Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day, starring Haley Bennett, Jack Whitehall, Lily Allen, Timothy Spall, Jennifer Saunders, Sally Phillips, Misia Butler and Elyas M’Barek, will open the 2026 SXSW London film lineup, organizers unveiled on Monday.
The rom-com from director Tina Ghavari and screenwriter Justine Waddell is an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel Night and Day. Talent so far confirmed to attend the film’s world premiere at SXSW London, which runs June 1-6, are Bennett, Whitehall, Phillips, Butler, Ghavari and Waddell.
Also set for the event is the darkly satirical Savage House, whose cast includes Richard E. Grant, Claire Foy, Bel Powley and Jack Farthing.
Joining these films will be an exclusive first-look screening of an Adult Swim animated series from Warner Bros. Animation, Get Jiro, based on the DC/Vertigo graphic novel from Anthony Bourdain. Executive produced by Brian Gatewood, Alessandro Tanaka, Jordan Blum, Anthony Bourdain, Joel Rose, and Sam Register, the show stars Brian Tee (A House of Dynamite). It is set in a not-too-distant future Los Angeles where master chefs rule the town and people literally kill for a seat at the best restaurants.
SXSW London on Monday also unveiled six films, all making their U.K. premieres, selected for this year’s official competition. They are The Other Side of the Sun, directed by Tawfik Sabouni, Juan Pablo Sallato‘s The Red Hangar, Roya by director Mahnaz Mohammadi, Vladlena Sandu’s Memory, Remake from director Ross McElwee, and Only Rebels Win by director Danielle Arbid.
Said Anna Bogutskaya, head of screen at SXSW London: “The films in our official competition embody what we are most excited about in contemporary cinema: no-holds-barred, deeply human and formally audacious films that provoke and challenge us to think wider, deeper and more empathetically.”
SXSW also added to its industry speakers and panel lineup on Monday. New sessions include “Toy Meets Tech: The New Technologies of Toy Story 5” with Thomas Jordan (Toy Story 5 VFX supervisor), “BookTok to Screen: Making Hits Out of Views” with Tara Erer, head of originals, U.K. & Europe at Prime Video, and Hannah Griffiths, head of adaptations at Banijay, “The Beyond the Audition: Casting Directors” with casting directors Sophie Holland (The Witcher, Wednesday) and BAFTA winner Lucy Pardee (Aftersun, Die My Love), “Responsibilities of Creative Leadership” with Mia Bays of the BFI Filmmaking Fund and Nadia Fall of The Young Vic, and “Big Stories, No Borders” with Samuel Kissous of Pernel Media and Claire Mundell of Synchronicity Films.
