The first trailer for Benedict Cumberbatch’s The Imitation Game has premiered today.
The highly-anticipated drama will debut at the BFI London Film Festival on October 8.
Speaking on the film’s opening, director Morten Tyldum said:
“I am thrilled to be returning to London to share The Imitation Game with the audience of t he BFI London Film Festival.
The experience of directing this film has been so tremendously rewarding, and I am humbled to share Alan Turing’s incredible story on Opening Night.”
In the film, Cumberbatch takes on the role of trail blazing mathematician and scientist Alan Turing, whose code- breaking work at Bletchley Park proved vital to Germany’s defeat in World War II.
Back in 1952, Turing was prosecuted for homosexuality and chose chemical castration as an alternative to a prison sentence. He died two years later in an apparent suicide, and was finally granted a posthumous pardon in 2013.
Keira Knightley, Mark Strong and Matthew Goode also star in the film which opens in theaters in November, in the middle of awards season.
Knightley, who plays Turing’s close friend Joan Clarke, told Digital Spy earlier this month that the film will highlight Turing and Clarke’s “amazing relationship”.
“It was a friendship that they tried to turn into something else, and obviously it was never going to work. It was really interesting to play around with that,” she said.
Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Turing has already drawn praise from Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, who snapped up the drama’s US distribution rights in February.
“Alan Turing is not outwardly very sympathetic. He’s brilliant, but the way that Benedict Cumberbatch played him showed us these guys found the right level of vulnerability, genius and the arrogance of the character, too,” he said.
The Imitation Game hits theaters on November 21.
