Festival Artistic Director Sandra Hebron announced today that The 54th BFI London Film Festival will take place from Wednesday 13 October through Thursday 28 October 2010.
The BFI London Film Festival champions creativity, originality, vision and imagination by annually showcasing the best of contemporary world cinema, documentaries, shorts, animation and experimental film. The Festival is a highly regarded and anticipated event in Europe's cultural calendar, attracting leading international filmmakers, industry professionals and the media together with large public audiences to London for a two week showcase of the best in contemporary world cinema.
Last year’s Festival hosted 193 feature films and 113 short films from 46 countries including 15 world premieres. There were 515 screenings and 553 filmmakers in attendance, drawing the highest ever audience attendance of over 130,000 filmgoers. The Festival opened with the World Premiere of FANTASTIC MR. FOX and closed with the World Premiere of NOWHERE BOY.
The BFI London Film Festival is now accepting submissions for 2010 and the full programme for 2010 will be announced in September.
Kick-Ass tells the story of average teenager Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), a comic-book fanboy who decides to take his obsession as inspiration to become a real-life superhero. As any good superhero would, he chooses a new name -- Kick-Ass -- assembles a suit and mask to wear, and gets to work fighting crime. There's only one problem standing in his way: Kick-Ass has absolutely no superpowers.
His life is forever changed as he inspires a subculture of copy cats, is hunted by assorted violent and unpleasant characters, and meets up with a pair of crazed vigilantes, including an 11-year-old sword-wielding dynamo, Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) and her father, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) - and forges a friendship with another fledging super hero, Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). But thanks to the scheming of a local mob boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong), that new alliance will be put to the test.
Release day: 2nd April 2010. Click on the link above for the trailer.
Graeme Clark
[4 Feb 2010 at 22:53]
The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus on DVD and Blu-ray
Now with two Oscar nominations
The immortal Dr Parnassus (Plummer) holds the key to the Imaginarium, a wonderful place hidden in a ‘pop up’ travelling theatre, where people can explore the very depths of their imagination. But the Doctor has more hidden depths than his friends in the theatre troupe are aware of and his immortality has come at a price – the soul of his daughter Valentina (Cole). Unless Parnassus (Plummer) and Tony, the mysterious amnesiac whom he befriends (portrayed by Ledger plus Depp, Farrell and Law) can coax a few more souls to lose themselves in the Imaginarium, Valentina will become the prize in a deal that Parnassus has made with the Devil himself, Mr Nick. (Tom Waits)
Included in the extras is an introduction from Terry Gilliam and a poignant series of wardrobe and make up tests featuring Heath Ledger, plus a plethora of interesting behind the scenes featurettes which any fan of the film will want to investigate.
Out on DVD & Blu-ray 29th March 2010.
Graeme Clark
[3 Feb 2010 at 21:22]
Chaw on DVD
Horror from South Korea
In this new wave Korean cinema and Asian monster movie revival, where a once popular tourist resort becomes a bloodbath of gruesome death, a legendary hunter is convinced it can only be the work of a man-eating boar!
Bleakly funny and equally terrifying, Caw follows in the footsteps of The Host, as a fresh entry in the Korean Monster movie revival. A sleepy mountain village is terrorised by a series of grisly deaths that newly arrived City cop Kim (Tae-Woong Eom) must unravel. Finding the village is not as innocent as it appears, he suspects the deaths are the work of a man-eating boar, and that in the surrounding forests, an insatiable beast awaits, and it’s getting hungry.“Chaw is “the flesh-eating monster mutant offsping of Twin Peaks and Razorback.”
Released March 1.
Graeme Clark
[3 Feb 2010 at 21:20]
Survival of the Dead on DVD
Romero ploughs ahead with the dead
George A. Romero reinvents the zombie genre he created with a sharp subversion of the classic Western and draws new battle lines between the living and the dead.
The master filmmaker continues to reinvent the genre he created with a film that draws new battle lines between the living and the dead. Rogue soldier Sarge (Alan Van Sprang, Diary of the Dead, Land of the Dead) leads a band of military dropouts to seek refuge from the endless chaos of the zombie uprising on remote Plum Island. Patriarch Patrick O’Flynn (Kenneth Welsh, The Exorcism of Emily Rose) and his family believe the only good zombie is a (truly) dead zombie, whilst rival clan the Muldoons believe in chaining up the un-dead until a cure can be found. But there is no cure for death, and the consequences of the feud are bloody. Caught in the middle, Sarge is drawn to Janet (Kathleen Monroe), Patrick’s daughter, who tries to make peace between the two warring factions. But hope of a truce is shattered when Sarge’s best friend is killed, and the battle that follows overtakes everyone on the island, living and dead. Romero has crafted a sharp subversion of the classic Western, and continued to raise societal issues while devising new and ingenious ways to exterminate flesh-eaters! So who are you going to side with, The Living or The Dead?
FANTASTIC MR. FOX is visionary director Wes Anderson's first animated film, utilizing classic handmade stop motion techniques to tell the story of the best selling children's book by Roald Dahl (author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach). The film features the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Wally Wolodarsky, Eric Anderson, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, Jarvis Cocker.
Mr and Mrs Fox (Clooney and Streep) live an idyllic home life with their son Ash (Schwartzman) and visiting young nephew Kristopherson (Eric Anderson). But after 12 years, the bucolic existence proves too much for Mr Fox's wild animal instincts. Soon he slips back into his old ways as a sneaky chicken thief and in doing so, endangers not only his beloved family, but the whole animal community. Trapped underground and with not enough food to go around, the animals band together to fight against the evil Farmers - Boggis, Bunce and Bean - who are determined to capture the audacious, fantastic Mr Fox at any cost.
FANTASTIC MR. FOX On DVD, Blu-ray and Triple Play March 1 2010. Click on the link above for the trailer.
In a terrifying tale of the American Dream gone wrong, four friends find themselves trapped in their hometown. A reinvention of the George A. Romero classic, THE CRAZIES is directed by Breck Eisner (SAHARA) and is based on a screenplay by Ray Wright (PULSE, CASE 39) and Scott Kosar (THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE).
David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) is sheriff in a picture-perfect American town with happy, law-abiding citizens. But one night, one of them comes to a school baseball game with a loaded shotgun, ready to kill. Another man burns down his house after locking his wife and young son in a closet inside. Something is infecting the citizens of Ogden Marsh...with insanity.
Forced to band together, an ordinary night becomes a struggle for survival as they try to get out of town alive.
The Crazies will be released in cinemas on 26th February, 2010. Click on the link above for a new trailer.
When beautiful American law student Alice (Maggie Grace) is knocked down by a black cab on a deserted London street it’s just the start of her problems. Miles from home and relentlessly pursued by a shadowy group intent on taking her captive, she begins a dark and dangerous journey through a violent underworld full of gangsters, geezers, pimps and prostitutes. With only enigmatic cab driver Whitey (Danny Dyer) to guide her, she soon finds that the only way out is to fight for her freedom. As both fists and bullets begin to fly, Whitey and Alice soon find that in a world where nothing is as it seems, their only hope is to turn the tables on those who want to hunt them down.
Available on DVD from February 8, 2010. Click on the link above for the trailer.
