Female directors in the mix at London Film Festival

LONDON — More than a third of films at this year’s London Film Festival were directed by women, organizers said Thursday as they revealed the schedule for the October movie extravaganza.

The festival said 38 per cent of all films and 30 per cent of the 225 features in the lineup have female directors, an increase over the 24 per cent of features in 2017.

Female-directed films in the Oct. 10-21 festival include Karyn Kusama’s police thriller Destroyer starring Nicole Kidman and Sara Colangelo’s drama The Kindergarten Teacher with Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Artistic director Tricia Tuttle said the festival had not set any quotas, but increasing diversity of all kinds is “always at the heart” of programming decisions.

“We haven’t set out to say 50 per cent have to be female filmmakers. We’ve genuinely found this incredibly rich talent,” she said.

The 62nd annual London festival opens with Steve McQueen’s heist thriller Widows, one of 39 British features on the slate. It closes with John S. Baird’s Laurel and Hardy biopic Stan & Ollie.

London is home to many British and U.S. film academy voters, and in recent years the autumn festival has helped boost the awards-season momentum of movies including La La Land and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.