Time Out blog the London Film Festival!

Day Fourteen 12pm – The closing night gala

David Jenkins: Well, how was it for you? Today, the 54th BFI London Film Festival rolls to a halt, and here at Time Out we all agree that it's been somthing of a vintage year. The galas have been big, brassy and crowd-pleasing. The British have had a barnstorming year with new titles like 'Archipelago', 'The Arbor', 'Treacle Jr', 'Pink Saris' and 'Another Year'. Old masters like Godard, Ruiz and Wiseman have given us some of their finest work with, respectively, 'Film Socialisme', 'Mysteries of Lisbon' and 'Boxing Gym'. And, as per usual, the festival programmers have done a bang-up job in filtering out the very best cinema from all corners of the globe (and in the case of 'Mars', beyond).Tonight, sees the British premiere of Danny Boyle's '127 Hours', a mountaineering survival caper starring James Franco and the director's long-awaited follow-up to the Oscar-hogging 'Slumdog Millionare', which closed the festival two years ago.

Read our review of the film here

'127 Hours' has a much talked-about climactic scene that reportedly has had audiences dashing for the exits/sick bags. So, in anticipation of tonight's film, we want to treat you to the high watermark of cinematic limb-hacking with this clip below.Sleep tight...

Day Thirteen 4pm – Time Out's top fives and more

As the festival draws to a close, we thought we'd share some of our best films from the festival. So here goes...

Dave Calhoun

NOTE: I'm only including films I saw at the festival, not ones I like a lot but which I saw before the event for various reasons ('Another Year', 'Neds', 'Aurora', 'Of Gods and Men' etc…).1. ArchipelagoIt was thrilling to see that Joanna Hogg's second film is as interesting and more experimental than her first. Once again, she examines a disjointed upper-middle-class family on holiday, this time on the Isles of Scilly, and you can cut the atmosphere with a knife. It has a wicked humour too.2. SubmarineThis British debut from Richard Ayoade of 'The IT Crowd' exudes charm and invention, bringing a little bit of Wes Anderson and François Truffaut to the Welsh coast.3. Self MadeGillian Wearing's docu-record of a live art project is deceptively simple on the surface - but its menace buries deep within you.4. Hands UpThis wise and compassionate ensemble piece of counterfactual (or not?) history imagines a French crackdown on immigration in 2008 and 2009, told from five decades in the future and focusing mainly on rebellious young children. The casting of Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi – Carla Bruni's sister – as a liberal mother fighting the government is priceless.5. Mandelson: The Real PM?This on-the-hoof documentary following Peter Mandelson as Labour crash out of power earlier this year is compelling from start to finish.

David Jenkins

1. The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu
A grotesque gallery of state propaganda footage from the Ceausescu era which decries the folly of ideological politics. The festival screening played without subtitles, but there’s another one planned for Thursday October 28. Don’t you miss it.

2. Meek’s Cutoff
Kelly Reichardt’s trundling range Western is like Haneke’s ‘Time of the Wolf’ as remade by John Ford. As usual for the director, a subtle state-of-the-nation address is nestled within a distinctively formulated drama.

3. What I Love the Most
A lovely Argentine two-hander which simply chronicles two twentysomething women as they chat their way through the summer and try to forget about the responsibilities of family and employment.

4. Double Tide
Sharon Lockhart’s pair of 45-minute, single take static shots of a woman picking clams on the Maine shoreline offered the festival’s best window for metaphysical reflection. (see also ‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives’ and ‘Le Quattro Volte’)

5. Aurora
A fastidious look at what drives a normal man to kill, Cristi Puiu’s follow-up to ‘The Death of Mr Lazarescu’ plays like a mystifying, humanist suburban horror movie that rides on a mesmerising and jittery performance by Puiu himself.

Bubbling under: 'Surviving Life', ‘Archipelago’, ‘Mysteries of Lisbon’, ‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives’ , ‘13 Assassins’, ‘Oki’s Movie’, ‘I Wish I Knew’, ‘At Ellen’s Age’, ‘Boxing Gym’, ‘Film Socialism’.

Tom Huddleston

1. 13 Assassins
Pure genre pieces were rare at this year's festival, which only made Takashi Miike's furious nineteeth-century samurai epic – one hour of setup, one hour of bloody, relentless payoff – all the more precious.

2. The Peddler
In a strong year for documentaries (see also 'Tabloid'), this gloriously intimate portrait of one ageing Argentinian filmmaker's Pied Piper-like effect on a small rural community provided a shot of pure uplift.

