Source : @Variety
LONDON, 20 October 2026 – Lilly, Rachel Feldman’s drama starring Academy Award nominee Patricia Clarkson as American equal-pay campaigner Lilly Ledbetter, will open the third edition of the Women and the World International Film Festival (WWIFF) in London, which runs from 5 to 12 November, Variety reported on Tuesday.
The announcement, shared on X by Variety and detailed in a report by its international features editor Leo Barraclough, places one of last year’s most talked-about independent American dramas at the head of a programme that, according to the festival, puts women’s authorship at its centre.
Highlights of this year’s line-up include the world premiere of Sigrid Andrea P. Bernardo’s Laya, alongside premieres of Marina Kunarova’s The Nomad’s Legacy and Flaminia Graziadei’s A Year in London, Variety said.
In a statement, festival director Ksenia Bugrimova said: “The age of the ‘good girl’ is over. Cinema needs women who are complicated, instinctive, ambitious, vulnerable, fearless and free – women who do not ask permission to take up space.” She added: “We believe there should simply be more films by women in the world – and more opportunities for those films to reach audiences. Celebrating women is important, but celebration alone is not enough. We want to support them, advocate for them and connect their work directly with audiences and the international film industry.”
A true story of the fight for equal pay
Lilly marks the feature directorial debut of Feldman, a veteran television director, who also co-wrote the film. It tells the true story of Ledbetter, an Alabama tyre factory supervisor who, nearing retirement, discovered she had been paid close to half of what men in the same role were earning. Her fight against that injustice took her to the US Supreme Court and Congress, and the first piece of legislation signed by President Barack Obama, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, bears her name.
Clarkson, an Oscar nominee for Pieces of April, leads a cast that includes John Benjamin Hickey as Ledbetter’s husband Charles and Thomas Sadoski as her civil rights attorney Jon Goldfarb, with Deirdre Lovejoy and Josh McDermitt in supporting roles. The film, produced by Allyn Stewart, was named Best of the Fest at the 2025 Palm Springs International Film Festival and was released in US cinemas by Blue Harbor Entertainment on 9 May 2025. It is now streaming on Netflix, according to the film’s official website.
Jury and wider ambitions
This year’s jury features British actor and producer David Gyasi; Irish actor, writer and director Olwen Fouéré; British-Swedish actor MyAnna Buring; documentary filmmaker and producer Elena Andreicheva; Denise Parkinson, Variety’s vice-president of global sales and marketing; film publicity executive David Martinez; Rebecca del Tufo, co-founder and co-director of ScreenCraft Works; and British actor and producer Victoria Emslie.
Beyond its screenings, WWIFF said it is expanding efforts to offer a platform for emerging filmmakers and creative talent through collaborations with University College London, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), Film London and BFI Network.
A young festival with growing reach
The festival was co-founded by Ukrainian media professionals Bugrimova and Mariia Vynogradova after they relocated to the United Kingdom following the war in Ukraine. Its first edition in November 2024 opened with Ellen Kuras’s Lee, starring Kate Winslet as war photographer Lee Miller, and initially focused on women’s experiences in conflict zones before broadening its scope to women filmmakers worldwide.
Variety reported that the 2025 edition drew 2,450 attendees and closed with the UK premiere of Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut Eleanor the Great. According to the festival’s website, the 2026 edition will begin with a black-tie opening gala at Ham Yard Hotel in London on 5 November.
Source: Variety
About The Author
