The BFI announces today that Ian McKellen will be spearheading the BFI’s Shakespeare on Film programme from April 2016, full details of which will be announced in January 2016.

The news was released today by the British Council and the GREAT Britain campaign as part of Shakespeare Lives, a global programme celebrating Shakespeare’s work and influence on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of his death in 2016. The programme will run from January to December 2016.

The British Council will be running a global touring programme in association with the BFI, the largest ever organized by the British Council, featuring twenty great interpretations of Shakespeare’s works for the cinema from the BFI National Archive, including Silent Shakespeare, Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet (1948), Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (1968) and Richard Loncraine‎’s Richard III (1995) starring Ian McKellen.

More information about Shakespeare on film can be found at http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/444972/

For more details of today’s announcement visit  http://www.britishcouncil.org/shakespearelives