3. Cold Weather
Aaron Katz, the acceptable face of mumblecore, expanded his palette with this sweet-natured crime thriller, which made up for a relative lack of crimes and thrills with a general air of scruffy, winning hipster charm.

4. Howl
In choosing to make a film about the iconic beat poem rather than the mind behind it, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman have created an entirely fresh and entertaining take on the traditional artist biopic.

5. The King's Speech
This year's effortless-crowd-pleaser award goes to this upbeat and very funny portrait of stuttering King George VI and his fractious relationship with a daffy Australian speech therapist. Awards are expected.

And some responses from Twitter:

@naeem_i 
1. Dhobi Ghaat
2. Route Irish
3.The Taqwacores
4. Brighton Rock
5. King's Speech

@LanzL
1. Black Swan
2. Blue Valentine
3. Another Year
4. The King's Speech
5. Never Let Me Go

@Bex_Walton
1. Black Swan
2. Never Let Me Go
3. Conviction
4. Petits Mouchoirs
5. Blue Valentine

@frances
1. The Arbor
2. Catfish
3. Film Socialisme
4. Heartbeats
5. Spork

@Phil_on_Film

1. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Livea
2. Meek's Cutoff
3. Waste Land
4. Carlos
5. Tabloid

@yourturnheather

1. The King's Speech2. Blue Valentine 3. Catfish4. Heartbeats5. Fire In Babylon@FilmFan19711. Tabloid2. The Tillman Story3. Catfish4. Blue Valentine5. Meek's Cutoff@shelikeswaves
1. Heartbeats
2. Archipelago
3. Sensation
4. Three Seasons In Hell
5. Miral@Matt_Cinephile 1. Blue Valentine2. Mayor of Hell3. Another Year4. Temp. of St Tony5. NEDSSpecial mention: Mystries of Lisbon

@soosie_soo

1. Black Swan2. Another Year3. The King's Speech4. Submarine5. Blue Valentine

Send us your top ten by joining our Twitter feed here

Days Ten to Twelve – All the news from the weekend

-Scorsese out on the town

We hear that Martin Scorsese will be a special guest at the LFF’s awards at LSO St Luke’s on Old Street on Wednesday October 27 and will show his ongoing support for the BFI archive on the occasion of its seventy-fifth anniversary. The director is shooting ‘Hugo Cabret’ at Shepperton, and is also scheduled to appear at the Curzon Soho on November 19 alongside Thelma Schoonmaker-Powell for a fiftieth anniversary screening of Michael Powell’s ‘Peeping Tom’.

-Yoko Ono is coming to the LFF

As a little end-of-LFF sweetener, the closing-night screening of post-Beatles bio-doc ‘LennoNYC’ on Thursday October 28 will feature an intro from artist, musician and political activist, Yoko Ono. It’s happening at the same time as the closing-night gala screening of Danny Boyle’s ‘127 Hours’, so no doubt some festival-goers will be sneaking out the back door of the Odeon Leicester Square to catch the former Mrs Lennon giving what promises to be a heartfelt speech.

-Peter Mandelson returns to the public stage

The presence of Jon Snow and Alan Yentob at the Sunday night premiere of ‘Mandelson: The Real PM?’ was a hint that the ‘Prince of Darkness’ might be gracing us with his presence. And, sure enough, at the end he charmed the audience from the stage of BFI Southbank just as he does in Hannah Rothschild’s romping profile. Perhaps inevitably, he said the film didn’t capture the ‘real’ Mandelson, complaining, ‘I wanted more shots of me with my friends! I love to sing, don’t you know?’ He ended on a more elegiac note, echoing sentiments from the film by saying that he missed the pressure and challenges of politics. A member of the audience asked if there will be a sequel, to which he mock-bashfully replied: ‘Oh I can’t make another comeback!’

-And Sunday night’s surprise film was…

…Rowan Joffe’s ‘Brighton Rock’ (featuring Sam Riley). As Joffe told the audience, it’s a new film of Graham Greene’s book and not a remake of the 1947 film. We thought the menacing 1960s setting was a smart touch and were especially impressed by John Mathieson’s photography and James Merifield’s production design.

