The 70th BFI London Film Festival closed on Sunday night with its top prize going to a film dug out of the archives of a vanished country. Sergei Loznitsa's Imperium, a portrait of the Soviet Union in the early 1970s assembled from footage shot by Italian cameramen, has won the festival's Best Film award, beating nine other titles in the Official Competition.
What is Imperium?
Imperium is built from film shot in the early 1970s across what was then the USSR by Italian camera crews — a foreign lens on a closed society. Woven together, the material captures the sheer diversity of Soviet life in contrast with the official portrayals and productions of the same era, offering a view of the country's social and cultural landscape that has rarely been seen.
The film screened in Official Competition as a German-French-Italian-Lithuanian production. Festival director Kristy Matheson had already singled it out before the awards, calling it an epic film both in its form and in what it is talking about.
What the jury said
The Official Competition jury was led by the documentary filmmaker Sam Pollard, whose credits include MLK/FBI and Citizen Ashe. He was joined by the Argentine filmmaker and writer Mariano Llinás, known for The Life of Jorge Luis Borges, and Julie La Bassiere, chief strategy officer at DDA.
Announcing the award, the jury described the film as "richly evocative and emotionally engaging on every level, giving us a visually compelling perspective on life before the collapse of the Soviet Union". The panel also praised its wide-ranging view of a country with an extraordinary social and cultural landscape, calling it visually arresting.
A filmmaker of archives
Loznitsa, a Ukrainian filmmaker, has built his reputation on archive-based cinema — films that reassemble forgotten or overlooked footage into new arguments about the past. Imperium continues that method, treating the Italian-shot reels not as illustrations but as evidence, and letting the images of 1970s Soviet life speak against the propaganda of the period.
The London win is a significant recognition for archive-based filmmaking, a form that rarely takes top prizes at major festivals, and it confirms Loznitsa's standing as one of the most distinctive documentary voices working today.
The other big winners
In the first-feature competition, the Sutherland Award went to Sompot Chidgasornpongse's 9 Temples to Heaven, the director's first fiction film and Thailand's submission for the Oscars. The jury called it "an accomplished debut film that paves its own way in the long tradition of filmmaking in the Southeast Asian region". A special mention went to Bertil Nilsson's Masc, with the jury singling out Nilsson as a new British talent.
The Grierson Award for documentary went to Concrete Land, the debut feature by Asmahan Bkerat, which follows generations of a mixed-race family in Jordan resisting displacement and hostility. The documentary jury was chaired by Santosh director Sandhya Suri.
The festival wrapped with the UK premiere of Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut as its closing gala.
The 70th edition in context
This year's festival ran from 7 to 18 October, with ten films from ten countries contesting the Official Competition — a lineup spanning the UK, Ireland, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan and Poland. Alongside Imperium, the contenders included the Golden Lion winner Woman Unknown by May el-Toukhy, Hirokazu Kore-eda's Look Back and the political satire The Idiot(s).
The Best Film award was established in 2009 to celebrate inspiring, inventive and distinctive filmmaking. Recent winners include Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Evil Does Not Exist in 2023, Adam Elliot's Memoir of a Snail in 2024 and Lucrecia Martel's Landmarks in 2025 — company that underlines the prize's habit of honouring bold, director-driven cinema.
What the win means for Imperium
A Best Film prize at London does not come with a distribution deal attached, but it reliably lifts a film's international profile: programmers, critics and distributors all pay closer attention to a title carrying a major festival laurel. For an archival film about the Soviet past, the timing is pointed — a reminder of how the images of a closed empire can still unsettle the present.
Whether Imperium travels further on the awards circuit remains to be seen, but its London triumph has put it firmly on the international festival map.
FAQs
What is Sergei Loznitsa's Imperium about?
Imperium is an archival film that revisits the Soviet Union of the early 1970s using footage shot across the USSR by Italian cameramen. It presents the diversity of Soviet life in contrast with official Soviet portrayals of the era, offering a rarely seen view of the country's social and cultural landscape before the union's collapse.
Who decided the Best Film award?
The Official Competition jury was led by documentary filmmaker Sam Pollard, known for MLK/FBI and Citizen Ashe. He sat alongside Argentine filmmaker and writer Mariano Llinás and DDA chief strategy officer Julie La Bassiere, and the three chose the winner from ten competing films.
Who is Sergei Loznitsa?
Sergei Loznitsa is a Ukrainian filmmaker known for archive-based films that reassemble historical footage into new reflections on the past. Imperium — a German-French-Italian-Lithuanian co-production — continues that method with Italian-shot reels from the 1970s Soviet Union.
What else won at the 70th BFI London Film Festival?
The Sutherland Award for best first feature went to Sompot Chidgasornpongse's 9 Temples to Heaven, Thailand's Oscar submission, with a special mention for Bertil Nilsson's Masc. The Grierson documentary award went to Asmahan Bkerat's debut feature Concrete Land, about a mixed-race family in Jordan resisting displacement.
Why does the LFF Best Film award matter?
Established in 2009, the prize honours inspiring, inventive and distinctive filmmaking, and recent winners include Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Evil Does Not Exist and Adam Elliot's Memoir of a Snail. A win at London reliably raises a film's international profile with programmers, critics and distributors.
🤖 This article was rewritten by Feed and Figures' editorial AI from a report originally published by Variety. Facts and quotes are preserved from the original; the rewrite focuses on clarity and structure. For the unedited original, see the source link below.
