If there is one film that fills me with more emotions that I can neither understand or bear it is Bill Forsyth's 1983 Scottish comedy Local Hero. It is a film that makes you laugh yet has a melancholic tone that always seems one step away from breaking your heart. It was named #37 on the list of BFI Top 100 British Films by the British Film Institute.

London is usually known in the film industry as the Hollywood capital of Europe as all the big studios have their European headquarters here. Our multiplexes are full of American movies and we generally hold the European premieres of big blockbusters in London (and there's normally a lot of media coverage about them!). But for two weeks, we're kicking back at our commercial reputation by hosting a celebration of non-formulaic movies and that, in my eyes, is worth celebrating. Most importantly, it's a film festival aimed at the public so even you can get tickets.

The actress playing Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch has revealed her startling weight loss for the role. Antonia Campbell-Hughes appeare...

So many funny women on our TV screens these days, it's easy to take for granted that, only a generation or so ago, these same female humour merchants ...

Why is it that all this Union Jack-waving during the Queen's Diamond Jubilee doesn't mean squat at the British cinema box office?

April 2012 marks the centenary of a disaster that still haunts us. Shortly before midnight on 14 April 1912, the maiden voyage of the White Star Line's beacon of luxury and progress, RMS Titanic, ended in tragedy when she struck an iceberg and sank with the loss of 1,517 lives.

I appreciate the Church of England from which so many churches around the globe were birthed. But I long for it to express its full and unequivocal acceptance of women, and to find its way toward embracing and celebrating the gay men, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender people.

We Have a Pope is a film that has allowed me to reconnect to the genius of Nanni Moretti, one of a handful of filmmakers from my birth country who are carrying on the legacy of our great Italian masters with a vision all his own, told in a rhythm all his own.

PRESS ASSOCIATION -- Rachel Weisz is set to be the star attraction at the BFI London Film Festival - with her movies opening and closing the event. ...