-Delinquents in the West End

Peter Mullan was on hand last Wednesday night to introduce Time Out’s special screening of ‘Neds’, the Glasgow actor’s third film as a writer and director. This hard-hitting coming-of-age tale – the title stands for ‘Non-Educated Delinquents’ – was enthusiastically received by audiences at the Vue West End, leading to a standing ovation for Mullan and his cast. The cast regaled us with tales of fake knife-fights, while Mullan admitted his film’s surreal, emotional final scene came about purely so he could make room for a great gag he’d once heard. Meanwhile, we had a chat with fellow Scot, actor Brian Cox, who was at the screening to support his friend Mullan’s film. ‘That school in the film, that remedial class, those teachers, that was my childhood,’ Cox told us. ‘The irony is that I’ve now got four honorary doctorates, so I’m Dr, Dr, Dr, Dr Cox.’

-Man of the festival: Tchaikovsky

We’ve been enjoying the short-and-sweet festival trailer at this year’s LFF (other festivals, take note!), but if there was a theme tune to this year’s event it was the climactic music from Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’.

This searing score graces the final scenes of Darren Aronofsky’s wonderfully hysterical ‘Black Swan’ , as a deeply disturbed dancer played by Natalie Portman performs in a New York production of the ballet. But we also hear the same moving piece during the final scenes of Xavier Beauvois’s ‘Of Gods and Men’ , as a group of threatened French monks in Algeria listen to a tape during dinner, tears streaming down their faces and Beauvois giving each of them a powerful close-up.

-Some more films we’ve loved…

Takashi Miike's exhilarating, mindblowingly violent samurai actioner ‘13 Assassins’… Richard Ayoade’s ‘Submarine’, which brings Wes Anderson to Wales… Jamie Thraves’s low-budget London walker-talker ‘Treacle Jr’ … The timely French film ‘Hands Up’ , which imagines a heavy crackdown on immigrants in France…

Day Twelve – 4pm –  A Socialisme experiment

David Jenkins: On Friday evening I went with no small amount of trepidation to catch the only festival screening of Jean Luc Godard’s cryptic latest, ‘Film Socialisme’, at the not-altogether-fitting location of the Vue West End (it probably should have been projected onto the side of a disused oil silo or in a bingo hall or somewhere like that...).

But I was impressed and amused by the film, in which the sprightly 79 year old plays fascinating games with texture, colour, surface, space and perspective at the expense of anything approaching a visibly coherent narrative or ideological agenda. It’s cut from a similar free-associative cloth as his ‘Histoire(s) du Cinéma’, and the English subtitles were – as they were in Cannes – delivered in spartan ‘Navajo’ style (triplets of single words that give a vague sense of what's being said). 

In short, it's a tough movie, and there would probably have been far more walkouts than there were (I counted two) had it not been for a model introduction by critic and long-time French film programmer for the LFF, Jonathan Romney, who incisively modified expectations in order to usher audience members across the initial stages of discombobulation. Indeed, distributor New Wave should film a version of Romney's introduction and play it ahead of all future screenings of the film when it's released in cinemas next spring.



Also, we were told that when the film goes out on general release, the subtitles will offer a fuller translation of the dialogue, not the ‘Navajo’ ones that festival audiences were given. That’s all very well, but will it enhance our understanding of the film any further? Francophone speakers who have seen it suspect not. And also, if one was inclined to read the film’s diffuse nature as an attack on conventional means of communication, won't fuller subtitles dilute that proposition?

Day Ten – 4pm –  Some weekend viewing...

David Jenkins: Well, we’re slowly edging towards the final weekend of the festival, but luckily there is still an obscene amount of good stuff to catch. This evening, I’ll be sampling that Cannes, ahem, ‘favourite’, ‘Film Socialisme’ , possibly the final film by 79-year-old enfant terrible, Jean Luc Godard. When the film was shown at Cannes, the director infuriated the non-French-speaking contingent by using what he coined ‘Navajo English’ subtitles, which were by all accounts, totally unintelligible. However, reports from those who have seen the film with a clean translation of the French dialogue say that it’s no easier to follow at all. So there we go.

If I hadn’t seen it already, I’d also be popping along to see Joanna Hogg’s ‘Archipelago’ , a withering and spitefully funny look at chattering-class discontent made by a director who demonstrates a clear sense of dramatic and stylistic purpose. Frederick Wiseman’s ‘Boxing Gym’ plays at the same time, and fans of the director’s distanced observational mode will not be disappointed with this film about the musicality and rhythm of the human body. And it actually helps if you couldn't give a fig about boxing.



