This year’s film festival has come to an end. There were some big names that attended this year’s festival such as Amy Adams, Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Cillian Murphy, Aaron Eckhart and many others.
The opening night of the Film Festival that took place on the 5th October at 7 o’clock pm at Odeon Leicester Square had a star studded cast who were David Oyelowo, Rosamund Pike, Jack Davenport, Tom Felton and Laura Carmichael, who all turned up to join the esteemed director, Amma Asante.
Throughout the two weeks many Headline Galas took place at Odeon Leicester Square such as Lion that stars Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman; Arrival that had Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner as part of the cast that consisted of Forest Whitaker and Michael Stuhlberg; The Birth of a Nation which stars Armie Hammer and Gabrielle Union; La La Land’s Ryan Reynolds made an appearance; Manchester by the Sea’s Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams graced the red carpet; many other A Listers turned up over the two weeks as well such as Sigourney Weaver who turned up for A Monster Calls; Amy Adams, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Armie Hammer joined director and producer, Tom Ford, for the gala screening of Nocturnal Animals; while David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong’o made a brief appearance at Queen of Katwe gala, while Snowden the director Oliver Stone made an appearance, and lastly Their Finest which stars Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin and Bill Nighy strutted the red carpet.
The Closing Night Gala which was the only gala I attended was Free Fire directed by Ben Wheatley and a tremendous cast that consisted of Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Cillian Murphy, Jack Reynor, Enzo Cilenti, Sam Riley, Michael Smiley, Babou Ceesay and Brie Larson. I keep thinking to myself if only I had done the whole two weeks it would have been an incredible experience for this festival had many names that I would have loved to have meet or get pictures of or with. That was the case last year where I did a whole week of the festival.
As many people will say this year’s festival was different to the others that had preceeded it, such as the layout for the Headline galas and the other galas were a strong negative focus from many people. On the plus side though, the use of the embankment outdoor cinema was a great addition to the festival, and I hope that the organisors agree to use it again for next year’s festival. Despite that, the weather somewhat held up from all accounts the weather was great for the festival.
All in all, it was an all right festival. Even though I had only made it to the Closing Gala and a few of the Embankment Galas such as Una, Elle and Bleed For This, the ones I did attend were some of the best I had ever been to especially Bleed For This and Una.
Well, here’s to the end of another BFI London Film Festival and to ponder on what next year’s festival will bring.
the experience of a variety buff 