London Film Festival

Written by London Expert: Gavin, United Kingdom, October 2011

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Comment from London Expert: Gavin

Roll out the red carpet - the London Film Festival has arrived!

The London Film Festival is a wonderful opportunity to see the extraordinary range of film making today - over 200 films from around the world in 16 days! London is such a multi-cultural city with over 300 languages spoken, it is an ideal venue to celebrate world film-making.

Amongst the many highlights is the imaginative director, Terence Davies' adaptation of Rattigan's play The Deep Blue Sea. 2011 is the centenary of playwright Terrence Rattigan’s birth in London.

Unlike some of the other film festivals which are mainly concerned with making deals or are fiercely competitive, London is more about the sheer enjoyment of watching films.

If you can not make the festival, then there is always the British Film Institute on the South Bank to visit throughout the year. They have a rolling programme of great films and talks.

The Leicester Square area is where most of the big premieres take place. It is also where you will find casts of hand prints of famous actors in the pavement.

Over in the Tate Modern art gallery, the vast Turbine Hall has been darkened to provide a dramatic backdrop to Tacita Dean's silent film projection. She has chosen a vertical format rather than the usual horizontal you find in the cinema, to echo the height of the space. The images cleverly juxtapose images of the gallery such as the escalators you take to visit the art collection, with images from works by Mondrian and Magritte etc. She believes traditional analogue film and digital are as different as a painting in oils or watercolour.

So a contemporary work of art inspired by film, a world famous film festival and, as you will read in a previous blog, a backdrop for many films – three great reasons for visiting London now!

- Gavin, London Tour Guide

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