After premiering two films at Sundance (The Killer Inside Me, The Shock Doctrine), Michael Winterbottom is right back to working on his latest project, The Promised Land, and has just added some notable names to his cast.
Oscar-nominated actors Colin Firth and Matthew MacFadyen have now been recruited for this Palestine-set political crime thriller. The film also stars Jim Sturgess, who plays Tom Wilkin, one of two British officers (the other played by MacFadyen) who are trying to track down Jewish militant groups who are responsible for terror attacks against British soldiers and Arabs, all in the lead up to the partition of Palestine in 1948. Firth will play a poet named Avraham Stern, who is the leader of an extreme right-wing Jewish group.
The film is being produced by Andrew Eaton of Revolution Films, and is being represented by Fortissimo Films at the European Film Market that is running alongside the Berlin International Film Festival in Germany. Michael Werner of Fortissimo described the project as, “one of the most gripping and powerful scripts I have read in a long time.”
The film is scheduled to begin this summer, with a release in 2011.
Michael Winterbottom at the Sundance Film Festival, 2010
What do you think of these new cast additions?