LIFF 2011: Day 14 Video Highlights From BFI 55Th London Film Film Festival

The days are counting down to the final days of The 55th BFI London Film Festival and we look back at day befores best highlights with BFI’s daily video package Vodcast. On Day 14 of the Festival featured the UK premiere of Roland Emmerich‘s Anonymous, attended by Rhys Ifans and Joely Richardson.

Set in the political snake-pit of Elizabethan England, Anonymous speculates on an issue that has for centuries intrigued academics and brilliant minds ranging from Mark Twain and Charles Dickens to Henry James and Sigmund Freud, namely: who was the author of the plays credited to William Shakespeare? Experts have debated, books have been written, and scholars have devoted their lives to protecting or debunking theories surrounding the authorship of the most renowned works in English literature. Anonymous poses one possible answer, focusing on a time when cloak-and-dagger political intrigue, illicit romances in the Royal Court, and the schemes of greedy nobles hungry for the power of the throne were exposed in the most unlikely of places: the London stage.

The Awakening, starring Rebecca Hall, had it European premiere, and finally Marc Evans’ Hunky Dory, starring Minnie Driver, had its world premiere screening.