Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne will be reunited on screen at this year’s BFI London Film Festival in adventure movie The Aeronauts.
The pair were both Oscar-nominated for 2014’s The Theory of Everything with Redmayne winning for his portrayal of physicist Stephen Hawking.
This year’s festival will host the European premiere of The Aeronauts.
It tells the story of an attempt to fly a gas balloon higher than anyone has before.
It was previously been announced the 11-day long celebration of film will open and close with two other European premieres – Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield and Martin Scorsese’s mob epic The Irishman, which stars Oscar winners Robert de Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci.
Other films that will be shown during the Festival include whodunit mystery Knives Out, starring Daniel Craig and Avengers star Chris Evans, and The King, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Parts One and Two and Henry V, starring Timothée Chalamet and Robert Pattinson.
There will also be Gala Premieres of Avengers star Scarlett Johansson’s two most recent movies, the wartime satire Jojo Rabbit, where she plays the mother of a young boy whose imaginary friend is an idiotic version of Hitler, and Marriage Story where she stars opposite Star Wars actor Adam Driver in the story of a couple’s difficult break up.
The festival will screen a total of 229 features with around one in three of those coming from female film-makers representing a slight increase from last 2018’s programme.
LFF Director Tricia Tuttle said LFF doesn’t operate a quota and the proportion reflects the strength of female emerging talent.
“We would all have been disappointed if it was less than last year, because there are more great films being made by female film makers. We want to see that reflected in the programme,” she said.
Tuttle acknowledged the whole industry does need to do more, particularly with its most high profile releases.
“When you look at films that are probably going to be competing in that major awards season space, [there are] still very few films by female filmmakers,” she said.
“And I think this is down to the glass ceiling for female filmmakers not being funded at the same level male film makers are being invested in.”
Among the films directed by female film makers being screened at this year’s LFF are Mirrah Foulkes’s live action recreation of the famous puppet show Judy & Punch, Sarah Gavron’s London-based teen drama Rocks about a young girl facing tough challenges in her home life, and Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood starring Tom Hanks and Matthew Rhys.
Heller’s previous film Can You Ever Forgive Me? played at 2018’s festival.
Other potential highlights include Our Ladies, the big screen version of Alan Warner’s riotous novel about a group of schoolgirls competing in a choir competition. The story has previously been adapted for stage in the Olivier award-winning Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour.
The London Film Festival runs between Wednesday 2 October and Sunday 13th October. [Source]
