Trainspotting director's new film to close London festival

The new film from the director of Trainspotting, Shallow Grave and 28 Days Later is to close the 52nd London Film Festival.

Slumdog Millionaire by Danny Boyle will end the 16-day celebration of cinema in the capital on 30 October.

It is the story of an 18-year-old orphan, Jamal Malik, from the slums of Mumbai who is a question away from winning India's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? The teenager is played by Dev Patel, 18, the Harrow-born star of TV drama Skins, in a script by Simon Beaufoy who wrote The Full Monty.

Boyle, 51, said the film, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, is a classic Dickensian story that would have added pulling power in Britain because of the historic ties with India, he said.

But Boyle admitted he had initially rejected anything based on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and had only taken a look out of respect for Beaufoy. "After 10 pages I was on board," he said.

After spending months in a simulated space for his last film, Sunshine, Boyle said he loved working on the streets of India.

But it had been odd for Patel. "He's a London teenager but he was back in the place his family's from," Boyle said.