Entertainment

Keira Knightley and Olivia Colman among stars attending BFI London Film Festival

The 62nd BFI London Film Festival has announced its full 2018 programme.
The 62nd BFI London Film Festival has announced its full 2018 programme. The 62nd BFI London Film Festival has announced its full 2018 programme.

Keira Knightley, Olivia Colman, Viola Davis and Emma Stone are among the stars attending this year’s BFI London Film Festival.

The 12-day celebration of cinema opens in October and will showcase films including the world premiere of Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old, marking the centenary of the First World War.

Big names attending the event also include directors the Coen Brothers, and actors Daniel Kaluuya, Liam Neeson, Melissa McCarthy and Rosamund Pike.

Olivia Colman
Olivia Colman Olivia Colman (Ian West/PA)

Headline galas include the UK premiere of The Favourite, starring Colman, Stone and Rachel Weisz.

The Coen Brothers return to the festival with the UK premiere of The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs, a “touchingly melancholic study of the American West”.

Beautiful Boy chronicles a family coping with addiction. and Can You Ever Forgive Me?, starring McCarthy, is the true crime story of best-selling celebrity biographer Lee Israel.

Knightley and Dominic West star in Colette, a “gender-challenging” biopic of literary couple Colette and Willy, “whose relationship rewrote social and gender rules”.

Other films include Life Itself, starring Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde; Outlaw King, featuring Chris Pine; A Private War, starring Pike; and Suspiria, featuring Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton.

Viola Davis
Viola Davis Viola Davis (Ian West/PA)

Terry Gilliam will show the UK premiere of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which has been two decades in the making.

It was previously announced that the festival will open with director Steve McQueen’s Widows, adapted Lynda La Plante’s novel of the same name, and close with the world premiere of Stan & Ollie, featuring Steve Coogan and John C Reilly, about comedy double act Laurel and Hardy.

A special presentation of Mike Leigh’s Peterloo will take place in Manchester.

BFI chief executive Amanda Nevill said: “The festival’s great programme always challenges our global perspective with fresh ideas and viewpoints, something so valuable at this extraordinary moment when we, as a nation, are so engaged in a passionate debate about the UK’s future.”

The 62nd BFI London Film Festival runs from October 10 to 21.