The 55th BFI London Film Festival Starts Today! Or, More Realistically, Tomorrow

It's October 12th, and according to the BFI that means it must be the first day of the London Film Festival. Of course what it actually means is that it's only the first day of the London Film Festival if you're going to the Opening Gala screening of 360 tonight, because that's the only thing showing today, and chances are you're not. I'm not either so don't be sad.

Tomorrow at 11am though, French pregnancyfest 17 Girls will become the first of over 300 films to screen for normal people at this year's event, and for the next two weeks London's Southbank and Leicester Square will be full of pasty cinema-dwellers snarfing the BFI Benugo bar's famous pints of sausage rolls and clogging up the tourist routes with beards and notebooks.

This year's press screenings have been in full swing for a couple of weeks now and so far I've managed to catch considerably fewer than the 55 I recommended, but enough to know that recommending 55 films I haven't seen isn't necessarily a great idea.

Let The Bullets Fly

Nevertheless, I'll be reporting my findings in a haphazard and rambling fashion throughout the festival until I run out of words or readers, whichever comes first.

In the meantime, take my advice for once and camp out overnight for standby tickets for The Artist. You'll be glad you did, unless you don't get tickets or get hypothermia or get mugged. But that won't be my fault.