London Festival Rocks

The programme for this year's Regus London Film Festival was unveiled in London this morning and director Adrian Wootton made it clear that the 44th festival would be the biggest and best yet. With a new sponsor on board, this year's festival, which runs from 1 to 16 November, will screen no fewer than 196 movies - beginning with Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous. Six other gala screenings will follow, including the Royal Charity Premiere of Into the Arms of Strangers, Quills with Kate Winslet and Geoffrey Rush, James Gray's The Yards, Bruce Paltrow's Duets, David Mamet's State and Main, Gurinder Chadha's What's Cooking and DominiK Moll's Harry He's Here to Help. Other highlights include John Waters' Cecil B. Demented, Joan Allen and Gary Oldman in The Contender, Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Stephen Frear's award-winning Liam and the directors cut of The Exorcist. On hand today to jolly up proceedings were Olivia Williams and Jimi Mistry, two of the stars from Born Romantic - the British movie that will close the festival. Directed by David 'This Year's Love' Kane, it's a contemporary comedy based in a London salsa club. 'It's a warm, charming tale of people finding romance,' Mistry told Empire Online. 'I'm a slightly backward thief who goes round robbing people all the time.'