The BFI has picked Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie to open the 2012 London Film Festival.

The screening, at the Odeon Leicester Square on 10th October this year, will be the European premiere of the film – and in a first for the festival, it will be shown simultaneously on thirty other screens across the UK, including the BFI Imax.

The festival will host a free exhibition showing off The Art of Frankenweenie to coincide with the last four days of the event.

The London-based director will is expected to attend the screening with some of the voice talent from the film, including Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Landau and Winona Ryder, whose roles in two of Burton’s earliest films, Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, helped to launch her career.

With Frankenweenie, Burton returns to stop-motion animation and mixes new and old, being in 3D and black and white, to tell the story of a young boy who experiments to bring his beloved dead dog back to life.

The BFI’s Head of Exhibition, Clare Stewart, says the film is funny, dark, whimsical and gloriously crafted. “Frankenweenie is a perfect choice of opener – it’s a film that revels in the magic of movies from one of cinema’s great visionaries,” she explains.

Allison Abbate, who produced the film, said having lived and worked in the UK for several years and attended the London Film Festival as both a filmmaker and a guest, she was thrilled to share the film’s European premiere with its passionate and enthusiastic audiences.

The full programme for the festival will be revealed next month.