On Saturday, i’m planning to make my way to South Kensington’s Ciné Lumière for what has been suggested is going to be another big world auteur’s swansong. ‘Mysteries of Lisbon’ is Raoul Ruiz’s final, four-and-a-half hour throw of the dice, and early word is that it’s an epic, enthralling and mysterious journey of novelistic breadth and scope that takes in all of the director’s pet concerns such as ghosts, time and the hang-ups of high society. Following that, I’m hoping to bus-it back into town to catch the big return of the industrious (but seldom distributed) Japanese shockmeister Takashi Miike, who returns to the world stage with what looks like a samurai period romp in the vein of mid-period Kurosawa, or even Takeshi Kitano’s brilliant ‘Zatoichi’.

On Sunday, it’ll just be the one film, as I’m hoping to make it to ‘Peter Mandelson: The Real PM?’ at BFI Southbank. My colleague Dave Calhoun assures me it’s a hoot with plenty of politico bitchiness , so i’m very much looking forward to that one. If you’ve got a few hours spare on Sunday, we can highly recommend catching a restored, full-length version of the late Edward Yang’s masterpiece, ‘A Brighter Summer Day’, which documents how young gangs of Taiwanese schoolboys immersed themselves in American culture and relates this social trend to the troubled twentieth-century history of the island and its wavering cultural identity.



Of course, on Sunday evening there’s also the surprise film. We don’t know what it is, but we can have a guess. We think the smart money is on Paul Haggis’s ‘The Next Three Days’, as Haggis has been spotted around London recently. Although, a colleague from Time Out Chicago informs us that the film cropped up as the surprise title at the recent Chicago International Film Festival, so it wouldn’t be such a huge surprise. Other possibles are Clint Eastwood’s tepidly received ‘Hereafter’ or Rowan Joffe’s robust remake of ‘Brighton Rock’, both notable by their absence in this year’s programme. Would be great if it was the Coen brothers’ ‘True Grit’. But that’s highly unlikely.

If you see anything good over the weekend, join our Twitter feed and be sure to tell us all about it.

Day Ten – 11am –  Why wasn't 'The King's Speech' the LFF opening gala?

Tom Huddleston: According to director Tom Hooper, two dreams came true at the Odeon Leicester Square last night. The first was that of director David Seidler, whose lifelong desire to pen a screenplay about his hero, George VI, a fellow stutterer who overcame his affliction, has finally been realised. The second was Hooper's own ambition to have a film of his shown at the iconic West End cinema where he would go as a boy. This kind of unabashed heart-on-sleeve effusiveness was much in evidence at last night's gala screening of 'The King's Speech', as cast and crew lined up on the stage to pay tribute to Hooper and Seidler's vision. Hooper, particularly, looked shell-shocked and giddy with excitement.And their enthusiasm was entirely warranted: the film, essentially a two-hander between Colin Firth's self-loathing George and Geoffrey Rush's iconoclastic Aussie speech therapist, was a genuine crowd pleaser, a smart fusion of cast, script and subject. Surprisingly funny for a film about royal repression and class conflict, it would've made a perfect, upbeat festival opener in place of the doom-laden 'Never Let Me Go'. And with advance word already pegging 'The King's Speech' as this year's homegrown Oscar contender, the Brit-film luminaries were out in force to show their support: we spotted Benedict 'Sherlock' Cumberbatch, festival staple Sir Ben Kingsley and, um, Will Young on the red carpet. You can read a review of the film here – and keep an eye out for a Time Out interview with Colin Firth to accompany the film's release in December.

Day Nine– 1pm –  'The King's Speech' gets its British premiere this evening

David Jenkins: Alongside the opening and closing night films, the British premiere of Tom Hooper's 'The King's Speech' is one of the most-anticipated gala events at this year's London Film Festival.The film is a cockle-warming British drama about how King George VI (Colin Firth) conquered a debilitating stammer with the help of a kindly Australian speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush). Since its premiere at Toronto in September, the calls from all sides are that Firth is a shoo-in for an Oscar, which will be good news for him after last year's near-miss for his role in Tom Ford's 'A Single Man' . The red carpet, running around a large portion of Leicester Square, should see a flurry of flash bulbs and shrieking from the hordes of fans out from some Thursday evening A-lister spotting.Even if you haven't got a ticket, it might be worth wandering down to the West End just to witness the commotion.In the meantime, why not read Dave Calhoun's four-star review of the film here.

