London Film Fest Opens With Law, Weisz in '360'

LONDON (AP) The London Film Festival, an worldwide cinema showcase, opens Wednesday with "360," a fittingly globe-spanning drama that moves from London to Vienna, Rio p Janeiro and Colorado, Colorado.The film by "Town of God" director Fernando Meirelles stars Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law and Rachel Weisz inside a daisy chain of interconnected love tales according to Arthur Schnitzler's century-old play "La Ronde."The 2-week festival features a lot more than 300 features and shorts from 55 nations. It promises something for cinephiles and celebrity-viewers alike including two star turns from George Clooney. He directed and stars in political thriller "The Ides of March" and plays a detached father thrust right into a caring role in Alexander Payne's "The Descendants."Stars expected around the red-colored carpet vary from funnyman Seth Rogen to dramatic giant Michael Fassbender playing both a sex addict in Steve McQueen's "Shame" and Carl Jung in David Cronenberg's psychoanalytic drama "A Harmful Method."Films with literary roots include Rob Fiennes' directorial debut, "Coriolanus," Andrew Arnold's brooding "Wuthering Levels" and "Trishna," and Michael Winterbottom's India-set undertake Thomas Hardy's "Tess from the D'Urbervilles," starring Freida Pinto.Founded in 1957 to exhibit the very best of the year's world cinema to some British audience, the festival has previously couple of years attempted to create a location around the worldwide festival calendar with bigger pictures and much more glittering stars.While the majority of the films have previously made their debuts at Sundance, Cannes, Toronto or Venice, you will find 13 world premieres within the selection, many of them new British features.Highlights include "The Little One Having a Bike," a drama from Belgium's Dardenne siblings Nanni Moretti's Vatican satire "You will find there's Pope" Sundance hit "Martha Marcy May Marlene," starring Elizabeth Olsen like a traumatized cult runaway and French director Michael Hazanavicius' wonderful quiet-film homage "The Artist."Debate might be supplied by "W.E." Madonna's undertake the romance between King Edward VIII and American divorcee Wallis Simpson, significantly criticized at its Venice debut and Roland Emmerich's Shakespeare-bashing "Anonymous," which stars Rhys Ifans because the putative true author from the Bard's plays.On March. 26, the festival will hands out a best-picture prize, from the candidate which includes "The Artist, "The Descendants," Aleksandr Sokurov's Venice Film festival champion "Faust" and Lynne Ramsay's senior high school massacre drama "We have to Discuss Kevin."The festival shuts March. 27 with "Dark Blue Ocean," which stars Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russell Beale stiff upper lips a-quiver in Terence Davies' adaptation of Terrence Rattigan's play in regards to a postwar love triangular.Copyright 2011 Connected Press. All privileges reserved. These components might not be released, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.