Festival to sign off with new Boyle drama

The European premiere of Danny Boyle's new drama SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE will be bringing the film festival to the close, it's been announced.

Adapted for the screen by Oscar®-winning writer Simon Beaufoy (THE FULL MONTY) from Vikas Swarup's best-selling novel Q AND A, it tells the story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who finds himself just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’.

He's arrested on suspicion of cheating, and his incredible story of his life on the streets, and of the girl he loved and lost is recounted to the police. So if he has no interest in money, why is he on the show? And how does he know all the answers? When Jamal returns to answer the final question, the police and sixty million viewers are about to find out...

The film, shot in India, features Dev Patel (SKINS) alongside an all-Indian cast including Anil Kapoor and Madhur Mittal. Danny Boyle will also be giving an interview about his career as part of the Tiscali Screen Talks series.

Says Boyle: "I hope that Londoners will respond to this story about another great megatropolis - Mumbai, 'the Maximum City'."

After it's festival premiere, the film will be distributed in the UK in early 2009.