London Film Festival To Kick Off With Star-Studded Suffragette Premiere

The 59th London Film Festival kicks off in the capital tonight, giving movie buffs a chance to see some of the best unreleased films, classics, documentaries, shorts and world cinema.

Among this year’s hot tickets is screenwriter Abi Morgan’s ‘Suffragette’, which launches the festival with a celebrity gala tonight, including appearances from Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw and Sam West.

Telling the story of the struggle for women’s suffrage at the turn of the 20th century, it stars also Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep and Helena Bonham Carter. The great granddaughter and great great granddaughter of activist Emmeline Pankhurst will also appear on the red carpet tonight.

The festival will wind up on October 18, with Danny Boyle’s biopic 'Steve Jobs’, with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin joined by stars Jeff Daniels and Michael Stuhlbarg in London for the screening.

And in between, there will be a wealth of other exclusive screenings.

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October 8 will see the debut of 'Trumbo’, the story of veteran Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (played by Bryan Cranston), who was blacklisted in the 1940s but wrote the likes of 'Exodus’, 'Roman Holiday’ and 'Spartacus’ under a pseudonym. Co-star John Goodman will be among those on the red carpet.

The hotly-anticipated 'High Rise’ also features on October 9, with Tom Hiddleston, Luke Evans, Sienna Miller, and Elisabeth Moss all pitching up for the premiere.

Directed by 'Kill List’ helmsman Ben Wheatley, it adapts JG Ballard’s dystopian novel about societal breakdown in the microcosm of a block of luxury flats.

There’s also Paolo Sorrentino’s 'Youth’ (on October 15), the star-studded tale of an orchestra conductor featuring Michael Caine, Paul Dano, Harvey Keitel and Rachel Weisz, who will all be in town for the premiere.

Other noteworthy movies on show include the comedy 'Men and Chicken’ with Mads Mikkelsen, black comedy-thriller 'A Bigger Splash’ with Ralph Fiennes, and 'The Program’, Stephen Frears’ movie about Lance Armstrong, with Ben Foster as the disgraced cyclist.

For more information and tickets, check out the LFF website.

Image credits: Focus/Bleeker Street/Studio Canal