Even more great cinema is coming to Dubai for the Dubai International Film Festival! The latest film announcements include Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut Quartet, the anticipated adaptation of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, Bill Murray starring as American President Franklin D Roosevelt in Hyde Park on Hudson, and Wayne Blair's musical drama The Sapphires about a group of Australian Aboriginal singers. We're excited to see how Dustin Hoffman does on the other side of the lens!
Director Paul Thomas Anderson became a big name with There Will Be Blood, and his DIFF film, The Master, is a psychological drama that centres around an aimless WWII veteran who befriends the founder of a new religion. It's already got worldwide buzz and stars Joaquin Phoenix and one of our faves, Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Already generating Oscar buzz is Hyde Park on Hudson which tells the story of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his love affair with his distant cousin, Daisy. The film centres on a weekend in 1939 when the King and Queen of the United Kingdom visited upstate New York.
But we're really looking forward to Dustin Hoffman's directorial foray with Quartet, which is shot in the British countryside and tells the story of a trio of retired opera singers living out their sunset years in an idyllic care home for aging musicians. Plenty of feuds plus Maggie Smith leading the cast! No surprise that she's already generating Oscar buzz.
As for Aussie film The Sapphires, it got a ten minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival. Not too shabby!