CONTROVERSIAL NEW BRITISH FILM RED MERCURY RECEIVES WORLD PREMIERE AT MONTREAL WORLD FILM FESTIVAL 2005


The British film RED MERCURY received its World Premiere at the Montreal World Film Festival on Saturday 27th August, and all three of its public screenings were met with packed houses and standing ovations.

Ostensibly a drama about three British born Muslim fanatics who hold a London restaurant to siege with a lethal bomb, RED MERCURY goes behind the headlines and questions why young second generation Muslim men would be driven to extremism and what would make them want to identity with something as dangerous and destructive as Al Qaeda.

RED MERCURY features a top international cast that includes RON SILVER (Ali, The West Wing) STOCKARD CHANNING (The West Wing, Six Degrees of Separation, Grease), JULIET STEVENSON (Truly Madly Deeply, The Politician's Wife), and PETE POSTLETHWAITE (The Usual Suspects, Romeo & Juliet). The film was written by pioneering screenwriter FARRUKH DHONDY (The Rising, Bandit Queen) and directed by a recipient of BAFTA's Lifetime Achievement Award: ROY BATTERSBY(Cracker, Winter Flight, Mr Love).

As a result of its success in Montreal, four special preview screenings of RED MERCURY to be followed by panel discussions will take place in the United States as part of the LA journalist (USA Today), Harlan Jacobsen's TALK CINEMA programme.

"Each fall and spring Harlan Jacobson's TALK CINEMA offers its subscribers a unique series of quality films. Each series showcases innovative independent and foreign films. Screenings are followed by discussions led by distinguished critics and filmmakers."

The confirmed dates and venues for RED MERCURY are as follows:

(note these dates are now past and were for 2005)

Washington DC	AFI Silver Centre	Sunday 25th September 10am
Purchase, New York	Performing Arts Centre	Tuesday 27th September 7pm
New York City	Lincoln Centre	Date to be confirmed
Los Angeles		Date & Venue to be confirmed

The panel discussions will include the film's writer Farrukh Dhondy, its director Roy Battersby, founder & CEO of Inspired Movies Meenu Bachan and the actors Ron Silver and Stockard Channing.

RED MERCURY is a thought-provoking exploration of the age of anxiety we live in, in the wake of the 9/11 and other recent terrorist attacks. Though conceived and made earlier this year by UK film production company Inspired Movies, the film has become especially relevant given recent events in London.


INSPIRED MOVIES UK is pioneering a new kind of film-making, combining the creativity and discipline of UK independent film-making with the talent for improvisation of Indian film-makers. The independent movie production house launched its UK operation in 2004 and has used its new process to produce four full-length English language feature films.

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