La Bola Negra Wins the London Film Festival Audience Award
The Spanish film La Bola Negra has won the Audience Award at the 2026 BFI London Film Festival, according to Variety, which reported the result on 4 November. The prize goes to the film that audiences vote for, rather than to one picked by a jury. This year's event was the 70th edition of the festival.
The film is directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, who work together under the name Los Javis. It stars Penélope Cruz, Glenn Close and Miguel Bernardeau. The ensemble also includes Lola Dueñas and Carlos González, and Guitarricadelafuente makes his feature film acting debut in it.
The story is built around three men whose lives connect across three moments: 1932, 1937 and 2017. It draws on Federico García Lorca, the Spanish poet and playwright, and on his unfinished final work, as well as a play by Alberto Conejero. The title means "the black ball" in English, Reuters reported in October.
The film has been on a busy festival run. It premiered in Toronto, where it won the People's Choice Award, The Hollywood Reporter said in September. It reached UK audiences at the London festival on 8 October, and it was nominated for best international independent film at the British Independent Film Awards. The BFI, which runs the London festival, describes it as a genre-defying queer epic rooted in Lorca's legacy.
The next step is the cinema release. Altitude will open La Bola Negra in UK and Irish cinemas on 6 November, two days after the London prize was announced. Spain has also chosen the film as its official submission for best international feature at the 2027 Academy Awards, meaning the country will put it forward in the Oscars category for foreign-language films.
For Londoners who missed the screenings, the film is now heading to the big screen, which is how most of its audience will meet it. The festival prize is a vote of the people who sat in the seats, and the cinema run is where those votes turn into ticket sales.
