Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland. Photo by Jennifer Cooper. Click for more cast photos.

The 50th BFI London Film Festival kicked off on Wednesday night with the premiere of Kevin Macdonald's urgent, vibrant and impressive The Last King Of Scotland.

Based on the novel by Giles Foden and co-adapted by Peter Morgan (The Queen), The Last King Of Scotland is the fictionalised account of newly qualified Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) who, through a strange quirk of fate, finds himself as the personal physician to Uganda's recently appointed president, General Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker) who wrestles control in a coup just as Garrigan arrives in the African country.

Soon, Amin has elevated the young doctor to be his closest advisor, having him counsel on everything from architectural projects to foreign policy. Flattered by the attention and adulation foisted upon, Garrigan's seduced by Amin's bluster and initially is blind to the horrendous atrocities the general's regime is inflicting on Uganda and its people.

Whitaker's towering performance has justifiably received much in the way of pre-Oscar buzz, and indeed his portrayal of Amin as a comic buffoon, gregarious, charming, enormously hospitable, with a predilection for all things Scottish, including wearing kilts, but also the sadistic, brutal, callous killer, a monster who's infinitely more terrifying than any horror movie villain, is simply tremendous. But McAvoy's performance shouldn't be overlooked. The Scottish actor, who in some shots looks very much like Ewan McGregor's younger brother, more than holds his own against Whitaker's heavyweight and deserves his own place in the award spotlight.

Babel Red Carpet Premiere Brad Pitt at the premiere of Babel at the Toronto Film Festival. Photo by Jennifer Cooper. Check out more cast photos here.

Macdonald, who won the Best Documentary Oscar for One Day In September and whose first fiction feature this is, proves himself a confident, gifted filmmaker and a talent to watch, while the verité style cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle is explosive, colourful, and full of menace.

It was a magnificent and heady way to start this anniversary year and between now November 2 when the 15-day event will close with Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Oscar-favorite Babel, the festival will unspool more that 100 films, including documentaries, treasures from the BFI archives, and shorts.

Among the highlights will be screenings of Paul Verhoeven's controversial WWII saga Black Book, Climates, Nuri Bilge Ceylan's follow up to his Cannes-winning Uzak (Distant), Todd Field's suburban nightmare Little Children, Anthony Mingella's London-set Breaking and Entering, Nanni Moretti's The Caiman, his first feature since 2001's The Son's Room, Neil Armfield's druggy love story Candy starring Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish, and Lars Von Trier's return to comedy with The Boss Of It All.

Heath Ledger in Candy. Photo by Jennifer Cooper. Click for more.

The British contigent this year includes Shane Meadows' eagerly awaited skinhead drama This Is England, Andrea Arnold's Cannes-winner Red Road. and documentary director Nick Broomfield's second fiction film Ghosts, which investigates the tragic circumstances in which 21 Chinese immigrants lost their lives on a British beach while picking cockles in Morecambe Bay.

There will on stage talks by Dustin Hoffman, supporting Marc Forster's Stranger Than Fiction and Tim Burton, whose animated classic The Nightmare Before Christmas has been given the 3D treatment, as well as Paul Verhoeven, Forest Whitaker, Richard Linklater, here with Fast Food Nation, and producer Christine Vachon.