Film London is pleased to announce the keynote speaker and line-up for this year’s expanded Film London Production Finance Market (PFM), taking place on 6-7 October in central London.

Opening the two-day Market will be a keynote conversation between Film London CEO Adrian Wootton OBE and Stephen Kelliher, Managing Director and co-founder of Bankside Films, the powerhouse international sales and film finance company behind titles such as Animol, I Swear, Talk To Me, Wasteman and The Ballad Of Wallis Island.

Every year the PFM sees 60+ features worth approximately €250m pitched to financiers, producers and screen agencies from all over the world over two days of intense speed dating-style sessions. The main Production Finance Market presents international film projects from established filmmakers, while the New Talent Strand spotlights exciting features from emerging voices, and Upstream presents carefully-curated projects from creators whose work spans a range of disciplines, all looking for a producer to take them to the next stage.

PFM New Talent has helped hothouse features like Sundance-winner Cactus Pears and UK-Jamaica co-pro Duppy, which appeared as part of the Frontières Platform at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. This year’s Main Market includes titles such as Balloman from Farah Abushwesha, one of the producers behind Barry Keoghan-starrer Lemonade, which recently premiered at TIFF, and I’m Not a Robot, based on the Oscar-winning short of the same name. New Talent Strand titles include a feature-length take on the viral hit Man Like Pleaser (which previously appeared at Upstream) and Desire Paths from Dylan Southern, who, fresh from premiering Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger at Venice, is now set to tackle his first feature production role.

Adrian Wootton OBE, Chief Executive of Film London, said: “It’s a real pleasure to welcome Stephen as this year’s keynote speaker. Bankside Films have been a mainstay of the Production Finance Market since its earliest days, and their success as a company speaks to many of the same things we’re passionate about at Film London: believing in bold voices and new talent while never losing sight of a great story and how to get audiences engaged with fantastic, thought-provoking cinema. As an internationally-renowned executive who has remained on the cutting edge of film finance we can look forward to a fresh, insightful and likely very candid discussion on the current state of the market.”

Stephen Kelliher, Managing Director of Bankside Films, said: “It’s an honour and a pleasure to be asked to be the key note speaker at the forthcoming PFM. I’m looking forward to talking with Adrian and sharing my knowledge and experience since co-founding Bankside Films almost twenty years ago.”

As part of its ongoing work to connect and platform storytellers from across the creative economy, this year’s PFM will include full access to Upstream, Film London’s rapidly-evolving IP platform. Upstream is both an in-person event and a monthly Substack, and offers a unique opportunity to meet talented creatives from film, publishing, illustration, theatre and more with compelling stories ready for the screen. Upstream has already connected storytellers with deals across film, theatre, games and publishing. Presenters will include Pictoplasma, the world’s leading festival for character design, trailblazing theatre company Paines Plough, news non-profit Lighthouse Reports and several independent creatives working across film, screenwriting, publishing and artists’ moving image.

The 2026 edition of the PFM continues its international partnerships with Tallinn Black Nights, EAVE, MIFF 37ºSouth, Ontario Creates, HessenFilm & Medien, The National Film and Video Foundation South Africa, Screen Ireland, The Netherlands Film Fund, and Ffilm Cymru, S4C, and Creative Wales’ Sinema Cymru programme. For 2026, a new partnership has been established with The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) in Singapore.

Titles in the Main Market include:

• Balloman, Rocliffe (UK)

• Billy in the Bowl, Bread&Circus (Ireland)

• I’m Not a Robot, OAK Motion Pictures (Netherlands)

• Salt and Shame, Thought Experiment (UK)

• Tin Man, Hillbilly Films (UK)
  
  

New Talent Strand titles include:

• Man Like Pleaser, Buu Labs / Hybrid Theory

• Fields, Lunar Pictures

• Desire Paths, Rank and File Ltd

• Heads, Nihil Declarandum Ltd

• The Last Resort, Distillery Entertainment

The Film London Production Finance Market is funded and supported by the Mayor of London and the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST).