London Film Festival: Ed Snowden documentary is more gripping than any thriller.

The London Film Festival was book-ended by thrillers. It opened with The Imitation Game, about Alan Turing's race against time to crack the Enigma code. It closed with Fury, following a WWII tank crew through a series of bloody skirmishes in Germany. But more gripping than either was CITIZENFOUR, which told the story of US whistleblower Ed Snowden as he revealed the US Government's industrial scale spying on its own innocent citizens...

Click here to read my review. 

London Film Festival - Bjork fails to impress... or even show up.

I attended the premiere of Bjork's new documentary a few days ago. Bjork didn't bother. She was supposed to, but she suddenly pulled out, citing a rather flimsy excuse about working on an album. She would have known she was doing that when she committed to the premiere. All a bit odd. All a bit Bjork.

Directors Peter Strickland and Nick Fenton, and producer Jacqui Edenbrow, apologised at the premiere for Bjork's absence. 

I'm not a particular Bjork fan, but was interested to give the film a go and see whether she could win me around. Sadly, she didn't.

Click here to read my review. 

London Film Festival 2014 - The Pamela Smart Trial

The London Film Festival typically includes at least one documentary shedding light on some sort of terrible injustice. Previous years' highlights have included The Central Park Five, West of Memphis and The Kill Team. One of my favourites was actually the much-maligned Conviction - not a documentary, but a real life story, which I reviewed here.

This year the trial of Pamela Smart is put under the microscope. In Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart, director Jeremiah Zagar posits that the trial - the first in America to ever be fully televised - was corrupted by months of media speculation before it began. It is worth noting that in the UK, Contempt of Court laws would have rendered almost all of that coverage illegal for the precise reason that it could compromise the trial process.

Click here to read my review of the film. 

London Film Festival 2014 - Part One - The Imitation Game

Another year, another London Film Festival. This year's 12-day event kicked off with opening gala The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as maths genius Alan Turing, who cracked the Enigma code and helped the allies win the Second World War.

Click here to read my review of the movie. 

Here are some of my pictures from the press conference, of stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley and director Morten Tyldum.

Belated Film Festival Snaps

Looking at my blog earlier today and cursing myself for neglecting it for so long, I realised one of my last entries was 'Part One' of what I had intended as a series of London Film Festival blogs. A festival devotee, I attend every year - sometimes with a press pass, but always with a stack of tickets I've bought for myself. Last year I was lucky enough to receive press credentials and provided a series of newspaper and internet articles for the Yellow Advertiser, Britain's largest regional newspaper series.

Part Two of my blog series, however, never materialised. Now, as the BFI begins announcing gala screenings for the 2014 festival, I am finally uploading a selection of my pictures from the 2013 galas. They include pictures from the premieres and press conferences for Gravity, Philomena and Saving Mr Banks - featuring stars including Tom Hanks, Dame Judi Dench, Steve Coogan and Emma Thompson.

Enjoy!

Film Festival - Part One - 'Hanks for the Memories'

The London Film Festival is upon us once more. Those who have been following my blog for a while will know that I am a huge fan and avid supporter of the annual event, organised by the British Film Institute. In 2010 I was an official correspondent, covering the festival for two American websites - Sawf News and the Huffington Post. This year I am covering it for one of the UK's largest regional newspaper chains, the Yellow Advertiser.

My festival calendar kicked off on Wednesday with a press conference for 'Captain Phillips', the new true-story Tom Hanks movie about a US cargo ship hijacked by Somali pirates. Mr Hanks was very funny, if somewhat unwilling to answer some questions seriously. He experienced a sustained grilling from Britain's cheeky showbiz reporters, but handled the onslaught well. I filed a report about the event last night, published today.

Click here to read my dispatch from the press conference.

Click to enlarge.
Copyright: Charles Thomson

I took this picture at the press conference yesterday. For some reason, it looks like Tom Hanks is crying. He wasn't. It's just one of those funny moments where a camera catches somebody's face halfway through doing something else.

Here are some of my other shots:

Click pics to enlarge.
All pics, Copyright: Charles Thomson.

More on my festival adventures as and when more reports are published.