Day Nine– 11am –  Time Out gala of 'Neds' goes down a storm

Tom Huddleston: Writer-director Peter Mullan with his stars Marianna Palka and newcomer Connor McCarron at last night's Time Out Gala premiere of Mullan's new Glasgow-set teen drama, 'Neds'. The title stands for 'Non-Educated Deliquents', and in the Q&A which followed the film, Mullan was amused by Time Out Film Editor Dave Calhoun's reference to the film as 'Peter Mullan's Neds'. 'Like these are my own Neds!' Mullan joked. 'You better behave, or I'll set my Neds on you!' To be honest, with that beard it was more like Santa and his gang of Glaswegian elves...
Read an interview with Mullan from the set of Steven Spielberg's 'The War Horse' here.

Day Eight – 4pm –  Watch Ken Loach's rousing LFF keynote speech

Dave Calhoun: I've written at length on Ken Loach's brilliant keynote speech which he delivered to rapturous applause at this year's London Film Festival. Now, for all those who didn't believe me (and have a spare 65 minutes in front of their computer) you can watch the entire thing online at the BFI's festival microsite.

Watch the speech here

Day Eight – 12pm –  The Day of the Time Out Special Screening!

Dave Calhoun: Tonight is the Time Out Special Screening of Peter Mullan's fantastic new film 'Neds' at the London Film Festival.

The film follows a teenager, John, as he tries hard to keep on the straight and narrow in 1970s Glasgow in the face of violent gangs, an inadequate school system and a broken family.

I caught up this morning at the Covent Garden Hotel with both Mullan and his great lead actor, 17-year-old Conor McCarron, who he cast through open auditions in Glasgow.

This is McCarron's first film role, and he's still amazed and honoured that he picked up the best actor award at the San Sebastian film festival last month. He says that he's hoping to keep acting, especially after 'Neds' comes to cinemas next January, but he's a level-headed chap and he's just started a course in Thermal Insulation at a colleage in Glasgow, just to keep his options open.

McCurran also told me that he tried to keep his film role secret from his friends at school – but had to confess all when they started teasing him about growing his hair long.



You can read a review of the film here and an interview with Mullan from the set of Steven Spielberg's 'War Horse' here .

At the time of writing, there are a handful of tickets, newly released by the LFF, still available for both the 20.15 and 20.30 screenings at the Vue West End. But be quick to go to www.bfi.org.uk/lff to get hold of them.

I'll be introducing both screenings tonight, and hosting a Q&A in the 20.30 screening with Mullan and McCarron.

The LFF also tells me that there are a few tickets available for tomorrow's masterclass with Peter Mullan at 18.30 at BFI Southbank.

Day Eight – 11am – Spring, Summer...

Tom Huddleston: Anyone who saw Himalayan family drama 'Frozen' at the LFF in 2007 will remember that film's outstanding cinematography courtesy of Indian cameraman Shanker Raman. Raman's work is also on display in 'Autumn', screening this afternoon at the Vue. It's another taciturn drama of life on the fringes, but Raman's incredible eye and unpredictable compositional flair lifts it into another realm. The petition to get Raman and Terence Malick together starts right here...

Read our review of 'Autumn' here.

Day Seven – 4pm – Funny people

David Jenkins: Time Out had an interesting chat with New York-based director Ryan Fleck who was in town to promote his (and directing partner Anna Boden's) new film, 'It's Kind of a Funny Story' which is released in the UK in March and plays at the LFF today (Oct 19), tomorrow and the day after. Going by the reviews it's received since its recent Stateside opening and premiere at Toronto, most people seem to agree it's a major departure for the pair who made a name for themselves with alt/indie gems such as 'Half Nelson ' and 'Sugar' .

The film is based on a novel by Ned Vizzini and traces a week in the life of a neurotic teenager (Keir Gilchrist) whose thoughts of suicide lead him to check himself in to a psychiatric clinic. The presence of bearded funnyman du jour, Zach Galifianakis, instantly makes you feel like the pair have set their sights on a broader audience, though Fleck says he is still a big fan of the comic's various demented personas, even though he tried to bring out a straighter side to the actor that has yet to be seen on the screen. And he's also a big fan of this:



Day Seven – 1pm – Tower of Schnabel

Dave Calhoun: Julian Schnabel, the director of 'The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly' and 'Before Night Falls', was in town last night with his fifth feature, 'Miral', an adaptation of his now-partner Rula Jebreal's memoir of growing up in Palestine in the 1970s, '80s and '90s.

