In 1991, a war over a copper mine in the South Pacific tore the island of Bougainville apart. The reclusive “Popeye” (Hugh Laurie) offers the children in 14-year-old Matilda’s tiny village an escape with Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. But on an island at war, fiction can have dangerous consequences. –TIFF
A director born in New Zealand as the child of Methodist missionary parents, Andrew Adamson came to specialize almost exclusively in fantasy-themed material. He began his career as a special-effects technician on films including Toys (1992), A Time to Kill (1996), and Batman & Robin (1997), but moved into the ranks of Hollywood’s elite with his work directing the breakthrough DreamWorks CG-animated comedy Shrek (2001). That film clocked in as a blockbuster hit (to say the least — grossing a reported 484 million dollars worldwide) and paved the way for several sequels, with the first two also directed by Adamson. Then, beginning in 2004, Walden Media tapped Adamson to write, direct, and executive produce the first two adaptations of the Chronicles of Narnia books by British author C.S. Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2007). Audiences turned the franchise into a massive hit and a cash cow for… read more
