The 60th London film festival hosts red carpet full of Oscar hopefuls

Oscar hopefuls La La Land, The Birth of a Nation and Snowden are among the films to be screened during the 60th BFI London film festival.

Actors including Nicole Kidman, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Lupita Nyong’o will arrive next month for premieres of their films, as well as directors Oliver Stone, Tom Ford and Ben Wheatley.

The festival will open with A United Kingdom, British director Amma Asante’s film about the real-life love story between the King of Bechuanaland (now Botswana) and a London office worker in 1948, starring David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike.

It will close with Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire, starring Oscar winner Brie Larson in a film about an arms deal that goes wrong.

Director Nate Parker will bring The Birth of a Nation, an account of the life of Nat Turner, a slave who led a revolt in Virginia in 1831. Parker plays Turner, as well as serving as director, writer and producer, and the film has already generated Oscar buzz after a world premiere at the Sundance film festival in January.

La La Land, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in a love letter to the golden era of Hollywood musicals, is director Damien Chazelle’s follow-up to Whiplash.

Stone will return to London with his film about Edward Snowden, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the title role. Kidman stars opposite Dev Patel, previously seen in Slumdog Millionaire, in Lion, which is adapted from Saroo Brierley’s memoir A Long Way Home, while Adams and Renner star in a science fiction movie, Arrival, directed by Denis Villeneuve.

Adams also stars in a Tom Ford film, Nocturnal Animals, featuring Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon and Isla Fisher. Nyong’o hopes to follow up her Oscar-winning success in 12 Years A Slave, by playing opposite Oyelowo in Queen Of Katwe, based on the true story of a Ugandan chess champion.

Steve McQueen, the British director famous for 12 Years a Slave and Shame and Hunger, will be given the BFI fellowship – the highest award of the institute’s governors. The BFI has also announced Black Star, a season of film, TV and special events celebrating the achievements of black actors.

Other films receiving gala premieres include Manchester by the Sea, starring Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams, A Monster Calls starring Sigourney Weaver and Felicity Jones, and Their Finest, with Gemma Arterton and Sam Claflin. American Honey, starring Shia LaBeouf and Riley Keough, along with Ava DuVernay’s documentary The 13th – which examines the history of racial inequality in the US, will be the special presentations.