Whether you're a Surprise Film regular or a new recruit, we invite you to join us at one of the most fun nights of the festival and what is invariably our fastest selling film. I love the sense of anticipation before any LFF screening starts, but that's amplified tenfold at the Surprise Film, where we do our best to keep the title under wraps until the last possible moment. I'm always fascinated by the advance speculation, second-guessing and wishful thinking that goes on, and the lengths that some people will go to in order to try to get us to spill the beans in advance (where's the fun in that?). Right now I'm enjoying drawing up my list of possible films - the ones I'm longing to see that simply weren't ready or available to us as we finalised our programme. From 'wildest dreams' to 'dark horse but just might be finished and great', even I won't know for weeks yet which of those it will be. So in my tenth and final year of finding a surprise film for us (I started with Far From Heaven in 2002), the pressure is on and all bets are off...

Sandra Hebron