Festivals

Free Fire to close the 2016 BFI London Film Festival

Words by Little White Lies

A woman in a western-style outfit pointing a handgun at the camera.
A woman in a western-style outfit pointing a handgun at the camera.
The writer/director’s Boston shoot ’em up will have its European premiere at the festival’s 60th edition.

We were big fans of Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise, so the announcement that his next film, Free Fire, has been picked to close this year’s BFI London Film Festival on Sunday 16 October feels akin to Christmas being brought forward three months.

Set in Massachusetts in the late ’70s, the film stars Brie Larson as a broker between two rival gangs (fronted by Cillian Murphy and Sharlto Copley respectively) who meet to trade arms in a deserted warehouse only to wind up duking it out when someone pulls the trigger.

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Co-written by Wheatley’s regular collaborate (and wife), Amy Jump, Free Fire looks set to be the British filmmaker’s most mainstream-friendly work to date – though we’re not counting out the possibility of the pair throwing a subversive spanner in the works just yet.

The 60th BFI London Film Festival runs 5-16 October at various venues across the city. For more info visit bfi.org.uk/lff

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