Indigenous-Australian film making talent will be on display at the upcoming London Film Festival, with Warwick Thronton's Sweet Country in the official competition.

The Melbourne-born festival director Clare Stewart told AAP the "highly-anticipated" film touches on many of the wider themes which run throughout the festival.

"Set in a time when Australia still had separatist policies, that politik is very much underneath," Stewart said at the program launch in London.

"There are many talking points throughout the festival and social division and immigration are very front and centre for a lot of films."

Sweet Country is the latest from the director of Palme d'Or-winning Samson and Delilah and Stewart said it is "the Australian film of the year".

It "is extraordinary in its cinematic scope and vision, and amazing storytelling," Stewart said.

"A real collaboration from the indigenous film makers, both in front of and behind the camera."

The Manus Island documentary, Chauka, Please Tell Us The Time, which debuted at the Sydney Film Festival, will make its international premiere at the festival.

The documentary was directed by Iranian-Kurdish journalist and refugee Behrouz Boochani, who has been imprisoned on the island for more than four years.

Stewart said overall there continued to be a "dip" in submissions of Australian productions.

"It is true that we have not seen as many Australian feature films coming through in terms of submissions," she said, which she attributed in part to cuts in Screen Australia funding.

"I still think Australia is an incredible site of creativity and inventiveness. One of the things that I love about Australians creativity is that they're big risk takers, and I think we see that reflected in their film making."

Other Australian films and documentaries to feature in the festivals line up include Cate Blanchett's Manifesto, which sees the Australian actor perform many characters as it dissects 20th century artistic movements and philosophies.

The bikie thriller, 1%, which won the Melbourne International Film Festival Accelerator gong in 2016, is making its European premiere in London.

A documentary of British-Australian film critic David Stratton, A Cinematic Life, will also screen during the festival, as will the Australian-made Roller Dreams, a documentary of roller skating on Miami's Venice Beach in the 1980s.