Ooh, boy, Michael Winterbottom has a set of cojones on him. The prolific helmer, whose has two films, “The Shock Doctrine” and “The Killer Inside Me” premiering imminently at Sundance, is now set to direct the drama “Promised Land” for his production company Revolution Films. The film will tackle one of the subjects that Western cinema still shies away from – the Israel/Palestine conflict, focusing on a British soldier, set to be played by Jim Sturgess as a British officer trying to track down Jewish militant groups who are responsible for terror attacks against British soldiers and Arabs in the lead up to the partition of Palestine in 1948.
Clearly, the film’s going to be a minefield of controversy, but we’re glad that Winterbottom, a director who never shies away from that, is the one to be tackling it. While his films aren’t always totally successful, they’re never less than interesting, and teaming with Sturgess, one of the more promising young actors on the horizon, is pretty exciting. The film starts shooting this summer, and forms part of a mini-trend – Julian Schnabel is currently filming “Miral,” the biopic of a Palestinian nurse who set up in an orphanage in 1948, while Emir Kusturica is about to tackle the subject matter as well, albeit from a contemporary perspective, with his new film “Cool Water,” and Helen Mirren is attached to star in the late writer Frank Deasy’s script “Gaza.”
Speaking of controversy, the first footage from British comedian Chris Morris’ debut feature “Four Lions,” which premieres at Sundance on Saturday, has appeared over at The Guardian. Morris is known for taboo-busting – a special edition of his fake news show “Brass Eye” which focused on paedophilia is one of the most-complained-about shows in British history (and was, it should be said, totally brilliant), and “Four Lions” looks like no exception, following as it does a group of inept British would-be jihadi terrorists. The clip is genuinely hilarious, more than a little reminiscent of “Life of Brian,” and we can’t wait for the movie. Head over to The Guardian to check it out.