The searing drama “Elsinore” starring Olivia Colman and Andrew Scott in a true story about an actor dying with AIDS preparing to play Hamlet opened the London Film Festival Wednesday.
Directed by Simon Stone , it raises the curtain on the 2026 festival which showcases 251 films from 88 countries until October 18. He confides to the play’s director that he has been diagnosed with AIDS and has months to live, as he takes on the role of Shakespeare’s character haunted by his own mortality. “More than once various crew members had to stifle sobs and tears.
Set in the late 1980s as the AIDS epidemic is beginning to ravage London’s gay community, Scott plays actor Ian Charleson, who had been acclaimed for his role in the 1981 Oscar-winning “Chariots of Fire”, as he rehearses for “Hamlet” at London’s National Theatre. Scott’s performance, which has won him critical acclaim and whispers about a possible Oscar nomination, was hailed by Stone as “incredibly moving”. It happened to me a couple of times,” the director told AFP. Other eagerly awaited films at this year’s festival include the biographical dark comedy “Artificial” from Luca Guadagnino, starring Andrew Garfield as the founder of OpenAI Sam Altman, chronicling the days when he was ousted from the company only to return later. The annual event was a chance “to experience worlds outside ourselves,” said festival director Kristy Matheson.
