The London Film Festival has announced its opening film – more than four months before the start of the event.
Suffragette – about women fighting for the vote in the early twentieth century – will receive its European premiere in Leicester Square on 7th October, attended by many of the cast and crew, with simultaneous screenings taking place at a number of other cinemas across the UK.
The film – whose cast includes Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw and Meryl Streep – will be director Sarah Gavron’s third at the London Film Festival.
The festival’s director Clare Stewart said Suffragette was an “urgent and compelling film, made by British women, about British women who changed the course of history.”
In a statement, the film’s producers Faye Ward and Alison Owen said it felt right to present the film at the BFI London Film Festival. “The Suffragettes would have felt very much at home here, surrounded by the engery, determination, hard work and inspiration that goes into both the Festival and the films that screen here.”
Suffragette will go on general release in the UK three weeks later.
The rest of the 2015 London Film Festival programme will be announced in September.