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BFI London Film Festival to open with premiere of third Knives Out film

BFI London Film Festival to open with premiere of third Knives Out film

Yahoo09-07-2025
The BFI London Film Festival 2025 will open with the international premiere of the third film in the Knives Out series, it has been announced.
Wake Up Dead Mean: A Knives Out Mystery will see James Bond star Daniel Craig reprise his role as famed private detective Benoit Blanc, who unravels another murder mystery among a new cast of suspects.
The Netflix movie, which also stars Emmy-winning actress Glenn Close, Challengers star Josh O'Connor, and That '70s Show actress Mila Kunis, will headline the festival's opening night gala, taking place at the Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall this autumn.
The other cast members of the star-studded film include Irish actors Andrew Scott and Daryl McCormack and US actors Josh Brolin, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington and Cailee Spaeny.
Director Rian Johnson, said: 'We're honoured to be opening the BFI London Film Festival with Wake Up Dead Man. London is the birthplace of the golden age of detective fiction and it's a thrill to be back!'
Kristy Matheson, BFI London Film Festival director, said: 'At this 69th edition of the BFI London Film Festival we are inviting audiences to get their spyglass at the ready as we get back on the case with another deliciously fun mystery from director Rian Johnson and his all-star cast with Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.
'Led by Daniel Craig and Josh O'Connor, the film features incredible British and international talent on and off screen who bring a sense of play and verve to the screen, to craft a film that twists, turns and will keep audiences guessing to the final frame.
'The third of the brilliant Knives Out films we have presented at the LFF, we are delighted to reunite for our special Opening Night.'
The 69th edition of the festival, which is run by the the UK's lead organisation for film and the moving image – the British Film Institute (BFI), will take place between October 8 and 19 2025.
The second movie in the film series, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, closed the 66th edition of the festival in 2022.
This year's festival will take place across a variety of venues in the capital including BFI Imax, Picturehouse Central, the Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall, Prince Charles Cinema and Vue West End – as well as a number of other partner cinemas.
Wake Up Dead Mean: A Knives Out Mystery will be released to Netflix on December 12 2025.
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Snow White (2025) was banned in Lebanon because it starred Gal Gadot. This wasn't because of her acting – it was because she's Israeli-born and served a mandatory two-year service in the Israel Defense Forces. Lebanon actually has an "Israel Boycott List," which is why a lot of movies starring Israeli-born actors aren't released there. There was also a rumor that Snow White was banned in Kuwait because it featured Gal Gadot, but that was proven false. Queer (2024) was banned in Turkey for its "provocative content." The LGBTQ+ film starred Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey, and it featured brief full-frontal male nudity (which was very hot!!!!!!). The film's director, Luca Guadagnino, addressed the ban, saying, "They banned the movie because they said the movie was creating social disorder. I wonder if they've seen the movie or if they are just judging it by the outline or, let's say, the facetious stupidity of some journalism focusing on James Bond going gay.' Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) was banned in several different towns across the United States because of its "controversial themes about Christianity." This movie was also banned in several countries. For example, Ireland banned it from 1979–1987, and Norway banned it for a full year until 1980. The studio even used these bans as a way to promote the film. In Sweden, they added the tagline "the film so funny that it got banned in Norway." Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) was banned in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon for featuring a single animated frame with a trans flag on it. The trans flag appears VERY briefly in Gwen Stacy's bedroom, and it reads "protect trans kids." Unfortunately, there are extra strict guidelines for films in some countries — especially for movies with kids as the target audience — which need to abide by "local customs and values." Barbie (2023) was banned in Vietnam because there's a scene that features a map with the "nine-dash line" (a controversial divider used by China to represent its territorial claims in the South China Sea) on it. Several countries disagree with China's territorial claims, so this isn't the first time a depiction of the nine-dash line has led to a movie being banned. For example, in 2019, the animated film Abominable was banned in Vietnam, and the Philippines' government also called for a boycott of the film. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) was banned in certain countries all across Europe, including in Finland from 1974–1996, for its graphic violence. The movie was initially released in the UK and ran for a full year in London, but it was then banned for 25 years. The British Board of Film Classification even banned the word "chainsaw" from appearing in movie titles during that time. Tobe Hopper, the movie's director, disagreed with the ban, stating that there's "relatively little blood" in the actual film. He went into detail about one scene in particular, when the character Pam is hanged on a meat hook, saying, "You don't see penetration. You don't see blood splatter. There is the shot when she's holding onto the hook and the camera pans down her body, and she's over this washtub. There's no blood running from her body into the tub, but you know what the tub is for. And a lot of people swear that they saw blood, because they know what it's for. And the washtub comes out again later, so as not to ruin the carpet when they're in the dinner scene." Lightyear (2022) was banned in several OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) member states — including Egypt, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia — because of a brief same-sex kiss between two characters. Disney originally cut the scene entirely because of this backlash, but it was ultimately added back in after a group of Pixar employees spoke out in opposition via an open letter to Disney. Alternate versions of the scene were then released in certain countries, like in Russia where the word "girlfriend" was changed to "partner." Here's a snippet from the open letter to Disney, which you can read in full here: "We at Pixar have personally witnessed beautiful stories, full of diverse characters, come back from Disney corporate reviews shaved down to crumbs of what they once were. Nearly every moment of overtly gay affection is cut at Disney's behest, regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar. Even if creating LGBTQIA+ content was the answer to fixing the discriminatory legislation in the world, we are being barred from creating it." Eternals (2021) was banned in Saudi Arabia and Oman because Marvel's first openly gay superhero, Phastos, had a husband in the movie and shared a kiss with him. It was also banned in Kuwait and Qatar, presumably because those markets have "historically had a problem with the depiction of gods and prophets," i.e. things they consider "blasphemous." Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) was banned all over — like in Kenya, Papua New Guinea, Zimbabwe, and the United Arab Emirates — for featuring strong sexual content. The United Arab Emirates' National Media Council actually proposed that a shortened version of the film could be released, but the studio would have had to cut 35 minutes of "inappropriate scenes" to make it happen, so they instead just pulled the movie entirely. Borat (2006) was banned in Russia — among several other countries — for potentially being offensive to certain peoples' "religious or national sensibilities." Here's the exact reasoning and quote as to why, according to Yuri Vasyuchkov, the head of the film and licensing department for Russia: "We decided not to grant this film a cinema license because there are moments in the film which could offend some viewers' religious or national sensibilities." The Da Vinci Code (2006) was banned in a bunchhh of countries — including Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon — because of "blasphemous content." For example, the movie was banned in Jordan because it "tarnishes the memory of Christian and Islamic figures and contradicts the truth as written in the Bible and the Koran about Jesus." Wonder Woman (2017) was banned in Tunisia because of a Facebook post that its star, Gal Gadot, made in 2014. Her comments defended Israel's war on Gaza in Palestine. The movie was also banned in Lebanon because of their "Anti-Israel Boycott" law, as mentioned earlier in this article. That law is apparently "inconsistently enforced," which is why a few of Gal Gadot's movies have aired there without being banned, like Fast & Furious 6 and Knight and Day. The Human Centipede 2 (2011) was temporarily banned in Australia because of its "level of depictions of violence." Australia has an RC ("refused classification") category for things like movies and video games. Basically, anything with this rating cannot be "sold, hired, advertised, or legally imported in Australia." The Human Centipede 2 originally got an RC rating because it contained "gratuitous, exploitative, or offensive depictions of violence with a very high degree of impact and cruelty." It was later resubmitted for a new rating. Onward (2020) was banned in several countries in the Middle East because the movie depicted Disney's "first" openly gay character. 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