“Ah balls, that’ll be there all day!” you think as you try to wipe away the grease mark left on your shirt by a single drip of another McMuffin breakfast. Somehow the warm plastic sheet they call cheese has pulled off the impossible and liquified enough to cause this mild self-berating. Your mind also seems to have pulled off the impossible, or maybe yourself in this case. A week in, it’s the biggest worry you’ve had up to this point in the film festival. This year there’s a lot less Withnail to how you sit down to enjoy your holiday.
Yes, the imposter syndrome has still been present, it always will be – some claim that’s not necessarily a bad thing, you’re still trying to work out if that’s the case for you – but it’s not a claustrophobic shell as it once was. On the morning of day one a familiar face walked up and gave a hug, your second that day, whilst saying hello on their way to a screening. You’ve got to really trust someone to hug them, and you trust many of the people you’ve got to know and been supported by over the last few difficult years at this festival. That, along with other warm welcomes, or perhaps welcome backs, may have kicked the imposter syndrome a few weeks away.
2023, the year you almost gave up just four days in to go home and throw in the towel in multiple ways; the only thing stopping you being the thought of hassling everyone you’d have to walk past and disturb in the tightly-packed cinema row, and those behind you. 2026 was perhaps not a full circle moment, but a complete 180-degree flip. The only time it feels like you’re lugging around the weight of a suitcase overpacked for two weeks are the journeys between the hotel and home.
There were many key people and conversations that helped you get through that year, and the one after it, but you bump into the pair who by chance you sat with one evening and through the kindest, most valued words kept you going. It’s the first time you’ve seen them since then, again completely by chance when walking through the same cinema entrance. You’re able to thank them more than profusely for their immense kindness. You put your hands together in a thanks, or maybe praying, way and touch your heart as well, that’s what people tend to do in films to show gratitude. But what if it makes you look disingenuous? You go back to verbally thanking even more, probably too much. But you mean it. You’re awkward and anxious, incapable of seeming normal, and probably overthinking it all, but it’s a conversation you needed.
It’s the start of a very strange 24 hours, the biggest lesson of which will be accepting kindness, compliments and just good things. A hurricane of gratitude is how you describe it, building up inside as you try to externalise this chaos of an overwhelmingly positive kind. Conversations help. Particularly one which caps off this period about the industry, uncertainty and trying to find a place. Like those two thumbprint owl and pussycat splodges on the offensively inoffensive not-quite-minimalist budget hotel artwork you ignore every day for two weeks, you’re all in the same boat.
A Place To Heal, a film about youth mental health and trauma, absolutely shatters you from the matter-of-fact openness and understanding on display. Further fuelled by almost crying over a voice note in the middle of the Picturehouse Central balcony and receiving a meaningful email from the youth mental health charity you want to do more for shortly before.
There are multiple films this year that revolve around the idea of ‘what you bring to it you get from it’. Post-Fjord, and your utter personal fury and need for Emergency Jaffas stemming from its effect; you’ve never shaken or teared up in anger at a film before, you find yourself having a number of open discussions. You talk about what you brought to the films, and in some ways get more from them through this. Perhaps seeing some of these titles at this festival was a fortunate thing. Allowing yourself time and space afterwards instead of rushing to the next screening has also been a help.
You’ve learned to look after yourself at least a bit more under film festival conditions. There are less evenings spent holed up slurping Pot Noodle in a Travelodge listening to north-east London’s angriest drivers compete for entry or exit to what should really be a one-way road. Instead, films (yes, more of them), theatre, conversations, quizzes and friends (wonderful friends) are constructing time outside of P&I screenings. It’s healthier and less isolating. The days of a Lightning McQueen-esque ‘no food, just film’ mindset are long gone, although you’re still shaking the habit of queuing at stupid o’clock in the morning for the first film of the day. You’re less afraid to hassle send people messages, to check in, say hello or just ask a quick question.
For in person interactions things are much better done in queues or screening rooms than in arranged social events. The sensory overload of blaring music competing with multiple conversations crammed into a small bar with little room to move, that’s not a comfortable environment to float between the tightly packed clusters. It’s ok to admit when needing to step outside to deescalate from it all before your mind sends the pulse of a panicked internal shockwave through your body – or just walk off. You’ll see these people again, and some understand just taking the conversation outside before you even say anything. That means the world.
Understanding and kindness, they’re here, with the people you trust and who have welcomed you. Some of these things you’ve not properly spoken about, or even slightly around, for a long time. They come up naturally and openly here, they aren’t judged. The most judgement you get is a friendly ribbing when mentioning that Josie And The Pussycats is a masterpiece (which it is!)
Knock-on kindness comes from rush queues. How great are they? Perhaps a pre-conditioned attitude there by way of being British, but the conversations there started in ways as simple as those it took you years to realise in press queues – ‘Have you seen much good? Is there anything you’re looking forward to? Did you try to queue for this yesterday?’ small phrases that get you out of your shell, putting you almost on the flip side of that Supertramp song you like so much – are some of the most enjoyable of the festival. Like that conversation after a screening a few years ago, where you put down the opportunity of a Surprise Film ticket to spend the evening continuing to talk with a lovely older couple (Ronnie and Jackie). This year, over a drink, a conversation almost the same length as the film you didn’t get into was a real highlight, and led to further kindness in the form of a ticket for your must-see of the festival.
Yet, it’s one of the final conversations of the festival that shows the true progress made over the last few years. Sat round a table familiar faces who were also up far too early for the first screening of the final film, waiting for those who know how to attempt something resembling a lie-in who are in the second showing. With each topic, question and ramble your mind is quiet. No comments; not even white noise or static.
It’s quiet.
A rarity at any time
In this situation you’re a part of the table and conversation, you belong. After two awful years of mental struggle and difficulty putting yourself out there last year you were just back in the swing of things. This year continued that but with a feeling more like therapy than a film festival. “Every conversation has gone straight to my heart” you’re told. You wish people could know just how much the same has gone for you.
You look back on it instead of moving straight on to the next thing as usual, trying to use it to frame what comes next. You think of writing something about it, you don’t know what or why or if it will be for anyone but yourself.
You write in the second person because it somewhat dissociates you from accepting all the good stuff that happened. Yet, writing like this seems pretentious. Like an out-of-control, self-indulgent, attention-seeking diary entry with no through line, a poorly written, desperate-to-be-relatable, full-of-itself ‘help’ gui-
You stop. Take a breath. And know you can run this by a trusted face, maybe from the festival.
People are kind and wonderful and happy to help and talk. It’s how you can find your tribe. How you have found them, in multiple places, both within and outside of the festival environment. Truly excellent people who share in each other’s joys and achievements and are there to enjoy and celebrate the same thing. It’s only twelve days in a year, but this time that uplift and inspiration is being intentionally carried forward with the knowledge that your mind was calm and that you belong.
Thank you LFF 2026. I needed you.
