Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott and Scarlett Johansson are among the stars whose films will premiere at the BFI London Film Festival this year.
The star-studded line-up includes the big-screen adaptation of hit play Prima Facie, with Wicked actress Erivo taking on the role originated by Jodie Comer on stage.
Meanwhile, Johansson stars in the atmospheric thriller Paper Tiger, which also features Adam Driver and Miles Teller.
Doctor Who actress Ruth Madeley will play disability rights activist Judith Heumann in Being Heumann, while Jack O’Connell, Claire Foy and Guy Pearce star in Ink, a new film about the meteoric rise of Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun newspaper and the early days of the tycoon’s reign on Fleet Street.
Directed by Danny Boyle, the film is based on a hit play of the same name, written by James Graham.
It was previously announced that Scott’s new film Elsinore, which tells the true story of the actor Ian Charleson and his preparation to play Hamlet at the National Theatre in London shortly before he died from Aids, will open the festival.
The festival at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall will close with The Debut, the new film from Jesse Eisenberg, starring Julianne Moore in a love letter to community theatre.
Other anticipated titles due to premiere at the festival include Tender Loving Care, from British director Mike Leigh, and Wild Horse Nine, by director Martin McDonagh and starring John Malkovich.
Artificial, starring Andrew Garfield as OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, will also premiere at the festival, while the line-up also boasts the world premiere of stop motion animation Wildwood, featuring the voices of Carey Mulligan, Angela Bassett and Mahershala Ali, and animated film Ray Gunn, featuring the voices of Johansson and Sam Rockwell.
Kristy Matheson, artistic director of BFI festivals, told the Press Association: “There’s always such a diversity of genres and subjects that people are dealing with, but this year there’s a lot of films that are looking at labour, that are looking at work and how we work and the equity around how we work.
“That seems to be something that crops up in a number of films. There’s also a lot of films about care and not just caring for each other, but systems of care and how we best relate to each other.”
She added: “There’s a number of works that are looking at this idea of radical tenderness in different ways, so that’s been really interesting.
“And as always, history and personal histories and larger histories, and lots of filmmakers are using those elements to talk about contemporary life or to talk about particular subjects. So I think that people are definitely mining history at the moment.”
The festival will feature 251 titles from 88 countries, and 14 of those titles will screen at 10 cinemas around the country, including Broadway Cinema in Nottingham, Chapter in Cardiff, Glasgow Film Theatre, Home in Manchester, MAC in Birmingham, Queen’s Film Theatre in Belfast, Showroom Cinema in Sheffield, Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle, Watershed in Bristol and Filmhouse in Edinburgh.
The BFI London Film Festival runs from October 7 to 18.
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