The post-screening Q&A, which I hosted for the festival, was predictably fun, as Schnabel, who was wearing his trademark pyjamas, is a natural showman. First, he demanded that we observe a three-minute silence to think about the film – a request I sadly had to bat away as the clock was ticking – and then he gave a fascinating and colourful explanation of how, as a Jewish-American filmmaker, he came to make this film in Israel, especially as his mother was once a president of an American Zionist organisation. He was joined on stage by his producer, Jon Kilik, the actors Yasmine Elmasri and Freida Pinto (whose birthday it was yesterday and whose parents were in the audience supporting her), and Jebreal.



The film seems to divide people. Our own reviewer at Venice wasn't so keen. But the response in the audience last night was emotional and supportive from many quarters. Maybe it helped that Schnabel had so many influential friends in the audience, like the writer and director Paul Haggis, the former Royal Academy curator Norman Rosenthal and the actor Benicio Del Toro, who turned heads in Leicester Square as he wandered out, alone, for a cigarette after the screening.

Day Seven – 1pm – Length matters

David Jenkins: The first weekend of the LFF offered a veritable goldmine for those cine-masochists out there who like their films to run over the four-hourmark, with Olivier Assayas’s ‘Carlos’ playing in its full, 334-minute version,as well as the 264-minute experimental documentary on rural activism in the Philippines, ‘Vapor Trail (Clark)’. But don’t put away your portable cushion and piles cream just yet, as there’s still more to come this weekend with ‘Mysteries of Lisbon’, the purported final film from Portuguese master, Raoul Ruiz, which clocks in at 270 minutes, and a restoration screening of Edward Yang’s 1991 masterpiece, ‘A Brighter Summer Day’, which runs to 237 minutes.

Day Six – 11am – Jungle Joe

David Jenkins: Time Out had a long chat on Sunday night with softly-spoken Palme d’Or winner Apichatpong ‘Joe’ Weerasethakul following a triumphant gala screening of ‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives’, his latest meditation on death and reincarnation. Someone in the audience at the screening asked Joe whether he’d ever seen a ghost, to which he replied eagerly that, yes, he had seen one in a hotel in Paris – she was the classical sort, dressed in flowing white robes, and when he asked her a question, she vanished. So not many similarities to the Chewbacca-like ghost monkeys we meet in the film, then.



We asked the director if he could confirm rumours that he’s about to make a film with Tilda Swinton. He says he wants to and will be meeting Swinton in London during the festival. Although he’s not sure, as someone who mainly uses local Thai actors in his films, how he will be able to work with her while retaining his distinctive, rhapsodic style. ‘Maybe she’ll just have to be a ghost or a monster from Mars? I think that’s the only way you could justify seeing Tilda in the Thai jungle.’

Day Six – 4pm – Romanian revolution

David Jenkins: There was an apt uprising at the screening of lauded Romanian documentary ‘The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu’ at the Vue West End on Sunday afternoon when the festival accidentally screened a print of the film without subtitles. Stuff happens at busy festivals, of course – but luckily those still wanting to see the film (and we can heartily recommend this three-hour collage of documentary and news footage) will hopefully be able to catch it at an extra screening later in the festival. We caught up with the director Andrei Ujica later in the evening, who was understandably upset at the mishap, but resigned to the fact that these things do happen. ‘It’s such a typical Romanian thing!’ he told us in jest. ‘This is the sort of thing we do wrong, not you!’



Day Five – 3pm – Mayfair nights

Dave Calhoun: We caught a French double bill of Guillaume Canet’s ‘Little White Lies’ and Xavier Beauvois’s ‘Of Gods and Men’ on Saturday night at the Curzon Mayfair. The first, from the director of ‘Tell No One’ is a melodrama about high-living bourgeoisie on holiday in Bordeaux while one of their close friends lies in intensive care in Paris. Overblown, sometimes manipulative but mostly compelling and stylishly made, it features strong turns from François Cluzet and Marion Cotillard. The second, which won the Grand Prix in Cannes in May, is a thoughtful reconstruction of what may have gone on between the French monks who lived with an imminent threat of attack in the Atlas mountains in Algeria in the mid-1990s. Thanks to the lush Curzon Mayfair for bringing a little style to the festival in contrast to the business-like Vue West End – but what the hell was that question from the audience about monks and paedophiles after the screening ‘Of Gods and Men’? Such is the strange beauty of audience participation at film festivals.

