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Torino International Film Festival director Gianni Amelio announced today that the Sam Taylor Wood directed NOWHERE BOY, is to open the Festival on Friday, November 13th. The story, which stars Aaron Johnson (THE GREATEST) and Kristin Scott Thomas (THE ENGLISH PATIENT), chronicles John Lennon’s formative teenage years in mid-Fifties Liverpool, based on the book ‘Imagine: Growing Up with My Brother John Lennon’ by Lennon’s stepsister Julia Baird. The Festival is scheduled to run from November 13th to November 21st 2009.

On making the announcement Gianni Amelio commented “I am particularly happy to open my first edition as director of the Torino International Film Festival with this film. An excellent film from a debuting director, with a portrait of the artist John Lennon as a young man as the subject matter is very much in harmony with the spirit that has always distinguished TFF.”

Synopsis: A fifteen-year-old John Lennon (Aaron Johnson) has just discovered and fallen in love with rock music. A confused adolescent, he is torn between his love for the old-fashioned aunt (Kristin Scott Thomas) who raised him and his mother (Anne-Marie Duff). Together with friend Paul McCartney (Thomas Sangster) he takes refuge in music and a twentieth century icon is born. More a declaration of love than straightforward biography, NOWHERE BOY does not restrict itself to describing Lennon’s adolescence. It also succeeds in evoking the wealth of powerful impressions that fed his genius in these pivotal early years, accompanied throughout by skilful use of fifties music and the repertory of songs from Lennon and McCartney’s early years.

NOWHERE BOY was directed by Sam Taylor Wood, one of the most important young British visual artists working today. Prize-winner at the 1997 Biennale d’Arte di Venezia he is the author of the short film LOVE YOU MORE which premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival, 2008. It was written by Matthew Greenhalgh, scriptwriter of the film CONTROL, a biopic of the Joy Division’s lead singer. The cast includes Kristin Scott Thomas (Lennon’s aunt) and Anne-Marie Duff (his mother); the young Aaron Johnson (Lennon), who starred in THE GREATEST and will appear as Marvel Comics superhero KICK-ASS, in the film of the same name due for release next year; Thomas Sangster (Paul McCartney), who appeared in BRIGHT STAR and LOVE ACTUALLY, and Sam Bell (George Harrison).