LONDON.- The 61st BFI London Film Festival announced the UK Premiere of Loving Vincent. Broadcast live from the National Gallery on Monday 9th October, audiences in cinemas across the country are invited to experience the film premiere and the following Q&A with special guests.

Loving Vincent is a stunning, fully painted animated feature, starring Douglas Booth and Oscar-nominated Saoirse Ronan and directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman. Loving Vincent explores the life and controversial death of Vincent Van Gogh, told by his paintings and by the characters that inhabit them. The intrigue unfolds through interviews with the characters closest to Vincent and through dramatic reconstructions of the events leading up to his death.

Loving Vincent stars Douglas Booth, Jerome Flynn, Chris O’Dowd, Oscar-nominee Saoirse Ronan, Aiden Turner, Helen McCrory, Eleanor Tomlinson and John Sessions. Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman co-directed the feature with Hugh Welchman also producing alongside Sean Bobbitt for the Oscar-winning BreakThru Films (Peter and the Wolf) and Ivan MacTaggart for Trademark Films (Shakespeare in Love). David Parfitt and Silver Reel’s Claudia Bluemhuber and Ian Hutchinson served as executive producers. The film’s musical score was composed and arranged by Grammy nominated Clint Mansell (Black Swan).

Tricia Tuttle, Deputy Head of Festivals for the London Film Festival, says: “It's a pleasure to be presenting Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman's inventive, visually arresting film as part of the BFI London Film Festival, with the premiere screening broadcast live from the National Gallery to audiences around the UK. Loving Vincent encapsulates the troubling myths surrounding Vincent van Gogh's death so elegantly - an absorbing story about a great artist, delivered through pain-staking, beautifully hand-painted frames in the style of the painter himself.”

Hugh Welchman, co-director of Loving Vincent, says: “The London Film Festival programmes great films, and The National Gallery has one of the great painting collections of the world, so we couldn’t be happier that they have partnered up to do a very special premiere for Loving Vincent.”

The 61st BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express® takes place from Wednesday 4 October-Sunday 15 October 2017. The full Festival programme will be announced on Thursday 31 August 2017. LOVING VINCENT will be released in the UK and Ireland by Altitude Film Distribution on 13 October.