McQueen heist movie ‘Widows’ kicks off London Fest
WWI brought back to life in Jackson’s new 3D docu
LONDON, Oct 11, (Agencies): British director Steve McQueen opened the BFI London Film Festival on Wednesday with the heist movie “Widows”, kicking off the 12-day event which organisers said this year prides itself on promoting women filmmakers.
At London’s central Leicester Square, McQueen was joined on the red carpet by cast members Oscar winner Viola Davis, “Black Panther” actor Daniel Kaluuya and “Fast and Furious” regular Michelle Rodriguez.
The thriller, which tells the story of a group of widows planning a heist to pay off a debt left by a crime committed by their dead husbands, is McQueen’s first major feature film since 2013’s Oscar-winning “12 Years a Slave”.
Adapted from an 1980s television series by British crime writer Lynda La Plante, the Chicago-set movie touches on gender, race, politics and crime.
“It would have been disingenuous to not address all those issues because it’s coursing through every fibre of American culture so it should be a part of our story telling,” Davis told Reuters.
Davis, who is black, said she felt very excited when she read the script, adding: “It becomes a no-brainer...I always say if I turned this role down it probably would have gone to a Caucasian actress.”
The movie features a strong female cast and other Hollywood names such as Liam Neeson, Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell. McQueen described it as a “rollercoaster ride through our environment”.
“People are saying about this picture, ‘Oh great, they’re making movies with female leads’. In the 30s, 40s and 50s, they used to do it all the time,” he said. “They were stars who were icons. Why aren’t they doing it anymore? I don’t know.”
Glamour
Though smaller than its peers in Cannes and Venice, the BFI London Film Festival attracts its own share of glamour with many celebrities promoting their movies.
This year’s event includes the world premieres of World War One film “They Shall Not Grow Old” by “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson and “Stan & Ollie” about the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy.
“The Favourite”, starring “The Crown” actress Olivia Colman and Oscar winners Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz, also features, as does Keira Knightley’s latest period drama “Colette”.
Organisers said the spotlight would also shine on women filmmakers.
“This year (we’re) really proud of the fact that 38 percent of the films in the festival are from female directors or female co-directors,” festival artistic director Tricia Tuttle said. “It’s been really important to
us to find and champion female filmmakers.”
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LONDON: Black and white silent film footage from World War I has been transformed by Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson into a 3D colour movie to mark the centenary of the end of the conflict.
The legendary filmmaker painstakingly restored and coloured hours of archival footage and paired it with historical veterans’ interviews and a special effects soundtrack, to bring the war back to life in an unprecedented way.
This included using lip readers to decipher what soldiers were saying in the century-old film and inserting new matching audio recorded with actors.
The film – “They Shall Not Grow Old” – will be unveiled for the first time at the London Film Festival next week, and simultaneously screened in different venues across Britain.
“I was absolutely gobsmacked by the time we’d finished restoring this stuff, I’d had no idea that it could be done so well,” Jackson told AFP ahead of the release.
“People have restored film before, but they haven’t really restored it to the Nth degree.”
The project began four years ago in the office of Diane Lees, director general of Britain’s Imperial War Museums (IWM).