Graham Chapman was a British actor, comedian and writer. He was one of the six members of the surrealist comedy group Monty Python. He portrayed authority figures such as The Colonel and the lead role in two Python films, Holy Grail (1975) and Life of Brian (1979).
Daniel Francis Boyle is an English director and producer. He is known for his work on films including Shallow Grave (1994), Trainspotting (1996) and its sequel T2 Trainspotting (2017), The Beach (1999), 28 Days Later (2002), Sunshine (2007), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), 127 Hours (2010), Steve Jobs (2015), and Yesterday (2019).
Michael Latham Powell was an English filmmaker, celebrated for his partnership with Emeric Pressburger. Through their production company The Archers, they together wrote, produced and directed a series of classic British films, notably The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Canterbury Tale (1944), I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951).
Colin Andrew Firth is an English actor and producer. Over his career he has been the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2011, Firth was appointed a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for his services to drama. That same year, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and appeared in Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2011.
Simon Phillip Hugh Callow is an English actor. Known as a character actor on stage and screen, he has received numerous accolades including an Olivier Award and Screen Actors Guild Award as well as nominations for two BAFTA Awards. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to acting by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999.
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is an English actor, film producer, and director. He graduated from RADA in 1985. A Shakespeare interpreter, Fiennes excelled onstage at the Royal National Theatre before having further success at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Widely regarded as one of Britain's most well-known and popular actors, he has received various accolades, including a BAFTA Award and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and an Emmy Award.
My Beautiful Laundrette is a 1985 British romantic comedy-drama film directed by Stephen Frears from a screenplay by Hanif Kureishi. The film was one of the first films released by Working Title Films. The film is set in London during the Thatcher years, and reflects the often fraught relationships between members of the Pakistani and English communities at that time, against the backdrop of social changes across the country. The story focuses on Omar, a British man of Pakistani origin, and his reunion and eventual romance with his childhood friend Johnny, now a street punk. The two become the caretakers and business managers of a launderette originally owned by Omar's uncle Nasser.
Mark Kermode is an English film critic, musician, radio presenter, television presenter, author and podcaster. He is the co-presenter, with Ellen E. Jones, of the BBC Radio 4 programme Screenshot and co-presenter of the film-review podcast Kermode & Mayo's Take, alongside long-time collaborator Simon Mayo. Kermode is a regular contributor to The Observer, for which he was chief film critic between September 2013 and September 2023.
Benjamin John Whishaw is an English actor. After winning a British Independent Film Award for his performance in My Brother Tom (2001), he was nominated for an Olivier Award for his portrayal of the title role in a 2004 production of Hamlet. This was followed by television roles in Nathan Barley (2005), Criminal Justice (2008) and The Hour (2011–12) and film roles in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), I'm Not There (2007), Brideshead Revisited (2008), and Bright Star (2009). For Criminal Justice, Whishaw received an International Emmy Award and received his first BAFTA Award nomination.
Hugh Hudson was an English film director. He was among a generation of British directors who would begin their career making documentaries and television commercials before going on to have success in films.
Stephen James Mangan is an English actor, comedian, presenter and writer. He has played Guy Secretan in Green Wing, Dan Moody in I'm Alan Partridge, Seán Lincoln in Episodes, Bigwig in Watership Down, Postman Pat in Postman Pat: The Movie, Richard Pitt in Hang Ups, Andrew in Bliss (2018), and Nathan Stern in The Split (2018–2022).
The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival held in London, England, in collaboration with the British Film Institute. The festival runs for two weeks every October. In 2016, the BFI estimated that around 240 feature films and 150 short films from more than 70 countries are screened at the festival each year.
The Human Stain is a 2003 American drama film directed by Robert Benton. Its screenplay, by Nicholas Meyer, is based on the novel of the same name by Philip Roth. The film stars Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Gary Sinise, and Ed Harris.
A Single Man is a 2009 American period romantic drama film based on the 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood. The directorial debut of fashion designer Tom Ford, the film stars Colin Firth, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of George Falconer, a depressed gay British university professor living in Southern California in 1962.
My Brother the Devil is a 2012 British crime drama film written and directed by Sally El Hosaini. It stars James Floyd, Fady Elsayed and Saïd Taghmaoui. It tells the story of two sons of Egyptian immigrants coming of age in east London. It was released in the UK on 9 November 2012 and debuted in US cinemas on 22 March 2013. It was also released in Canada, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.
Andrew Haigh is an English filmmaker. He is best known for writing and directing the films Weekend (2011), 45 Years (2015), Lean on Pete (2017), and All of Us Strangers (2023). He also wrote and directed the HBO series Looking (2014–2015) and its film sequel Looking: The Movie (2016), as well as the BBC Two limited series The North Water (2021).
The 2012 BFI London Film Festival Awards were held on 20 October 2012 during the BFI London Film Festival, which ran from 10–21 October. It was hosted by Sue Perkins at the Banqueting House in London, England. There were four awards presented, along with the BFI Fellowships that went to Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter.
Ex Machina is a 2014 science fiction thriller film written and directed by Alex Garland in his directorial debut. A co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States, it stars Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, and Oscar Isaac. It follows a programmer who is invited by his CEO to administer the Turing test to an intelligent humanoid robot.
Aligarh is a 2015 Indian Hindi- language biographical drama film directed by Hansal Mehta and written by Apurva Asrani. It stars Manoj Bajpayee and Rajkummar Rao in the lead roles.
Firebird is a 2021 romantic war drama film directed, co-written, and co-produced by Peeter Rebane, based on Sergey Fetisov's memoir The Story of Roman. The film stars Tom Prior, Oleg Zagorodnii, and Diana Pozharskaya. Set in the Soviet Air Force during the Cold War, it tells the true story of forbidden love between a private and a fighter pilot.
