Paolo Sorrentino and Louis Theroux added to Screen Talks and LFF Connects series

Paolo Sorrentino

The 59th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express® is pleased to confirm the full line-up of this year’s Screen Talks and LFF Connects events open to members of the public. Additions include a Screen Talk by Academy Award and BAFTA winning director Paolo Sorrentino, and TV broadcaster Louis Theroux with Academy Award and BAFTA winning documentary producer Simon Chinn, and internationally-renowned games designer Alistair Hope are added to the new series of LFF Connects.

Screen Talks provide audiences unique opportunities to attend career talks with some of the leading figures of contemporary cinema while LFF Connects is a new event series with a focus on film and its intersection with art, performance, music, games and creative technology.

Paolo Sorrentino, the Academy Award and BAFTA winning director of The Great Beauty (2013), will be giving a Screen Talk about his career and his new film Youth – starring Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel and Rachel Weisz – which is presented at this year’s Festival.

Included in the Screen Talks line-up are Geena Davis who will discuss her career as an Academy Award winning actor and producer, and her work to address gender imbalance in the media, and the earlier announced guests with films in the Festival discussing their respective careers, filmmaker Todd Haynes (Carol), actor Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn), casting director Laura Rosenthal (Carol, Youth) and filmmakers Jia Zhangke (Mountains May Depart) and Walter Salles (Jia Zhangke, a Guy from Fenyang).

The newly announced special guests for LFF Connects: TV are broadcaster Louis Theroux with Academy Award and BAFTA winning documentary producer Simon Chinn (Searching for Sugarman, The Green Prince (LFF 2014)). Theroux’s first theatrical feature My Scientology Movie (directed by John Dower), will world premiere at this year’s Festival.

They join the recently added LFF Connects: Games with games designer Alistair Hope, whose work on the chilling survival horror game Alien: Isolation has made him one of the most respected names in the gaming world. Hope joins the line-up for the brand new series of thought-provoking talks exploring how film is engaging with other creative industries. They include: Laurie Anderson for LFF Connects: Performance/Music; Guy Maddin for LFF Connects: Art; and Chris Milk for LFF Connects: Creative Technologies; Christopher Nolan, Tacita Dean Alexander Horwath (Director of the Austrian Film Museum) and BFI Creative Director Heather Stewart for LFF Connects: Film.