‘La Bola Negra’ Wins Another Prize — London Film Festival’s Audience Award

Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo’s queer epic has won the BFI London Film Festival Audience Award for best feature film.

Rooted in the legacy of beloved writer Federico García Lorca, the genre-defying drama had its LFF Gala screening on Oct. 8, attended by the filmmakers and stars Guitarricadelafuente, Miguel Bernardeau and Penélope Cruz. The movie recounts the story of three generations of queer men whose lives are connected through love and loss.

“We are absolutely delighted that La Bola Negra has won the BFI London Film Festival Audience Award,” Los Javis said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday. “It was a real pleasure to bring the film to London in October, and we are incredibly grateful to everyone who came to see it and voted for us. To receive this recognition from audiences is particularly meaningful,” they said, adding that they hope many more audiences will experience the film when it hits U.K. and Irish cinemas on Nov. 6.

La Bola Negra won Los Javis the best director award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and has emerged as a real threat to The Odyssey in the Oscars’ best picture race. Check out THR‘s deep dive with Spanish star Guitarricadelafuente, where he recalls witnessing the movie’s impact: “I saw a 16-year-old gay couple holding hands and hugging each other and crying.”

Elsewhere, Grace Harper Brighouse’s Dependence was voted the winner of LFF’s Audience Award for best British discovery. The experimental documentary is described as an intimate study of what it means to love an addict and screened in the Grierson competition for best documentary. It follows Brighouse as she sifts through decades of home movies following her father’s death.

“It was joyful to witness a community come together over 12 days of screenings and events to celebrate our 70th birthday,” said festival director Kirsty Matheson. “Across the U.K., audiences flocked to their local cinemas for LFF on Tour while London audiences enthusiastically embraced the programme, recording their highest-ever levels of attendance.”

The winners of this year’s BFI London Film Festival Awards were announced at the festival’s close on Oct. 18. They were chosen by juries presided over by Sam Pollard (official competition), Amir El-Masry (first feature competition), Sandhya Suri (documentary competition), and Helen Simmons (short film competition). The winners of the competitive awards were Sergei Loznitsa’s feature film Imperium, Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s debut feature 9 Temples to Heaven, Asmahan Bkerat’s doc Concrete Land and Rahul Roye’s short Aman.

Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut wrapped up a star-spangled 2026 BFI London Film Festival, which opened with the European premiere of Andrew Scott’s tearjerker Elsinore and ran from Oct. 7-18. Some of the glitziest galas included Behemoth!, Ink, Wild Horse Nine, Artificial, Paper Tiger, Possible Love, Bunker and La Bola Negra, where THR caught up with many of the leading awards contenders.

You can also read THR‘s Screen Talks coverage from this year’s LFF and chats with Andrew Scott, John Malkovich, Javier Bardem, Naomi Ackie, Ava DuVernay, Cynthia Erivo, Sofia Coppola and Danny Boyle.

LFF screened 258 titles hailing from 87 countries in total, featuring 249 languages. Forty-three percent of works were from female filmmakers. All of the features and shows screened to U.K. audiences for the first time, including 33 world premieres and 16 international premieres.