Friday 3 September 2010

London Film Festival Opens with Oscar Contender

Never Let Me Go, the movie directed by Mark Romanek and based on the novel by award-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, is to open the 54th BFI London Film Festival (LFF), which takes place 13-28 October.

The film, already being touted as an Oscar contender, is co-produced by DNA Films and Film4, and distributed internationally by Fox Searchlight Pictures. Another Ishiguro book The Remains Of The Day was also the subject of the 1993 Oscar-nominated movie.

The awards theme continues as the LFF announces plans to host its first ever awards ceremony on 28 October.

Among the accolades handed out will be the Best British Newcomer Award, which rewards new and emerging UK film talent and recognises the accomplishments of a new writer, producer or director in his or her first feature at the festival.

Other honours include the Best Film, a new award celebrating "creative, original, imaginative, intelligent and distinctive" filmmaking.

And the festival's most revered tribute is the long-established British Film Institute Fellowship, which goes to individual actors or directors in recognition of their outstanding contribution to film or television. Previous winners include Hollywood legend Bette Davis, Martin Scorsese, Bernardo Bertolucci, Robert Altman, and Dame Maggie Smith.

Photography by Agnieszka Zychska