRoulette conversation,” the SXSW London head of display screen factors out.
“Even Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day is about a woman who’s looking up at the stars and using astronomy to make sense of a deeply patriarchal world,” notes Bogutskaya.
All in all, SXSW London 2026 audiences are in for a mixture of laughter, tears, scares and new concepts – all whereas touring the globe cinematically. Concludes Bogutskaya: “We’re bringing the world to London audiences through our curation. It’s a kind of travelogue through different styles and tones of filmmaking, including really provocative films.”
