A trailer for Julian Schnabel’s new film, Miral, surfaced online last week (via Playlist) and appears to be worth watching for around awards time. The Weinstein Company, known for backing Oscar contenders, recently picked up the latest from Schnabel , who directed 2007′s beautiful Diving Bell and the Butterfly, for a December 10, 2010 (limited) release.
Rula Jebreal adapted her own novel about Miral (Slumdog Millionaire actress Freida Pinto), a young resident of a Jerusalem orphanage run by a Palestinian woman named Hind (Hiam Abbass). With the Israeli-Palestine conflict at its core and Schnabel’s visuals, it’s just the sort of picture the Academy recognizes. Take a look at the trailer:
Official synopsis:
The story of four women whose lives intertwine in the starkly human search for justice, hope and reconciliation amid a world overshadowed by conflict, rage and war. The story begins in war-torn Jerusalem in 1948 when Hind Husseini (Abbass) opens an orphanage for refugee children that quickly becomes home to 2000 orphans. One of the children is seventeen year old Miral (Pinto) who arrived at the orphanage 10 years earlier, following her mother’s tragic death. On the cusp of the Intifada resistance, Miral is assigned to teach at a refugee camp where she falls for a fervent political activist, Hani (Omar Metwally) and finds herself in a personal battle that mirrors the greater dilemma around her: to fight like those before her or follow Mama Hind’s defiant belief that education will pave a road to peace.
