Mar­tin Scorsese’s The Irish­man to close the 63^rd BFI Lon­don Film Festival

The BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val returns this Octo­ber for its 63^rd edi­tion, and the head pro­gram­mers have lined up an absolute doozy for the Clos­ing Night Gala.

Fol­low­ing its world pre­mière at the 57^th New York Film Fes­ti­val, Mar­tin Scorsese’s hot­ly-antic­i­pat­ed mob biopic will receive its inter­na­tion­al pre­mière in the UK cap­i­tal on 13 Octo­ber. Star­ring Robert De Niro, Al Paci­no and Joe Pesci, the film chron­i­cles one of the great unsolved true crime cas­es of the 20^th cen­tu­ry – the sus­pi­cious dis­ap­pear­ance of union chief Jim­my Hof­fa (played by Pacino).

Excit­ing­ly, the direc­tor and cast are all expect­ed to attend the Gala. Here’s what Mar­ty had to say about the announce­ment: ​“I’m extreme­ly hon­oured to be hav­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Pre­mière of The Irish­man at the clos­ing night of the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val. This pic­ture was many years in the mak­ing. It’s a project that Robert De Niro and I start­ed talk­ing about a long time ago, and we want­ed to make it the way it need­ed to be made. It’s also a pic­ture that all of us could only have made at this point in our lives. We’re all very excit­ed to be bring­ing The Irish­man to London.”

Fes­ti­val Direc­tor Tri­cia Tut­tle added: ​“British Film Insti­tute Fel­low Scors­ese is one of the true greats of cin­e­ma – as both a cre­ator and a tire­less cham­pi­on of preser­va­tion and film his­to­ry – and here he and his cre­ative team have deliv­ered an epic of breath­tak­ing­ly auda­cious scale and com­plex­i­ty, explor­ing rela­tion­ships of trust and betray­al, regret and remorse­less­ness, which dom­i­nat­ed a peri­od of Amer­i­can his­to­ry. This is a major occa­sion for film lovers and I can­not wait to share this film with UK audiences.”

The 63^rd BFI LFF runs 2 – 13 Octo­ber, with the full pro­gramme to be announced on 29 August. For more info vis­it what​son​.bfi​.org​.uk/lff