London Film Festival: Opening Night Gala report

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The casino sitesi 54th BFI London Film Festival kicked off last Wednesday with the cinematic adaptation of Kazuo Ishigura’s novel Never Let Me Go as its Opening casino Gala event. The screening was attended by the insanely attractive triptych of England’s brightest young stars, Keira Knightley, casino online Carey Mulligan and soon-to-be friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield. They were joined by the film’s crew, online casino including director Mark Romanek’s Beard and writer/executive producer Alex Garland.

While Garfield stuck with a tried-and-tested dark suit casino bonuslari and tie combo, the girls’ fashion choices strayed precariously close to casino oyunlari the home-made. Knightley was mostly covered by a cream beaded number cut canli casino siteleri away low at the sides and back, while Mulligan’s loose-fitting halterneck was patterned with a red-and-black zigzag and may have housed Red Indians in a former life.casino siteleri

The 54th BFI London Film Festival kicked off last Wednesday with the cinematic adaptation of Kazuo Ishigura's novel Never Let Me Go as its online casino siteleri Opening Gala event. The screening was attended by the insanely attractive canli casino triptych of England's brightest young stars, Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and soon-to-be friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield. They were joined by the film's crew, including director Mark Romanek's Beard and writer/executive producer Alex Garland.

While Garfield stuck with a tried-and-tested dark suit and tie combo, the girls' fashion choices strayed precariously close to the home-made. Knightley was mostly covered by a cream beaded number cut away turkce casino siteleri low at the sides and back, while Mulligan's loose-fitting halterneck was patterned with a red-and-black zigzag and may have housed Red Indians in a former life.{{page_break}}

All three took the opportunity to wax lyrical about Ishiguro's original novel in their red carpet interviews, screened for less photogenic hordes who had been quickly harried into the cinema and safely out of sight, with Mulligan stating that she received the script in the middle of reading the book and thus realised It Was Meant To Be. No doubt unconvinced by such eerie coincidences was fellow attendee and professional FBI sceptic Dana Scully, arriving in character as Gillian Anderson and joined by her exquisitely named husband Clyde Klotz, while also tagging along for the ride were well-travelled British thesps Jim Broadbent and Sir Ben Kingsley.

After the inexplicable appearance of an organist rising from the depths of the auditorium like something from an Andrew Lloyd Webber debacle and regaling the audience with his merry tunes, Director of the British Film Institute Amanda Nevill took to the stage.http://yourwincasino.com/

After officially announcing the start of the Festival, she emphasized its importance to the national film industry and Britain, as sponsored by American Express, American Airlines and Windows 7. The audience accepted their cues to applaud their corporate overlords through a murmured mixture of embarrassment and pity at Nevill's emphasis on the importance of showing the sponsors a good time but forgetting to mention the audiences.

Following a speech by Artistic Director Sandra Hebron about creativity that could have been recycled from any number of identikit speeches extolling the importance of off-the-cuff inspiration (irony was not in attendance), the film's crew were called up on stage to present the screening. Kazuo Ishiguro spoke of his pleasure at seeing his novel translated so well to the screen, while Mark Romanek's Beard thanked his cast and crew for helping him complete his English journey. Leaving the stage to warm applause, the London Film Festival kicked off in earnest – and only about an hour late.

On reflection of the build-up to this opening screening, Never Let Me Go seemed an accidentally appropriate selection. The story of three friends destined to meet premature deaths and trying to find some meaning in their short lives together echoes through the Festival's own search for a distinctive identity among a crowd of bigger and more prestigious events. With Cannes as first choice for the biggest studio releases, as Sundance is for indies and Venice or Berlin for arthouse, London continues to occupy a middle-ground between all three without excelling in any single field. The organisers' slightly desperate-sounding reassurances of how their Festival offers the opportunity for British productions to be given screen time (despite how relatively few are appearing in the main venues) while giving audiences the chance to experience the biggest upcoming Hollywood blockbusters (most of which having already seen their US release dates) rang only too hollow, doubly undermined by having to pay reverence to the event's conspicuously overseas sponspors.

Yet if Amanda Nevill or Sandra Hebron were still around once the film's credits rolled and the auditorium broke into cheering and enthusiastic discussion, thankful at the opportunity to spend the evening in the address of the most illustrious homegrown movie stars, they might have found their reassurances. With tickets priced at the same level or below an average visit to a Central London cinema and available to anyone quick enough with the booking form, fifty-four years since its creation, the London Film Festival has stayed true to its roots as an event opening the wider world of film up to the general public. It may not be the grandest or most distinctive affair, but as the protagonists of its opening film came to realise, it's those modest shared experiences which can make an existence worthwhile.

Never Let Me Go is the first of 197 films set to be screened at the Festival over the coming two weeks. Flixist will be covering the event at screenings of films big (Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan), small (Ken Loach's thriller Route Irish, geek-fro'd IT Crowd star Richard Ayoade's directorial debut Submarine), foreign (Javier Bardem and Alejandro Inarritu's Biutiful, Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins) and everything in between right up to the closing date on October 28th.