The summer is slowly coming to a close and football, very sadly, isn’t coming home – yet. But while there are still many sunshine treats on the horizon for us in the UK, including Mission: Impossible – Fallout and Ant-Man & The Wasp, focus will soon switch to awards season which begins in earnest in August and September with both the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals.

In October, our own film festival returns with the 62nd BFI London Film Festival due to start and today the opening film has been announced – and it’s a cracker. The American Express Opening Gala sees Oscar Winner Steve McQueen return with his latest film, Widows. The premiere will take place in London’s Leicester Square on Wednesday, October 10th.

Co-written by McQueen and best-selling novelist and screenwriter Gillian Flynn and starring Academy Award®- winner Viola Davis, WIDOWS is a complex thriller about a group of women with nothing in common except a debt left behind by their dead husbands’ criminal activities. A star-studded ensemble cast includes Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Daniel Kaluuya and Jacki Weaver with Robert Duvall and Liam Neeson.

BFI Fellow, WIDOWS Director and Co-Writer Steve McQueen comments:

“I am absolutely delighted that WIDOWS will be opening this year’s BFI London Film Festival. Watching the UK TV version of Lynda La Plante’s original thriller as a teenager in the 80s had a major impact on me and so it feels very special to be sharing this film with a UK audience.”

BFI London Film Festival Artistic Director, Tricia Tuttle says:

“We treasure the work of BFI Fellow and Festival alumni Steve McQueen, so it’s an utter pleasure to open our
Festival with the International Premiere of WIDOWS. Adapted from a ground-breaking UK television classic into a feature to savour on the biggest cinema screens, this is scintillatingly rich storytelling from a magnificent filmmaker, probing issues around race, class and gender, while always delivering immense style and crackingly sharp thrills.”

The 62nd BFI London Film Festival runs from October 10th until October 21st, with the full programme announced on Thursday 30 August 2018.

Widows opens in UK cinemas on November 9th.