By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

London Film Festival 2011 Opener

London –24 August: The 55th BFI London Film Festival, in partnership with American Express, is proud to announce that this year‟s Festival will open on Wednesday 12 October with the European premiere of 360, directed by Fernando Meirelles (City of God, The Constant Gardener, Blindness) and with an original screenplay from the acclaimed writer Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/ Nixon).
Meirelles is no stranger to the Festival after The Constant Gardener (for which Rachel Weisz later won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar) opened it in 2005.

360 is a modern and stylish kaleidoscope of interconnected love and relationships linking characters from different cities and countries in a vivid, suspenseful and deeply moving tale of romantic life in the 21st century. Starting in Vienna, the film beautifully weaves through Paris, London, Bratislava, Rio, Denver and Phoenix into a single, mesmerising narrative.

From a simple decision made by one man – to remain faithful to his wife – springs a series of consequences. From uplifting, beautiful and romantic moments through to desperate, confused and conflicted interludes, each protagonist in 360 has their own vivid, entertaining, funny, tragic narrative as their stories entwine across the globe.

Sandra Hebron, the Festival‟s Artistic Director comments:
“’I’m delighted that 360 will be our opening night film, and very pleased to welcome back Fernando Meirelles and Peter Morgan to the Festival. With its impeccable film making credentials and intriguing premise, 360 combines masterful visual story telling with a modern and moving narrative, helped by strong performances from a terrific ensemble cast. It will be a pleasure to open this year’s Festival with such an accomplished film from one of international cinema’s finest film makers.”

On having the film’s European premiere at the Festival, producers Andrew Eaton and David Linde comment: “It is a great honour to be invited to be the opening film of the BFI London Film Festival. It feels especially significant and poignant at Sandra Hebron’s last Festival as Director.”
Director Fernando Meirelles adds: “In the past decade I’ve been to the BFI London Film Festival six times, some of them as a guest, and some as part of the audience. The BFI London Film Festival is one of the best festivals in the world due to its selection of films and the number of theatres the films are shown in. I am very honoured 360, an intimate film that talks about our options in life, has been chosen to open the Festival this year, and I want to thank Sandra Hebron for extending this prestigious invitation to me for a second time, following The Constant Gardener, which opened the Festival in 2005.”

360 is a Revolution/ Dor Film/ Fidelite production, in co-production with O2 Filme and in association with BBC Films, The UK Film Council, ORF, Unison Films, Gravity Pictures, Hero Entertainment, Prescience, EOS Pictures, Wild Bunch, Film Location Austria, Austrian Film Institute and Vienna Film Fund.

It is produced by Andrew Eaton and David Linde with Emanuel Michael, Danny Krausz, Chris Hanley.

The full programme for The 55th BFI London Film Festival will be announced at the Press Launch on Wednesday 7 September.

The Festival runs from 12-27 October 2011.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon