Danny Boyle, who reinvented British film with Trainspotting, turned his account of a Fleet Street takeover into the Mayor of London's Gala at the 2026 BFI Festival.
Danny Boyle, who staged the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in Stratford, brought Ink to the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank on Monday 12 October 2026. The film had its UK premiere as the Mayor of London’s Gala.
Boyle was born in Lancashire in 1956 and came to film from the theatre. He made Shallow Grave in 1994, which won the BAFTA for Best British Film, and Trainspotting two years later.
Slumdog Millionaire won him the Academy Award and the BAFTA for direction in 2008. He also holds a Golden Globe and an Emmy, and in the 2020s he returned to horror with 28 Years Later.
Ink is his account of Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of a London newspaper in 1969, and of Larry Lamb, the editor Murdoch hired to remake it. James Graham adapted his own stage play for the screen.
The premiere opened the evening, and a repeat showing followed in the same hall the next morning. Boyle also appeared in conversation during the Festival, and STUDIOCANAL releases the film in Britain after it closes.
Guy Pearce and Jack O’Connell play the two men, with Claire Foy alongside them.