Day Three – 11pm – Acting with 'Conviction'

Dave Calhoun: There were few dry eyes in the house on Friday night for the screening of ‘Conviction’, in which Hilary Swank plays Betty Anne Waters, a Massachusetts woman who put herself through law school simply to be able to defend her brother Kenny (Sam Rockwell) who in 1983 was wrongly imprisoned for murder. The film is a glorified TV movie blessed with good turns from Swank and Rockwell – but it was Waters herself who stole the show on Friday night, bowling over the audience with her strength and passion as she took questions from the floor alongside Rockwell and Swank. The audience greeted her entry into the cinema once the credits rolled with a rapturous standing ovation.

Day Three – 1pm

Dave Calhoun: Ken Loach drew on 49 years experience in film and television last night to deliver a damning address on the lack of creativity and independence in the British screen industries when he delivered the second annual keynote speech at the LFF.Read my full report on the speech here

Day Two – 4pm

David Jenkins: At the LFF this evening, Matt Reeves's 'don't-call-it-a-remake!' tween horror thriller 'Let Me In' gets its first UK public screening. It’s cause for celebration, we say , even though there are a small (but influential) cadre of hardened horror purists out there who see this film – a new version of the novel 'Let the Right One In' by author John Ajvide Lindqvist which arrives just two years after the much-cherished Swedish ‘original’ by Tomas Alfredson – as a severe act of wrong-headed sacrilege and brazen money-grabbing idiocy.

Chatting to Time Out’s resident horror/fantasy (and so much more!) go-to-guy Nigel Floyd at the LFF opening gala last night, I discovered that ‘Let Me In’ was not to his particular liking. Nigel strongly believes that this new version betrays the ideals and tone of the novel to end up being more of a conventional horror film than a sharp study of pre-teen love that happens to involve a vampire. If you do make it along to the screening tonight, be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments box below, as – like ‘Krull’ before it – this one seems to be creating a pretty even split between the lovers and haters.

Day TWO – 1pm

Tom Huddleston: With my esteemed colleagues still suffering the after-effects of last night’s free bubbly, it falls to me to report on the London Film Festival’s grand opening gala and party.

After a late start to the film thanks to Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan’s overenthusiastic red carpet shenanigans – signing autographs, chatting to Edith Bowman and getting papped alone, as a pair and with the third member of their ‘Never Let Me Go’ organ bank, Andrew Garfield.

When they finally made it inside the Odeon Leicester Square, the assembled cast and crew had (unsurprisingly) nothing but nice things to say about the film, particularly author Kazuo Ishiguro, who reserved special praise for the actors, urging us to believe that ‘Never Let Me Go’ will join ‘The Magnificent Seven’ (his words) as a groundbreaking showcase for a new generation of thespian talent.

And then curtains opened, and it became clear Kazuo probably doesn’t watch a lot of films. Without going into too much detail, this was a bizarre and rather dispiriting choice for an opening gala: couldn’t the LFF programmers have found something with a few more laughs and a bit less devastating human tragedy, severed romance and slow death?



It was pushing 10pm by the time we arrived at the Saatchi gallery, a little sadder, a little wiser and in dire need of liquid refreshment. Of which there was plenty – champagne flowed like water, at least until 11 on the dot, at which point only water flowed like water. And I’m no expert on canapés, but whoever thought a chicken liver macaroon was a good idea needs a stern talking to.

Celeb-spotting is obviously a required pastime at these events, and there were more non-associated free-roaming celebs in attendance this year: while the film’s ‘talent’ kept themselves to themselves in the VIP zone, we were more than content to be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Olivia Williams (taller than you expect), Geoffrey Rush (more crazily clown-haired than you expect) and Jim Broadbent (exactly as you expect).

Then it was time for the night’s final lesson: the security folks at the Saatchi gallery take their jobs way too seriously. At 11.30 we were being manhandled down the stairs, five minutes later we were out the door and by 11.40 we were being harassed down the garden path and out onto the Chelsea streets. Some kept the party going with late-night antics in fashionable nightspots (yes, you, Davids Jenkins and Calhoun) – other, wiser souls headed to Sloane Square and hit the tube.

It may not have been a banner night, exactly – weird film, weird food, all-too-brief party – but the LFF still know how to kick things off with a touch of class.

Day One – 5pm

Dave Calhoun: We had a sneak preview yesterday of the documentary about Peter Mandelson playing in the festival - Hannah Rothschild's 'Mandelson: The Real PM?'.

You can read my review here

'Mandelson: The Real PM?' screens at the festival on Sun Oct 24 and Wed Oct 27. The first screening is sold out, but there are still tickets left for the second. Get hold of them if you can; the screening is bound to be a lot of fun.

