The 50th London Film Festival has been announced including 181 feature films and 131 shorts.
The festival will open with the European premiere of Kevin Macdonald’s The Last King Of Scotland on October 18 and close on November 2 with the UK premiere of Alejandro González Iñárratu’s Babel, starring Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt and Gael García Bernal.
Artistic Director Sandra Hebron said: "In this significant year, we’re very excited to be able to bring such a strong selection of original and distinctive films to London, together with some truly innovative special events.
"We’re looking forward to welcoming all our participating filmmakers, audiences and press and industry delegates to join us in celebrating the Festival’s 50th anniversary and its promising future."
The festival will inclde four world premieres, 32 European and 123 UK premieres. Among the highlights are Golden Lion winner Jia Zhang-ke's Still Life, Lars Von Trier drama The Boss Of It All, Penny Woolcock's urban fairytale Mischief Night and Phillip Noyce's story of terrorism in Apartheid-era South Africa, Catch A Fire.
First-time features also getting their name in the spotlight include Ryan Fleck's indie school drama Half Nelson, Cam Archer's coming of age drama Wild Tigers I Have Known and Andrea Arnold's gritty Glaswegian drama about obsession and redemption Red Road.
Films with an international flavour include Mark Dornford-May's follow up to U-Carmen - Son of Man - which retells the story of Christ within a South African setting - and Egyptian smash hit The Yacoubian Building, directed by Marwan Hamed, about drugs, corruption and whole lot more in Cairo.
Among the star talent in town are Forest Whitaker, Richard Linklater, Tim Burton, Dustin Hoffman, Christine Vachon, Paul Verhoeven, John Cameron Mitchell and Yo La Tengo who will be taking part in interviews and masterclasses.
Other expected guests include Emilio Estevez, Lukas Moodysson, Roger Michell, Robin Wright Penn, Anthony Minghella, Kenneth Anger, Mira Nair, Peter O’Toole, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Hanif Kureishi, Nanni Moretti, Toa Fraser and Todd Field.
For the full programme line-up visit the official site.
