Public interviews: As part of Queen's Film Theatre's 30th anniversary celebrations, the festival's film programme kicks off with public interviews with two film-makers whose work has long been associated with QFT, where festival films will be shown. Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of The Last Emperor, will present his first film as a director, All the Little Animals, featuring John Hurt and Christian Bale on November 12th.
On the following day Nicolas Roeg will discuss his career as a director - which has included such highpoints as Don't Look Now and Bad Timing - and there will be a rare screening of his 1995 short film, Hotel Paradise.
Northern films:
The festival will screen five recent feature films from Northern Ireland, including two scripted by Colin Bateman, Crossmaheart (Nov 14th) and Divorcing Jack (Nov 20th), along with Colm Villa's futuristic thriller, Sunset Heights (Nov 16th), the Robert Louis Stevenson adaptation, All For Love (Nov 18th), and the 1972-set Belfast picture, Titanic Town (daily from Nov 13th to 29th) with Julie Walters. In addition, there will be two programmes of Northern Ireland short films on Nov 22nd and 27th.
International:
New international cinema in Belfast includes the Australian comedy, The Craic, starring the Portstewart-born comic, Jimeoin (Nov 22nd to 26th); Takeshi Kitano's brooding and powerful Japanese drama, Hana-Bi (Nov 15th to 17th); the award-winning Brazilian film, Central Station (Nov 19th), directed by Walter Salles; John Maybury's Love Is the Devil, featuring a remarkable performance by Derek Jacobi as Francis Bacon (Nov 27th to 29th); and from the US, Whit Stillman's evocative Last Days of Disco (Nov 27th to 29th).
Closing film: The festival's closing film on Nov 28th is Julian Temple's Vigo: Passion For Life, featuring James Frain as Jean Vigo, the brilliant young French film-maker who died of tuberculosis in 1934, at the age of 29.