Day One – 3pm

We've got some hot tips for films screening in the next few days at the LFF that 1/ have tickets left and 2/ we think are very good. Here they are . . .On Friday, get tickets to either Gillian Wearing's 'Self-Made' (2.45pm) or Lucy Walker's 'Waste Land' (5.45pm).On Saturday, get tickets to Manoel de Oliveira's 'Rite of Spring' (1.45pm) or Errol Morris's 'Tabloid' (6pm, and screenng again on Sunday.)On Sunday, get tickets to the Argentinian documentary, 'The Peddler' (9pm) , which my colleague Tom Huddleston has been raving about.We don't think you'll be disappointed.

Day One – 1pm

Dave Calhoun: So, the LFF starts tonight with the British premiere of 'Never Let Me Go', with Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield, followed by the always-fun opening-night film industry bash, held this year at the sprawling Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea.

The Time Out team will all be there, and we'll let you know tomorrow what the film was lilke, who turned up and who fell over (hopefully not me or my colleagues David Jenkins or Tom Huddleston).

To kick off our coverage, this morning our critic Wally Hammond spent an hour interviewing Kazuo Ishiguro, the author of 'Never Let Me Go'. We'll be running Wally's full interview with Ishiguro nearer the film's January release, but we'll be posting some of Wally's interview with the celebrated novelist as soon as we have a post-interview debrief with him.

Our round-up of late programme additions...

The clock is ticking. It’s only a matter of days before the 54th BFI London Film Festival boots into action, and we thought we’d take the opportunity to assure that us tireless elves on the Time Out film section will be doing our best to bring you all the latest news and reviews throughout the festival on our exclusive LFF blog.Mark Romanek’s star-spangled Brit drama ‘Never Let Me Go’ opens the festival on Wednesday Oct 13, when we’ll get to see the likes of Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield strolling along red carpet. It closes 15 days later on Oct 28, when Danny Boyle and James Franco will be doing the same for their taut mountaineering yarn ‘127 Hours’.Obviously, if you’re reading this, it’s likely that you’ve gone through the festival brochure with a fine toothcomb and battled with online ticketing systems to secure seats for the titles you have selected. (And if you haven't, we insist you peruse out reviews archive here)
Well, we thought we’d use this opening salvo to tell you that there have been a few more films added to the line-up since the brochure went to print. Firstly, and somewhat inevitably, Sofia Coppola’s Venice prize-winning La-La-Land satire, ‘Somewhere’, os a late addition (playing on Wednesday Oct 27 at 7pm at the Odeon West End), and will put to rest all those conspiracy theories about how it was a shoo-in for this year’s Surprise Film spot. Read our review of the film from Venice here.
Other big news is that ‘The Trip’, Michael Winterbottom’s new food critic travelogue starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, will also be making an appearance in a compressed, feature-length version (it’s also due to play as six, 30-minute episodes on TV) on the evening of Wednesday Oct 27 at BFI Southbank. Further afield, a Greek film which won the hearts of many at this year’s Venice Film Festival, ‘Attenberg’ (pictured above), will receive screenings at the West End Vue on Saturday 23 and Tuesday 26 October. The film, about an emotionally stunted young woman coming to terms with the death of her father and her first sexual cravings, has been directed by the producer of last year’s superb ‘Dogtooth’ (Athina Rachel Tsangari) and also stars the director of that film (Yorgos Lanthimos), and stylistically, it’s in a similar vein.Further north to Finland now, and the much-touted alternative Yuletide movie, ‘Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale’, is set to make a gruesome splash on Saturday Oct 23 and Tuesday Oct 26 at the Vue. The film, by Jalamari Helander, gives us a glimpse of the real Santa Claus, and from what we understand he’s not the huggble lug with a thick white beard we all know and love. Don't believe us? Check out the trailer below.     Two documentaries have also been added. One is ‘Inside Job’ the second feature from director Charles Ferguson (‘No End in Sight’) which offers a bracing look at the greed and immorality at the centre of the recent economic implosion. It's playing on Oct 27 and 28 at the Vue. Also, to celebrate what would’ve been John Lennon’s 70th birthday, the festival is screening the critically acclaimed ‘LENNONNYC’ which takes a microscope to the singer-songwriter’s post-Beatles career and includes interviews with the likes of Yoko Ono and Elton John. Its first screening, on Wednesday Oct 17, will be at the BFI Southbank, and its second, on Thursday 28, at the Vue West End.Check back at regular intervals where well be flagging up all our latest reviews and features from the festival.

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