(Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn)
In order to commemorate the 400th year anniversary of William Shakespeare's death, a special public screening of the recent adaptation of the playwright's tragedy Macbeth was held last night at the China Film Archive in Beijing as the opening movie for the British Film section of the ongoing Beijing Int'l Film Festival.
As part of the 2016 Beijing International Film Festival, The British Council and British Film Institute (BFI) jointly present a "UK on screen" program, during which 13 critically acclaimed and commercially successful British films from 2015 will be screened.
The selected movies are so outstanding that they have racked up 20 BAEFA and 13 Academy Awards between them. Highlights included Todd Haynes's intoxicating Carol, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015 and was nominated for nine BAFTA and six Academy Awards.
John Crowley's Brooklyn was a worldwide box office hit grossing $45 million. The film, produced by Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, was awarded the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film and was nominated for three Academy Awards.
Ex Machina, written and directed by Alex Garland, grossed $37 million worldwide and beat fierce competition to win the Academy Award for Visual Effects. Andrew Haigh's compelling drama 45 Years premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2015 where British actors Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay won Silver Bears for their performances, and earlier this year Rampling was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in the film.
Other films screened during the "UK on screen" season are Sunset Song, Listen to Me Marlon, Suffragette, The Program, A Royal Night Out, Just Jim, Man Up, Urban Hymn and The Incident, and all of them were critical hits all over the world.
