The upcoming BFI London Film Festival (LFF) from October 7–18, has a strong programme, including from South Asia/diaspora. A sign of the times: the Bengali film is from Bangladesh, and the Punjabi film is from Pakistan, emphasising the shared culture of the Indian sub-continent. LFF is a 'hybrid festival'—the latest slang for festivals that have partly theatrical screenings (a handful of films, in this case) and partly (mostly, here) online film screenings. The big ticket films include opening film Steve McQueen's Mangrove (on a restaurant in London, site for resistance by the Black community to police brutality and racism, starring Letitia Wright, Malachi Kirby), Francis Lee's Ammonite (Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan), Spike Lee's David Byrne's American Utopia, Chloé Zhao's Nomadland (Frances McDormand) and Pete Docter and Kemp Powers' Soul (Disney-Pixar animation).

The South Asian/diaspora films are an impressive line-up. Some have wowed audiences already. Many are a sign, along with others, of persistence in the face of the adversities of COVID-19. The feature films include Chaitanya Tamhane's The Disciple, Bassam Tariq's Mogul Mowgli and Rezwan Shahriar Sumit's Nonajoler Kabbo (The Salt in our Waters, Bengali, Bangladesh). The four shorts include Karishma Dube's Bittu (US-India), Hamza Bangash's Stray Dogs Come Out At Night (Punjabi, Pakistan), Dawinder Bansal's installation Jambo Cinema (UK), and Hardeep Pandhal's experimental short Happy Thuggish Paki (UK).