PRESS RELEASES
Heartland adds “The Queen” to Truly Moving Picture List
September 29, 2006
Miramax film is newest Truly Moving Picture Award recipient
| Indianapolis, IN – According to the Indianapolis-based Heartland Film Festival®, moviegoers should add Miramax’s “The Queen” to their list of must-see fall films. Heartland is honoring the film with its Truly Moving Picture Award. The Award is given exclusively to theatrically-released |  |
films that tell stories of courage, integrity and hope with the goal of inspiring more studio films to focus on the positive. “The Queen” joins an elite and ever-expanding list of films to receive the Award and be deemed a Truly Moving Picture by Heartland. The film opens in New York this weekend and will have a limited U.S. release on October 6. A special sold-out screening of “The Queen” will close the 2006 Heartland Film Festival on Friday, October 27.
“The Queen” joins other 2006 Truly Moving Picture Award recipients “Cars,” “Everyone’s Hero,” “Flicka,” “Glory Road,” “The Lake House,” “Lassie,” “Nanny McPhee,” “Saving Shiloh,” “Sophie Scholl – The Final Days,” “Take the Lead” and “Tsotsi.” Forty-nine (49) films have been honored since the Award’s inception in 2000. To view Heartland’s complete list of Truly Moving PicturesSM, visit www.TrulyMovingPictures.org.
Heartland created the Truly Moving Picture Award as a way to honor theatrically-released films that demonstrate the Heartland purpose with excellence, inspiring and enriching lives. Submissions are received directly from studios and producers for consideration. Since the industry decides a film’s success based on the opening weekend box office, Heartland encourages audiences to attend a Truly Moving Picture on its first weekend.
“The Queen” takes audiences behind the scenes of one of the most shocking public events of recent times – providing an illuminating, acidly funny, yet deeply affecting, dramatic glimpse into what happens in the corridors of power when tragedy strikes. The setting for this fictional account of real events is no less than the private chambers of the Royal Family and the British government in the wake of the sudden death of Princess Diana in August of 1997. In the immediate aftermath of the Princess’s passing, the tightly contained, tradition-bound world of the Queen of England (Helen Mirren) clashes with the slick modernity of the country’s brand new, image-conscious Prime Minister, Tony Blair (Michael Sheen). The result is an intimate, yet thematically epic, battle between private and public, responsibility and emotion, custom and action – as a grieving nation waits to see what its leaders will do.
With a screenplay drawn from extensive interviews, devoted research, discreet sources and informed imagination, as well as tour de force portrayals of living figures of power, “The Queen” provides a stunningly fresh portrait of one of the modern world’s last great monarchs as she has never been seen before–as a vulnerable human being in her darkest hour, amidst the unprecedented media madness, stark emotions and PR maneuvering set in motion by Diana’s death.
Miramax Films, Pathé Productions and Granada present, in association with Pathé Renn Productions and Bim Distribuzione, a Granada Production of a Stephen Frears film, “The Queen.”
The film reunites Director Stephen Frears (“Dirty Pretty Things,” “High Fidelity,” “Dangerous Liasons”) with Screenwriter Peter Morgan (“The Last King of Scotland”). The producers are Andy Harries, Christine Langan and Tracy Seaward; the executive producers are Francois Ivernel, Cameron McCracken and Scott Rudin. The film stars Dame Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Helen McCrory, Alex Jennings, Roger Allam and Sylvia Sims.
Heartland Film Festival, a non-profit organization, was established in 1991 to recognize and honor filmmakers whose work explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life. Each October, Heartland screens Truly Moving Pictures from around the world and presents cash prizes and Crystal Heart Awards to the Festival’s top entries. In 2006, Heartland will increase its total prize money to $200,000. This includes doubling its Grand Prize for Best Dramatic Feature to $100,000 and two new awards: a $25,000 cash prize for Best Documentary Feature and a $10,000 Vision Award for Best Short Film. The $100,000 Grand Prize Award is underwritten by the Max Simon Charitable Foundation and the Vision Award is underwritten by Vision Racing. The remaining $65,000 will be shared among the 2006 Crystal Heart and Jimmy Stewart Memorial Crystal Heart Award winners. Including the 2006 prize money, Heartland will have awarded more than $1.6 million in 15 years to support filmmakers in their quest to create Truly Moving Pictures.
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