“Maybe punk and the romantic Englishman are actually one and the same person”, says Tilda Swinton in the catalogue.
The actress, along with directors Terence Davies and David Hare, musician Michael Nyman, writer Hanif Kureishi and Joanna Hogg (all of whom will be meeting the public), selected the movies for the Focus section which, this year, is dedicated to the United Kingdom.

“Punks & Patriots” is the name of the retrospective that aims to use twelve films to represent the two souls of the United Kingdom: rebel and a patriot.
The “showcase” will feature seven movies: the thriller “Page Eight” by David Hare with Bill Nighy, who starred in the Harry Potter films, “The Deep Blue” by Terence Davies with Rachel Weisz, and “Trishna” by Michael Winterbottom with Freida Pinto.
The young up-and-coming film-makers are Andrei Haigh with “Weekend” (a homosexual love story), and the documentary “The British Guide to Showing Off”, a humoristic look at British pop culture. Two actors will be making their directing debuts: Paddy Considine with “Tyrannosaurus” and Dexter Fletcher with “Wild Bill”.

British creativity will also be visible, during the festival, in the exhibition “Raise the Dead” by Douglas Gordon, the star of video installations, who also made “24 Hour Back and Forth and to and Fro”, dedicated to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”.
Another artist, Simon J. Lycett, who creates floral arrangements for movie sets, as well as the royal wedding of William and Kate, will recreate the Union Jack along the red carpet, mixing urban punk influences and irreverent British humor through the use of metals, fruit and vegetables.