The red carpet world premiere will be on September 3 at 4.15pm CET. A photo call and press conference normally occurs in the morning. We will post times for those here when available.
SYNOPSIS
The marriage of Princess Diana and Prince Charles has long since grown cold. Though rumors of affairs and a divorce abound, peace is ordained for the Christmas festivities at the Queen’s Sandringham Estate. There’s eating and drinking, shooting and hunting. Diana knows the game. But this year, things will be a whole lot different. Spencer is an imagining of what might have happened during those few fateful days.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
We all grew up understanding what a fairytale is, but Diana Spencer changed the paradigm, and the idealised icons that pop culture creates, forever. This is the story of a princess who decided not to become a queen but chose to build her identity by herself. It’s an upside-down fairytale. I’ve always been very surprised by her decision and thought it must have been very hard. That is the heart of the movie. I wanted to explore Diana’s process, as she oscillates between doubt and determination, finally making a bid for freedom. It was a decision that would define her legacy: one of honesty and humanity that remains unparalleled.
A lot has been written about Diana; the stories are endless – some can be proven, some cannot. We did extensive research about her, Royal Christmas traditions, and the anecdotes of ghosts at Sandringham House. Yet the Royal family is notoriously discrete. They may appear publicly on some occasions, but at some point, the doors close, and once they are, you don’t know what is happening behind them. That gives a lot to fiction; that was our work. We didn’t aim to make a docudrama, we wanted to create something by taking elements of the real, and then using imagination, to tell the life of a woman with the tools of cinema. That is why cinema is so fantastic: there is always space for imagination.
Building the character of Diana, we didn’t just want to create a replicated image of her but use cinema and its tools to create an internal world that striked the right balance between the mystery and fragility of her character. Everything Diana sees reflects her memories, her fears, and desires, and maybe even her illusions. These elements take something that is happening inside her and show a vulnerability that is very beautiful.
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“Spencer,” Pablo Larraín’s highly anticipated drama starring Kristen Stewart as Lady Diana, will world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival.
Written by “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight, the film centers on a weekend in the early 1990s when Diana decided to separate from Prince Charles amid rumours of affairs. The late princess was spending the Christmas holiday with the royal family at the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, when she decided to leave her marriage to Prince Charles.
Stewart stars in the film opposite “Poldark” star Jack Farthing who plays Prince Charles. The cast also includes BAFTA nominee Timothy Spall (“Mr. Turner”), Academy Award nominee Sally Hawkins (“The Shape of Water”) and Sean Harris (“Mission: Impossible – Fallout”). The film comes out in 2022 to mark the 25th anniversary of Diana’s death.
The Venice Film Festival declined to comment on Monday.
Neon and Topic Studios have jointly acquired the U.S. rights to the movie in June 2020. The film is expected to be an Oscar contender. Larrain’s last film “Jackie” earned Natalie Portman a best actress nomination for playing Jackie Kennedy Onassis in the days after JFK’s assassination. “Spencer” was produced by Juan de Dios Larraín (“Jackie”) for Fabula Films, Jonas Dornbach and Janine Jackowski (“Toni Erdmann”) for Komplizen Film and BAFTA winner and Oscar nominee Paul Webster (“Anna Karenina”) for Shoebox Films.
Source: Variety
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