Le projet 'The Promised Land'

Michael Winterbottom has revealed that The Promised Land is still on hold.

Colin Firth, Jim Sturgess and Matthew Macfadyen were expected to star in the political thriller, based on two British police officers hunting Zionist militant Avraham Stern and set in 1930s Palestine.

Michael admitted: "Not much is happening unfortunately. It's been knocking around for a few years. I would love to make The Promised Land.

"This is a story set in 1930s Palestine and I think it's a great story, it's a true story. But unfortunately I can't persuade anyone else that it is."

"The Gatekeepers"
Synopsis: Documentary examining the history of Israel's Shin Bet security service through interviews with the six men who've led it.
What You Need To Know: One of the last taboos in Hollywood is the Israel/Palestine issue, which is almost never dealt with on screen -- Michael Winterbottom came close with "The Promised Land" a few years ago, but even the presence of Colin Firth couldn't get it financed. But documentaries are a little more palatable, not least if they're as powerful and revelatory as Dror Moreh's "The Gatekeepers." Made up principally of interviews with the six surviving heads of the Shin Bet security service, it's an even-handed look at a powder-keg subject, which, as Nikola Grozdanovic said when he reviewed the film for us at TIFF, "is unprecedented stuff." While it details "a select few of the most controversial incidents," the focus is on the men themselves, and "watching and listening to these men... is nothing short of engrossing." If anything, the film could have served to be a little longer, and perhaps over-relies on digital sequences, but it's still an impressive and potentially hugely important film, one which has already been rewarded by an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature.
When? Out today in limited release.

Les confessions de six anciens chefs du Shin Beth, le Service de la sécurité intérieure d’Israël. Un film nominé aux Oscars, qui éclaire trente ans [depuis la guerre des Six Jours en 1967] de lutte antiterroriste et d’errements face à la question palestinienne.

Luce a écrit:Updates On Michael Winterbottom Projects ‘The Promised Land (The Playlist, 25 octobre 2011).

So we kind of put it to one side. but it’s definitely something we’d like to revisit when we have the chance.”

Rien de neuf et encore confirmé le 25 octobre.

Versatile director Michael Winterbottom is obviously fearless in his filmmaking but the helmer is showing no signs of backing down on the eve of his eyebrowing-raising Sundance entry "The Killer Inside Me" hitting theaters, now taking time to discuss his forthcoming tale of terrorism in British-ruled Palestine, "The Promised Land."

"Right now, we're wanting to do a film set in Palestine in the 1930s about British police chasing Jewish terrorist groups," Winterbottom tells ComingSoon. "There's a guy called Avraham Stern, who was one of the leaders of the Jewish underground from when Britain was controlling Palestine, so it's set in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and it's about police trying to capture Stern and Stern trying to kill the police. It's based on a true story."

A charismatic poet and successful academic, Stern founded and led a Zionist organization responsible for numerous terrorist activities in the '30s and '40s which aimed to evict British authorities, allow the unrestricted immigration of Jews and the formation of a Jewish state. At one stage, Stern even reached out to the Nazis, offering to assist the "transfer" of Jewish people out of Europe and to help fight their common enemy, the British, in World War II, in return for help against the British in Palestine — he never heard back from Berlin despite support from some lower German officials.

It's a fascinating story and should serve as great source material for Winterbottom — we particularly can't wait to see how the director tackles Stern and the British rule of Palestine. While early reports had wrongly pegged Colin Firth for the role of Stern (which would be some damn inspired casting) Winterbottom confirmed it was an error when he detailed the project development. "We've been working on the story ... for a couple years, so last year, we went out to look at locations and we've cast the English police parts, that's Jim Sturgess, Matthew MacFadyen and Colin Firth, so they're the three main English guys, but we haven't cast the Jewish parts yet."

"We did quite a lot of research, it's based on two policemen called Wilkin (Sturgess) and Morton (MacFadyen), real policemen, so we just did our own research on that, and as I say, they're chasing this guy called Stern who is one of the leaders of the underground."

***Warning: the rest of this article contains more details of the true story behind "The Promised Land" which may be considered spoilers.***

"They ended up catching Stern and killing him, and then two years later, one of the policemen was assassinated, so weirdly, we have at the end of the film, we have an interview, which we've already done with one of the people who assassinated Wilkin, who is still alive, two of them in fact, so we have them talking about how they assassinated Wilkin already, so it's a great story."

The ending sounds somewhat reminiscent of that in Andrew Dominik's modern masterpiece 'The Assassination Of Jesse James' and, with the addition of interviews with the final assassins, it should make for insightful and compelling viewing. Further, it'll be interesting to see what is asked of the assassins as their concluding words could have a lot to say about the film and where Winterbottom is coming from with regards to the story of Stern and the British authorities (represented by policemen played by Sturgess and Macfadyen) that plays out onscreen for the 100 or so minutes beforehand.

Shooting on "The Promised Land" is slated to begin this fall on location in Palestine.