Rufus Sewell and Anthony Hopkins films in British film festival
Comedy, drama and biography are on offer in a celebration of British film.
A dinner party that becomes a classic British farce when one of the guests dies – starring Shirley Henderson, Alan Tudyk and Rufus Sewell – is among the highlights of next month’s Cunard British Film Festival.
The Trouble with Jessica, directed by Matt Winn, won the special jury prize and audience award at the recent Dinard Festival in France, and promises to be a hit with Australian audiences.
When Jessica hangs herself at the dinner party, the hosts decide to hide the death so they don’t jeopardise the sale of their home. A prospective buyer turns up during the mayhem and Sewell plays a hotshot lawyer who worries that concealing the death will harm his career.
Australian audiences will see several of the British films that screened at the 34th Dinard Festival du Film Britannique, held in gorgeous seaside town of Dinard in France.
Other highlights of the British Film Festival, screening across Australia from November 1-29, include My Name is Alfred Hitchcock, Anthony Hopkins in One Life, and The Old Oak, directed by Ken Loach.
Belfast-born Mark Cousins, known for his documentaries The Story of Film and The Eyes of Orson Welles, again mines cinema history with My Name is Alfred Hitchcock, exploring the British director’s 50-year career. Comic actor Alistair McGowan as Hitchcock provides the very effective voiceover.
Sweet Sue, the directing debut from Leo Leigh, son of Mike Leigh, has the hallmarks of his father’s films. The touching story of a working-class woman who falls for a local biker, it includes an outrageous gay character, the man’s son, which sets the film apart from what Leigh Sr might do.
Dinard’s best film winner, Sasha Pollak’s Silver Haze, features Esme Creed-Miles and Vicky Knight, a real-life burn victim who plays a woman seeking revenge for her burn injuries as a child. It screened at this year’s Sydney Film Festival.
Ken Loach’s The Old Oak has released in Britain to rave reviews, but the best film in the British Film Festival may be the opener, One Life, with Hopkins as humanitarian James Winton who helped save hundreds of central European children from the Nazis.
James Marsh’s Dance First features Gabriel Byrne as Samuel Beckett and Aidan Gillen in a supporting role as James Joyce. The film focuses on many facets of Beckett’s life, including his relationship with his partner and eventual wife, Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil, played by French actor Sandrine Bonnaire.