Martin I. Petrov

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The 61st BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express® is delighted to announce additional Screen Talks with BAFTA-winning and Academy-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal, four-time Academy Award-nominated actor Annette Bening and critically acclaimed director Lucrecia Martel alongside previously announced guest, director Takashi Miike. 

The Festival’s acclaimed Screen Talks series welcomes some of the most exciting international actors and directors in contemporary cinema to discuss their body of work. Jake Gyllenhaal, the compelling and versatile actor of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN and END OF WATCH, will be giving a Screen Talk about his career and his remarkable performance as a survivor of the Boston marathon bombing in David Gordon Green’s STRONGER, which is presented at this year’s Festival. The brilliant and always eloquent Annette Bening will discuss her distinguished career and her commitment to playing unconventional characters, including her role as Hollywood screen icon Gloria Grahame in FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL. And Argentine director Lucrecia Martel, whose intoxicating and elusive films have seen her critically acclaimed at the world’s top international festivals, will discuss her filmmaking approach and well as her extraordinary new film ZAMA.

The programme of Screen Talks events include: 

SCREEN TALK: JAKE GYLLENHAAL

Hosted by broadcaster and writer, Edith Bowman

Screening date, time and location: Thursday 5 October, 15.45, NFT 1

From his breakthrough role in the 2001 cult favourite DONNIE DARKO, to climate change blockbuster THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, and from his BAFTA-winning performance in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN to his deeply unnerving performances in NIGHTCRAWLER and NOCTURNAL ANIMALS , Jake Gyllenhaal has delivered some of the most diverse and accomplished performances of the 21st Century.

Gyllenhaal joins the festival to discuss his career and celebrate the UK premiere of his latest film STRONGER - screening in LOVE - in which he gives an extraordinary performance as a survivor of the Boston Marathon bombing.

SCREEN TALK: ANNETTE BENING

Hosted by BFI Head of Cinemas and Events, Gaylene Gould

Screening date, time and location: Thursday 12 October, 16.30, NFT 1

Annette Bening’s beguiling portrayal of the Marquise de Merteuil in Milos Forman's VALMONT attracted the eye of director Stephen Frears who cast her as a young hustler in his stylish film noir THE GRIFTERS, for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination for her role as a flirtatious, unapologetic con artist.

She is known for playing complex characters that refuse to fit into societal norms or expectations. Whether playing an adulterous housewife in AMERICAN BEAUTY, a bohemian single-mother in 20^TH CENTURY WOMEN, a larger-than-life actress in BEING JULIA, or a well-meaning yet overbearing lesbian mother in THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, Bening’s performances are layered and nuanced.

Bening joins us to discuss her career and her new film in which she plays the aging film actress Gloria Grahame.FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL screens as The May Fair Hotel Gala.

SCREEN TALK: LUCRECIA MARTEL

Hosted by LFF Programme Advisor, academic and critic, Maria Delgado

Screening date, time and location: Sunday 15 October, 12.00, NFT3

A founding member of the New Argentine Cinema movement that came to international prominence in the mid-1990s, Lucrecia Martel is one of the most critically acclaimed directors of contemporary cinema and one of its great stylists. Her work is poetic, mysterious, and deeply personal.

Following the success of her Award-winning Salta trilogy, THE SWAMP (La ciénaga), THE HOLY CHILD (La niña santa) and THE HEADLESS WOMAN (La mujer sin cabeza), the enigmatic director returns after almost a decade hiatus from feature filmmaking with her bold fourth feature ZAMA, an incisive and visually arresting examination of the abuses of colonialism.

The Festival is delighted to welcome Martel to London to discuss her creative approach to narrative filmmaking and to present ZAMA which screens as a Special Presentation in association with Sight & Sound.

SCREEN TALK: TAKASHI MIIKE

Hosted by Editor-at-Large Total Film, Jamie Graham

Screening date, time and location: Monday 9 October, 18.15, Curzon Soho

Riding the ‘Asian Extreme’ wave of the late 1990s, revered Japanese director Takashi Miike achieved global prominence with his astonishingly graphic films AUDITION and ICHI THE KILLER. Now, with a hundred films under his belt, the prolific filmmaker has defied all attempts to pigeonhole him as a niche director. He is both a film festival darling and a big-budget hit-maker. Best known for over-the-top violence and gore, his films cover a much wider range of genres and styles, including light-hearted children’s films (ZEBRAMAN and THE GREAT YOKAI WAR), period pieces (SABU), subdued road movies (THE BIRD PEOPLE IN CHINA) and farcical musical-comedy-horror (THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS).

Takashi Miike joins us to talk about the road leading to his 100th film, the blood-drenched supernatural samurai movie BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL which screens as our THRILL gala.

The 61st BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express® takes place from Wednesday 5 October-Sunday 15 October 2017.  Full programme information at www.bfi.org.uk/lff