Jude Law launches London Film Festival

Jude Law was out on the red carpet on Wednesday for the first night gala of this year's London Film Festival.

The British actor said he was "very proud" to be part of the cast of 360, the globetrotting romantic drama chosen to launch the 2011 event.

He was joined by some of the film's international stars including Lucia Siposova and Moritz Bleibtreu.

Brazil's Fernando Meirelles directed 360, which also stars Sir Anthony Hopkins and rapper Eminem.

The Sherlock Holmes actor said: "It's a great honour. I've lived in London all my life and I've been coming to the Festival for many years."

Loosely based on Arthur Schnitzler's play La Ronde, 360 features a daisy chain of interlinked love stories that spans from Paris and Vienna to Denver and Phoenix.

Reluctant cameo

Law and Rachel Weisz appear as a couple whose marriage is in trouble.

Peter Morgan, who wrote the screenplays for The Queen and Frost/Nixon, penned the script and also made a reluctant cameo.

He said he did his best to get himself cut out of the film.

"That was horrible. I won't be doing that again. That was a cost-saving exercise. Every actor we could, we saved.

"I would only do it to save cost. I wouldn't do it because a) I don't think I'm any good and b) because you spend all day sitting around on set.

Law (l) and Rachel Weisz play husband and wife in Fernando Meirelles' film

"It's interminable. I don't know how they do it actually. Nothing made me want to write more than acting for a day."

Speaking to the BBC last month, Morgan said the film had entailed "more air miles than a Bond movie".

"360 is very much a film about the domino effect of people being interconnected," he told BBC News.

"I wrote it very much hoping to find a metaphor for the way we live now."

The British writer said his new film had been influenced by recent events including the Arab Spring and the global banking crisis.

"When I was writing it I was so taken back that financial irresponsibility in Iceland could cause havoc as far afield as Greece and America," he said.

"Much of 360 reflects the way I and I think a lot of people live," added the 48-year-old, who has been nominated for an Oscar twice.

"We take moving between cultures and continents so much for granted. In that sense, I think it's a very modern and timely film."

Ahead of Wednesday's gala screening, Meirelles said the "beauty" of making 360 had been assembling its cast, which includes actors from Russia, Slovakia and Brazil.

"I'm very proud to present such talented people to an international audience," said the director, best known for such films as City of God and The Constant Gardener.

George Clooney is expected next week at screenings of two new films, political thriller The Ides of March and family comedy The Descendants.

Madonna will present W.E. - her second film as a director - at the festival, while Knightley will grace the UK premiere of her latest project, A Dangerous Method.