Gardening And Telly At The London Film Festival

The 49th Times bfi London Film Festival has announced its opening and closing night films. This year's honours go to The Constant Gardener, and Good Night, And Good Luck. Gardener will be kicking things off on the evening of Wednesday October 19th. We already know a good deal about the film, and indeed, have been looking forward to it even before we heard that City Of God's director Fernando Meirelles was replacing Mike Newell behind the megaphone. If you didn't catch any of our earlier news-flags on this film, it's an adaptation of a John Le Carre novel which stars Ralph Fiennes as a rather gentle British doctor abroad in Africa whose wife (Rachel Weisz) is killed. He discovers that it might not be an accident, and will do anything to find out the truth. It's got a supporting cast with blingin' props (don't ask why, but we suddenly feel a bit chavvy today), and judging form the trailer, it looks 'wikkid'. At the other end of the schedule, on November 3rd, we have, **Good Night