Time Out at the London Film Festival 2008

As usual, Time Out have got plenty of things going on at this year’s 52nd Times BFI London Film Festival

It's not long now until the 52nd Times BFI London Film Festival, and as usual, Time Out have got plenty going on.

We're again sponsoring the festival's Cinema Europa strand that takes in some of the best cinema coming out of Spain, Germany, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. Some early highlights this year include Andreas Dresen's ‘Cloud 9’, a sexually frank and gently amusing look at physical love between a 70-year-old man and a 60-year-old woman, ‘Citizen Havel’, a documentary about an ex-Czechoslovakian political dissident with some remarkable access, and ‘Mid-August Lunch’, a spry Italian family drama.

Time Out are also hosting a series of free panel discussions at the festival delegate centre, located upstairs at BFI Southbank. The first is called ‘Shooting an Icon: Finding the Person behind the Personality’ which looks at famous figures such as George W Bush, Hunter S Thompson and Che Guevara (all the subjects of films at this year's festival) and how they are depicted on screen. The second, called ‘The Ethical Problem With Violence’, will take a look at the history of screen violence and try to divine the direction in which trends are headed. Lastly, there's ‘Cinema under George W Bush: Eight Years of Attack and Counter Attack’, which is set to examine the torrent of films that have been directly critical of the two-term president's time in office.

Time Out will also be hosting a gala screening of Turner Prize-winning artist Steve McQueen's 'Hunger', the review of which you can read here.

Time Out will be reviewing much of this year's festival programme online, so check www.timeout.com/film for updates.