- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 1 2007 17.04 BST
Opening salvo ... David Cronenberg. Photograph: AP
The David Cronenberg thriller Eastern Promises will open the 51st annual London film festival, organisers said yesterday.
The film stars Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts and Vincent Cassel, and is set in London's crime underworld. Mortensen, who reunites with the director of A History of Violence on the project, plays the ruthless Russian gangster Nickolai Luzhin. Watts stars as innocent midwife Anna Khitrova, who accidentally uncovers a damaging secret about Luzhin's "family", setting off a murderous chain of events.
Cronenberg said: "I can't wait to be there. Eastern Promises is the first film I've ever shot entirely away from my home in Canada, and it makes perfect sense that it is set in London, home of so many of my most potent film influences."
Festival director Sandra Hebron said: "It's hugely exciting that a director who has consistently thrilled and challenged us throughout his career has made a film in our city. This gripping, powerfully directed and acted story of lives colliding in contemporary London is the perfect opener."
The movie is Cronenberg's first since 2005's Violence. It's written by Steven Knight of Dirty Pretty Things fame and will hit cinemas here in the autumn. Mortensen is currently filming the Nazi drama Good, which is due out in 2008.
Eastern Promises will screen on October 17, kicking off the festival, which will run until November 1. The full line-up will be announced on September 13.
