BFI London Film Festival

  • 55th BFI London Film Festival Release Shortlist for 2011 Festival Awards

    [caption id="attachment_1694" align="alignnone" width="550"]WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, Lynne Ramsay[/caption]

    The 55th BFI London Film Festival announced the shortlists and juries for the 2011 Festival Awards, which will take place at LSO St Luke’s on 26 October.

    At this year’s ceremony, the BFI will bestow its highest honor, the BFI Fellowship, on Canadian filmmaker David Cronenber and British actor Ralph Fiennes.

    This shortlist for Best Film Award is:

    360, Fernando Meirelles, UK/Austria/France/Brazil
    THE ARTIST, Michel Hazanavicius, France
    THE DEEP BLUE SEA, Terence Davies, UK
    THE DESCENDANTS, Alexander Payne, USA
    FAUST, Aleksandr Sukurov, Russia
    THE KID WITH A BIKE, Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Belgium/France/Italy
    SHAME, Steve McQueen, UK
    TRISHNA, Michael Winterbottom, UK
    WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, Lynne Ramsay, UK/USA

     

    The shortlist for Best British Newcomer is:

    Nick Murphy, Director, THE AWAKENING
    Tinge Krishnan, Director, JUNKHEARTS
    Candese Reid, Actress, JUNKHEARTS
    Nirpal Bhogal, Writer/director, SKET
    Aimee Kelly, Actress, SKET
    Tom Cullen, Actor, WEEKEND
    Chris New, Actor, WEEKEND
    D.R. Hood, Writer/Director, WRECKERS

    The previously announced Sutherland shortlist is:

    CORPO CELESTE, Alice Rohrwacher, Italy/Switzerland/France
    ETERNITY, Sivaroj Kongsakul, Thailand
    HERE, Braden King, USA
    THE HOUSE, Zuzana Liová, Czech Republic
    LAS ACACIAS, Pablo Giorgelli, Argentina/Spain
    LAST WINTER, John Shank, Belgium/France
    MICHAEL, Markus Schleinzer, Austria
    MOURNING, Morteza Farshbaf, Iran
    SHE MONKEYS, Lisa Aschan, Sweden
    SNOWTOWN, Justin Kurzel, Australia
    THE SUN-BEATEN PATH, Sonthar Gyal, China
    WITHOUT, Mark Jackson, USA

    The Grierson Award for Best Documentary shortlist is:

    BERNADETTE: NOTES ON A POLITICAL JOURNEY, Lelia Doolan, Ireland
    BETTER THIS WORLD, Katie Galloway, Kelly Duane de la Vega, USA
    THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975, Goran Hugo Olsson, Sweden/USA
    DRAGONSLAYER, Tristan Patterson
    DREAMS OF A LIFE, Carol Moley, UK/Ireland
    INTO THE ABYSS: A TALE OF DEATH, A TALE OF LIFE, Werner Herzog
    LAST DAYS HERE, Don Argott & Demian Fenton, USA
    WHORES’ GLORY, Michael Glawogger, Austria/Germany

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  • The Deep Blue Sea to close the 2011 BFI London Film Festival

    The 55th BFI London Film Festival will close on Thursday 27 October with the UK premiere of Terence Davies’ The Deep Blue Sea.

    Set in post-war Britain, this deeply moving story is an adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s classic play. Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz) leads a privileged life in 1950s London as the beautiful wife of high court judge Sir William Collyer (Simon Russell Beale). To the shock of those around her, she walks out of her marriage to move in with young ex-RAF pilot, Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), with whom she has fallen passionately in love.

    Festival Artistic Director Sandra Hebron comments:

    “It’s a great pleasure to be able to close the festival with this exquisite new feature from one of our most cherished directors. Terence Davies is a filmmaker who the BFI has supported from the very beginnings of his career, and in Terence Rattigan’s centenary year, this beautifully directed and acted film is the perfect closing night film.”

    Director Terence Davies adds:

    “As a British filmmaker, to get into the BFI London Film Festival at all is bliss – to get a Closing Night film is sheer heaven! The festival is now, rightly, seen as one of the major European and World Film Festivals; championing not only British but World cinema.”

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  • Fernando Meirelles’s 360 to open the 2011 BFI London Film Festival

    The 55th BFI London Film Festival will open on Wednesday 12 October with the European premiere of 360.

    Directed by Fernando Meirelles and with an original screenplay by acclaimed writer Peter Morgan,the film stars Rachel Weisz, Jude Law and Sir Anthony Hopkins.

    360 is a modern and stylish kaleidoscope of interconnected love and relationships linking characters from different cities and countries in a vivid, suspenseful and moving tale of contemporary romantic life. Starting in Vienna, the film weaves through Paris, London, Bratislava, Rio, Denver and Phoenix into a single, mesmerising narrative.

    Festival Artistic Director Sandra Hebron said:

    “I’m delighted that 360 will be our opening night film, and very pleased to welcome back Fernando Meirelles and Peter Morgan to the festival. With its impeccable film making credentials and intriguing premise, 360 combines masterful visual story telling with a modern and moving narrative, helped by strong performances from a terrific ensemble cast.”

    Linking stories of chance, temptation and unexpected friendship while travelling through Vienna, Paris, London, Bratislava, Rio de Janeiro, Denver and Phoenix (and back again), 360 takes us around the world, surveying the breadth of human experience at every stop.

    A lonely English businessman (Jude Law) is blackmailed by a colleague who discovers his plans to meet a prostitute while travel­ling abroad. A married woman (Rachel Weisz, also appearing in The Deep Blue Sea and the Gala presentation of Page Eight) tries to break things off with her younger paramour. A Brazilian student (Maria Flor) decides to leave her London-based boy­friend and return to Rio. A recovering alcoholic (Anthony Hopkins) flies to Phoenix on the off chance that a new Jane Doe might turn out to be his long-missing daughter. A paroled sex offender (Ben Foster) stuck in a Denver airport has his hard-won com­posure tested when a beautiful stranger unexpectedly propositions him. These are but a handful of the narrative threads woven into 360’s alternately seductive and unnerv­ing roundelay. How they slide against one another constitutes a large part of the film’s mesmerizing allure. [TIFF]

    Director Fernando Meirelles added:

    “The BFI London Film Festival is one of the best festivals in the world due to its selection of films and the number of theatres the films are shown in. I am very honoured 360, an intimate film that talks about our options in life, has been chosen to open the festival this year, and I want to thank Sandra Hebron for extending this prestigious invitation to me for a second time, following The Constant Gardener, which opened the festival in 2005.”

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  • BFI London Film Festival Announces 2010 Awards Winners

    The 54th BFI London Film Festival announced its winners at the high profile awards ceremony held at London’s LSO St Luke’s. The five awards were presented by some of the most respected figures in the film world.

    BEST FILM: HOW I ENDED THIS SUMMER, directed by Alexei Popogrebsky
    Celebrating the most original, intelligent and distinctive filmmaking in the Festival, the Best Film award, presented in partnership with American Express, has been judged by an international jury chaired by actress Patricia Clarkson alongside fellow jurors including Gabriel Byrne. The award for Best Film was presented by Patricia Clarkson to Alexei Popogrebsky for HOW I ENDED THIS SUMMER.
    On behalf of the jury Patricia Clarkson (Chair) said:
    “With elemental themes of isolation, alienation and the power of misunderstanding, HOW I ENDED THIS SUMMER is a visceral psychological drama set in the immersive landscape of the windswept Arctic.

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