London Film Festival wows audiences
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E-mail CNTV, October 23, 2012
The 12-day BFI London Film Festival draws to a close with the European premiere of "Great Expectations." The film is one of Britain's all time favorite stories starring Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham-Carter, and a list full of delighted award winners.
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Poster of 56th BFI London Film Festival |
"Great Expectations", the latest adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens novel, was the 228th and last film to be shown during the London Film Festival, hosted by the British Film Institute.
The film stays true to much of the book's original imagery, filmed just a few miles from where Dickens wrote the masterpiece in the 19th century.
Ralph Fiennes, actor of "Great Expectations", said, "Like these Dickens characters, they're so rich, and they're always a great challenge to actors I think and they're such strong, definitive, you know, they have a high definition about them, they leave a lasting mark, whoever plays them I think, they're so well constructed by Dickens that any actor. It's a gift to play them, to get the chance to interpret them."
"Rust and Bone," French director Jacques Audiard's soaring story of love, loss and killer whales, was named best picture, and Best British newcomer trophy went to Sally El Hosaini for "My Brother the Devil," the story of British-Egyptian brothers struggling with conflicting loyalties and identities in modern-day London. The best documentary prize went to Alex Gibney's "Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God."
According to the BFI, there were 570 filmmaker guests and more than 1,100 industry delegates at the festival. Meanwhile, audiences this year were up 12% watching festival films across London.
Clare Stewart, director of 2012 London Film Festival, said, "I think British cinema is incredibly healthy and you can see that in the range of films that we've had on offer. Everything from our opening-night film 'Frankenweenie' which is made with over 200 British craftspeople contributing to the creation of the sets and also the puppets, all the way through to tonight's closing night gala of 'Great Expectations' with Mike Newell at the helm and an incredibly talented British cast."
Founded in 1957 to show the best of the world's cinema to a British audience, the London festival has in recent years tried to carve out a place on the international movie calendar with bigger pictures, more glittering stars and more high-profile awards.
Highlights of the 12-day festival included Ben Affleck's Iran hostage drama "Argo," the Rolling Stones documentary "Crossfire Hurricane" and Roger Michell's "Hyde Park on Hudson," a comedy-drama with Bill Murray as U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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