One of the simultaneously most exciting and most difficult tasks I face each year is writing an introduction to a programme that represents the work of many people. Exciting because I start really to appreciate the richness of what's here. Difficult because there's no easy shorthand to describe what we're trying to achieve. However long the list of adjectives - relevant, engaging, provocative, intriguing, enjoyable - it somehow always feels too reductive. Even now, with all the titles gathered in, I'm still finding new connections (and contradictions), new ways of making sense of what's here. Exploring what this year's programme tells us about the weft and weave of contemporary international cinema is something that we, with you, will enjoy doing in the coming weeks. That's not to say that everything is unknown. One thing that is abundantly clear is that at a time when there are significant ripples of uncertainty in the UK film industry, the creativity and breadth represented in our selection of British films is hugely encouraging. It's a cause for celebration that our Opening and Closing Galas are both British, particularly when these films are not only so different from one another, but each so imaginative and original. These qualities carry through into the rest of the British selection, shorts and features alike, and will be addressed in one of our many public events, 'British Cinema: Breaking with Convention'. Bringing filmmakers together with audiences is at the heart of what we do, from informal post-screening Q&As, through structured career interviews and masterclasses (this year including Darren Aronofsky and Javier Bardem), to hands-on workshops and live events, like those with Lewis Klahr and Daniel Barrow, programmed as part of our Experimenta weekend. We'll be working closely with events partners such as BAFTA and The Script Factory, Time Out and Sight & Sound to present timely debates, and our education and industry events will all draw on the wealth of filmmaking talent represented in the festival. From the playful to the precise, the surreal to the stringently social-realist, it's hard to recollect a year when the programme has been quite so diverse.
