Director: Michael Rowe
Cast: Monica Del Carmen, Gustavo Sanchez Parra, Marco Zapata
Certificate: 18

Laura leads a solitary life. A freelancer in an isolated apartment, she has little to no human connection. She lies to her mother, occasionally sees her estranged brother, and barely goes outside her own four walls. But she has a hobby to fill her spare time: sex. Lots and lots of sex. Dirty, casual, lonely sex. Then she picks up Arturo (Sanchez Parra) at a bar one night, and things get a lot more violent. And by things, of course, I mean sex.

Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender are reuniting in Shame. The pair, who worked together on the incredible IRA prison movie Hunger (go watch it now), are set to do the same for McQueen's second directorial effort.

Shame tells the story of of Brandon, a 30-something who has trouble controlling his love life in New York. But this ain't no Sex and the City: co-written with Brick Lane's Abi Morgan, the aim of the film is to examine the human nature of need, and the way experiences can shape a person's life. Producer Iain Canning gets it, describing McQueen as a director who is "not afraid to turn a mirror on the world".

In short: expect something remarkable from this pair. After all, Hunger went on to nab the Camera d'Or at Canne and Venice's Gucci Prize.

Shame will be touting its business about at Toronto Film Fest this week. It starts shooting in January.

The 54th BFI London Film Festival has officially been launched. And we were there to discover the line-up/annoy people by tweeting/eat free food. The good news is that the programme is pretty exciting, with Black Swan, The American and Let Me In leading the way alongside opener Never Let Me Go and closer 127 Hours. The bad news? There were no croissants left.

With 197 feature films scheduled over the festival's two weeks, the 2010 LFF will see stuff shipped in from 67 countries (including the USSR, the official place of production for the archive showing of the brilliant Man with a Movie Camera).

The highlights for homegrown talent include the return of Ken Loach with Route Irish and Mike Leigh with the acclaimed Another Year, but also Tom Hooper's The King's Speech (starring Colin Firth), Peter Mullan's intriguing Neds, and the debut of Andy DeEmmony, whose West Is West follows up East Is East.

Subtitled quality comes in the shape of Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins, the mental Jan Svankmajer's surreal Surviving Life, and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Biutiful. There's also a chance to see the controversial Palme d'Or winner, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

Other notable inclusions include The Kids Are All Right and Richard Ayoade's directorial debut Submarine. Meanwhile, the clearly insane Kaboom from Gregg Araki will vary things up a bit, as will Will Ferrell's dramatic turn in Everything Must Go.

But most exciting of all are Anton Corbijn's George Clooney thriller The American, Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan and Matt Reeve's remake of Let the Right One In - on the big screen, the footage for that really does look impressive.

The London Film Festival runs from Wednesday 13th to Thursday 28th October. The full programme is on the festival's official site - check it out and share your excitement. Then come back and enjoy our non-stop coverage when the whole thing kicks off.

For now, here's a picture of the sexy free bag handed out at the launch. It had free chocolate in it, which was great. But it would have been better if it contained a croissant... 

After a good reception at Cannes, we've now got our first look at the trailer for Gareth Edwards' sci-fi flick, Monsters. The British director's creature feature sees a NASA probe crash landing in Mexico, six years after being sent out to collect samples of alien life. Obviously bad things happen.

Quarantining off Central America as "Infected", Gareth takes a leaf from District 9 in the setup, but quickly populates it with his own military, an American tourist and a journalist, who agrees to escort the journo through the danger zone to the safety of the US border. 

There's no sight of the monsters in the teaser, but we do get the next best thing: lots of squidgy sound effects, which leave a decent amount to our own spooky imagination.

Monsters is released in the UK on Friday 12th November. Check out the trailer over here in the videos section, or read on for the full video. Or go find some Lasagne and make your monster noises.

The Cannes jury for 2010 will be headed by the man whose head wears hair like this. Tim Burton, gothic maestro and all-round weirdo, has been selected to lead the Cannes judging panel for the festival next May. So will we get more twisted titles taking home the Palme d'Or? Or will Tim show his milder side as an all-round cinema lover? This is what the director had to say:

"After spending my early life watching triple features and 48-hour horror movie marathons, I'm finally ready for this. When you think of Cannes, you think of world cinema. And, as films have always been like dreams to me, this is a dream come true."

A conclusive answer, there, from the man with the glasses. I don't know about you, but I'm excited.

Director: Jacques Audiard
Cast: Tahar Rahim, Neils Arestrup
Certificate: 18
Trailer

There's nothing like a violent French film. Especially when it comes to crime. Proving that resoundingly well is Jacques Audiard's latest film, A Prophet (Un Prophete), a hard-hitting piece of captivating cinema. Following the rise behind bars of North African teen Malik (Rahim), it's one of the most claustrophic character studies of recent years. Forget Mesrine's Killer Instinct: this guy's clever, resilient and he can see the future. That last bit is where it starts to fall apart.

Director: Michael Haneke
Cast: Christian Friedel, Rainer Bock, Ulrich Tukur, Marisa Growaldt
Certificate: 15

A small protestant village, one that serves a Baron, with farming controlled by a devout sense of pietism and education. Everything seems to be in its right place with a well ordained layer of purpose and productivity. The community celebrates with good harvest and chooses the church as its moral compass. Religion and education are the foundations of this world, and all seems well in this black and white vision. At its very opening, though, is a clue to the disorder that will come.

Director: Michael Haneke
Cast: Christian Friedel, Rainer Bock, Ulrich Tukur, Marisa Growaldt
Certificate: 15

A small protestant village, one that serves a Baron, with farming controlled by a devout sense of pietism and education. Everything seems to be in its right place with a well ordained layer of purpose and productivity. The community celebrates with good harvest and chooses the church as its moral compass. Religion and education are the foundations of this world, and all seems well in this black and white vision. At its very opening, though, is a clue to the disorder that will come.