London Film Festival Sets Premieres And Rolling Stones For 56th Event

The lineup for the 56th BFI London Film Festival was unveiled Wednesday with 225 fiction and documentary features set for the event, including 14 World, 15 International and 34 European Premieres. The lineup also includes a gala for the world premiere of Crossfire Hurricane, a documentary celebrating 50 years of The Rolling Stones, who are expected to attend the event. As announced earlier, the European Premiere of Tim Burton's 3-D animation Frankenweenie will open LFF on October 10th. The festival will close withMike Newell's Great Expectations with Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes.

Other gala highlights include Toronto titles such as Ben Affleck's political thriller Argo, Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut Quartet as well as Roger Michell's Hyde Park On Hudson, which will screen as the London Film Festival's Centerpiece. And drama The Sessions is set, starring John Hawkes, Helen Hunt and William H. Macy.

The London Film Festival's 2012 Competition Slate:

Official Competition

European Premieres:
Michael Winterbottom’s  Everyday
Sally Potter’s Ginger and Rosa
Deepa Mehta’s Midnight’s Children
Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths

UK Premieres
Michel Franco’s After Lucia
David Ayer’s End of Watch
Rama  Burshtein’s Fill the Void
Daniele Ciprì’s It Was the Son
François Ozon’s In the House
Cate Shortland’s Lore
Pablo Larraín’s No
Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone

First Feature Competition (recognizing an original and imaginative directorial debut):

3 European premieres
Masaaki Akahori’s The Samurai that Night
Anand Gandhi’s Ship of Theseus
Barry Berk’s Sleeper’s Wake

9 UK premieres
Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild
Tom Shkolnik’s The Comedian
Maja Miloš’ Clip
Gabriela Pichler’s Eat Sleep Die
Sally El Hosaini’s My Brother the Devil
Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighbouring Sounds
Scott Graham’s Shell
Andrey Gryazev’s Tomorrow
Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda

Documentary Competition Categories:

4 World Premieres
Charlie Paul’s For No Good Reason
Nick Ryan’s The Summit
Sarah Gavron’s Village at the End of the World
Greg Olliver’s Turned Towards the Sun

1 International Premiere
Sébastien Lifshitz’s Les Invisibles

4 European Premieres
Jay Bulger’s Beware of Mr Baker
Shola Lynch’s Free Angela and All Political Prisoners
Alex Gibney’s Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God
Amy Berg’s West of Memphis

3 UK Premieres
Katja Gauriloff’s Canned Dreams
Ken Burns, David McMahon and Sarah Burns’ The Central Park Five
Ulises Rosell’s The Ethnographer

The nominees for "Best British Newcomer":
Rowan Athale – director/screenwriter Wasteland
Sally El Hosaini – director/screenwriter My Brother the Devil
Fady Elsayed – actor My Brother the Devil
Scott Graham – director/screenwriter Shell
Eloise Laurence – actor Broken
Rufus Norris – director Broken
Chloe Pirrie actor Shell
Tom Shkolnik – director/screenwriter The Comedian