The curse has lifted on Terry Gilliams’ The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. The director has been trying to make the film for decades, enduring one legendary catastrophe after another. But last year he assembled an all-new cast and things went well with filming actually being completed. Now the film is making the rounds for buyers at the European Film Market, and we have the first official photo.
The image features frequent Gilliam collaborator Jonathan Pryce as Don Quixote, with Adam Driver by his side as Toby. The rest of the cast includes Stellan Skarsgard, Olga Kurylenko, and Joana Ribeiro. Here’s the official synopsis:
Once upon a time, Toby was an idealistic young film student. His great achievement, a lyrical re-working of the Don Quixote story set in a quaint old Spanish village. But that was then; these days he is a jaded, arrogant and over-sexed commercials director. Money and glamour have derailed him, and now he juggles his boss’s wife Jacqui, a biblical storm and his own ego as he tries to complete a new commercial shoot in Spain. Until a mysterious Gypsy approaches him with an ancient copy of Toby’s student film: Toby is moved and sets off to find the little village where he made his primary opus all those years ago. To Toby’s horror, his little film has had a terrible effect on the sleepy village; Angelica, the young girl who was innocence personified, now works as a high class call-girl, and the old man who played Quixote has now gone completely mad, believing he really is the ‘Knight of the Mournful Countenance’. A series of accidents leads to a fire that threatens to destroy the village. The police come for Toby, but he is ‘rescued’ by the deluded old man, who, mistaking him for his loyal squire Sancho, leads Toby away into the countryside on the quest for his perfect lady, Dulcinea. On their quest, Toby comes face to face with demons, both real and imagined, modern and medieval. Damsels are rescued, jousts are fought, giants are slain and women have beards! Reality and fantasy blur on this bizarre road trip which leads to a phantasmagorical finale.
Amazon Studios has yet to give the film a release date, but I expect it will hit a festival or two first, anyway.
around european film market i’ve got the first official picture from terry gilliam’s quixote with adam driver and jonathan pryce #themanwhokilleddonquixote #Berlinale #TerryGilliam pic.twitter.com/5IOmapTqSc— Andrea Corsini (@andreamtcorsini) February 21, 2018
