Another rainy day at the Times bfi London Film Festival, brightened by another three films appearing. Yes, Hell, Manderlay and Stoned all debuted today, to packed houses at the Odeon West End.
First up was Manderlay, and we got a chance to talk to the film's narrator John Hurt, who explained the absence of Lars Von Trier. "Sadly, he's not here because he suffers from the same disease that I suffer from in the play I'm doing at the minute (Heroes, Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of Gérald Sibleyras’s play, with Richard Griffiths and Ken Stott)."
He's referring, we think, to Von Trier's well-known fear of flying, but we're going to have to defer to anyone who has seen the play already on that one. However, Hurt was full of praise for his director. "Working with Lars is a challenge in itself – although I have to say that I didn't find anything difficult in working with him at all. We had some very good times." He also believes that this may be a better film than its predecessor, Dogville – for more on that, read our Red Carpet Q&A with him.
Next was Hell, with director Danis Tanovic in attendance and also Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella (who said – here – at the Opening Gala that Tanovic' film was one he was particularly looking forward to) in the audience. During a Q&A session after the film, the director explained how he came to work on the Kieslowski scripted movie. "Well, what's good about being a film director is that when you start each new film project, you're starting from zero. And this one arrived in my hands five years ago, but I wasn't interested - I wanted to do the other in the trilogy, Purgatory, which is about war. But when I read that, irealised after seven pages that after No Man's Land I actually didn't want to do another war film. So I started reading this script again, and spent a night thinking about the possibilities - that was five years ago." he said, before explaining that the interim was pretty much solely spent acquiring finance.
Immediately following Hell was long time Brit producer Stephen Wooley's directorial debut Stoned. Before the screening Empire spoke with both Stephen and his leading man, Leo Gregory. We first asked the director about the transition into his new job. "It was very strange, because when I got into producing I was already in distribution," he explained. "When I managed to get (Neil Jordan's)** Angel** from TV and into cinemas ,someone suggested that I become a producer. So I did, and pretty much the same thing happened coming over from that to directing. I'd been with the project for twelve years, and one day the writer suggested I just go all the way with it."
That huge gestation period turned out to be a blessing for Gregory, who only had two weeks to prepare for the lead role of Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones. "I was in L.A. when I was given the script - three days later I was in London testing for the part, and two weeks after that I was on set, but thank God Stephen was there, because he really knows that world, and obviously knows the film like nobody else, so I was lucky to have that guiding light. You can hear more from Leo in the Red Carpet Q&A. Keep an eye out for our photo gallery of the evening.