Claire Foy and Andrew Garfield get the giggles as they open the London Film Festival at Breathe gala

Andy Serkis' directorial debut kicked off this year's festival in Leicester Square
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Jennifer Ruby4 October 2017
The Weekender

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Claire Foy and Andrew Garfield launched this year’s London Film Festival with a glitzy gala to celebrate their new film, Breathe.

The British stars seemed to get the giggles as they walked the red carpet at the Odeon Leicester Square on Wednesday night, clearly finding it hard to keep a straight face as they posed for pictures.

They were joined by co-stars Tom Hollander and Hugh Bonneville at the first big event in the capital’s annual festival calendar.

Andy Serkis was on hand to celebrate his directorial debut, which is about the life of paralysed polio sufferer and medical aid developer, Robin Cavindish.

Spotlight: Claire Foy steals the show onthe red carpet (TOLGA AKMEN/AFP/Getty Images)
Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

Despite being known for his performance capture technology roles in The Lord of the Rings and the Planet of the Apes franchises, Serkis recently told the Standard that he was happy to go in a different direction for Breathe.

“It’s an amazing triumph of the human spirit over adversity story, a love story, which centres around a character who pioneers living outside of the hospital system with a massive Polio disability,” he sais.

Having a laugh: The cast joke around ahead of the screening
Dave J Hogan/Dave J Hogan/Getty Images

“It’s a true story and it’s very personal to me because it’s actually based on my business partner’s parents’ story.

“It’s produced by our company the Imaginariam – it’s a slightly different direction but it’s just really our ethos is performance capture driven films and great story-telling but also just great story-telling. It’s very exciting,” he said.

The LFF launch night was also drew a group of protesters, who were trying to raise awareness of the low pay for cinema workers in London.

Speaking about it earlier in the day, Garfield said: “It's awful. It’s indicative of every aspect of our culture now, this massive social divide.

"Hopefully we can make socially conscious films and have change on the ground simultaneously, that's the ideal.”

Breathe is in cinemas nationwide on October 13.

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