Winslet, Affleck glitter at film festival

2:24pm Thursday 12th October 2006

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HEATHROW'S Terminal 4 and Holloway Prison are among 50 venues where the London Film Festival will hold the world's biggest surprise screening.

To mark its 50th anniversary, the festival will simultaneously unveil up to 10 secret films at locations in all 32 London boroughs.

Organisers have already contacted Guinness World Records to register their record attempt on Sunday 29 October at 8.30pm.

Most of the venues are traditional theatres, from the Barbican to Brixton's Ritzy, where viewers have to book £5 tickets in advance.

But passengers with valid boarding passes at Heathrow's Terminal 4 will be able to watch the suprise film for free.

Patients at St Thomas' Hospital in Lambeth and prisoners at Holloway will also get a free show, which will be closed to the public.

The record bid was inspired by the festival's annual Surprise Film Gala, usually one of the first shows to sell out.

This year's film festival, which starts on Wednesday, will be attended by stars including Dustin Hoffman, Kate Winslet, Ben Affleck and Jude Law.

In the space of 16 days, 181 feature films and 131 shorts from over 50 countries will be shown.

Kate Winslet will introduce Little Children along with director Todd Field. In the gala film, the British actress put in an impressive performance as a stifled Boston supermum who starts an affair with the local designer dad.

Ben Affleck will attend the British premiere of Hollywoodland, in which he plays a murdered actor whose death sparks an expose of Tinsel Town sleaze.

Director Emilio Estevez will present Bobby, his account of the assassination of Robert F Kennedy, along with cast members Martin Sheen and Christian Slater.

Actors Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson and Will Ferrell will be at the European premiere of Stranger than Fiction, the story of a taxman who starts hearing the voice of a writer narrating his life.

Jude Law will join co-star Robin Wright Penn and director Anthony Minghella for Breaking and Entering, an interwoven set of tales about emotional and criminal theft in London.

Peter O'Toole will appear at the gala of Venus, in which the elderly screen legend sparkle as a veteran actor showing London's sites to his best friend's young niece - not with entirely pure motives.

Tim Burton, whose iconic animation film The Nightmare Before Christmas - 3D will lead the family film line-up, will be a guest on one of the onstage interviews.

Paul Verhoeven, director of Basic Instinct, Total Recall and now Black Book, will lead a master class.

The film festival will open next Wednesday on Leicester Square with The Last King of Scotland, the story of a young Scottish doctor (James McAvoy) who becomes the confidante of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker). Director Kevin Macdonald will attend the gala, along with the two leading men.

It all ends on 2 November with Babel, four interwoven tales of prejudice. Director Gonzalez Inarritu, the director, and actors Gael Garca Bernal and Rinko Kikuchi will be at the closing gala.

• Also read our full festival preview, Dictators and drag queens at 50th London Film Festival.