The Bridge of San Luis Rey Remastered is a significant reworking of the film written and directed by Mary McGuckian almost twenty years ago which now includes 40 minutes of previously unseen footage. Presented by Giant Pictures in association with Pembridge it will be available on demand in The US and Canada on June 14th, 2022. HanWay represents the film for worldwide sales.

The international ensemble cast is led by F Murray Abraham, Kathy Bates, Gabriel Byrne, Geraldine Chaplin, Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel with Pilar López de Ayala and Dominique Pinon supporting.

Based on Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize Winning novel published to worldwide acclaim in 1927, the book has never been out of print. An American literary classic, it regularly rates high on lists of the 100 best American books of the 20th century and has been the basis of many film adaptations.

When the Bridge of San Luis Rey collapses, five travelers fall to their deaths. Was it destiny or the hand of God that brought them together at that fatal moment? A Franciscan Friar, Gabriel Byrne, witnesses the accident and on investigating the lives of those who died, Kathy Bates, Adriana Dominguez, Mark Polish & Harvey Keitel, incurs the wrath of the Spanish Inquisitor (Robert DeNiro).

‘Either we live by accident and die by accident
Or we live by plan and die by plan’
Thornton Wilder 1927

McGuckian’s original script envisioned a classic and timeless adaptation of the novel exploring Wilder’s questioning of divine intervention with a universal treatise on the power of love in the face of mortality. The version of the film released in 2004 deviated so dramatically from that vision that she undertook to find a way to re-capture the rights and restore its integrity.

Ironically, it is the dramatic progress of digital film technology since that made it possible to revisit a film originally designed as a holistic homage to a century of classical filmmaking techniques that we have long since left behind. Of this remastered version McGuckian says: ‘I hope new audiences will discover the divine knitting that Thornton Wilder so delicately interweaves through the stories of those characters tragically lost on their fall from the bridge to be as universally relevant as ever.’

In collaboration with Windmill Lane Pictures, Pembridge Pictures set about clearing the rights to unarchive the film and took on the painstaking work of digitizing the original negative, resynching the original recorded sound, recutting, re-conforming, regrading, reformatting, remixing and digitally remastering the film with 40 minutes of additional footage and a brand-new score by Serge Colbert incorporating elements of the original.

‘I’m delighted that the cast and crew who worked on the original film are so happy to see their work respectfully restored to the version we originally set out to make and that Giant Pictures is making The Bridge of San Luis Rey Remastered widely available to an American audience.’ says McGuckian. And "we are thrilled to play a part in releasing this film the way it was intended to be seen." Says Nick Savva of Giant Pictures.


ENDS
BOILER PLATES

PEMBRIDGE PICTURES:

Mary McGuckian has been producing, writing and directing independent feature films for over twenty years. Her films have been presented and won awards at festivals worldwide including at Sundance and Tribeca in the US, Locarno and Venice in Europe, and Edinburgh, London and Galway in her home countries. Her 12th independent film, A Girl from Mogadishu, was released during COVID after winning the Cinema for Peace Foundation Women’s Empowerment Award during the Berlin Film Festival of 2019. She is committed to dramatic storytelling from a female perspective.

Check out www.pembridge.pictures

GIANT PICTURES:
Giant Pictures is a leading digital distributor that partners with studios and filmmakers to release movies and series across all major streaming platforms, including Apple TV, Netflix, Tubi, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, IMDb TV, Peacock, and more. Release your movie your way with Giant Pictures.

Learn more at www.giant.pictures

HANWAY THE COLLECTIONS:
HanWay Films is a UK based financing, sales, distribution, and marketing company with a strong influence on the independent film market. Established in 1998 by producer Jeremy Thomas, HanWay Films offers full service and creative solutions, specializing in quality and commercially driven films from diverse, visionary, and unique filmmakers around the world.

HanWay the Collections features over 350 films handpicked from the world’s greatest filmmakers, including Bernardo Bertolucci, David Cronenberg, Nicholas Roeg, Jane Campion, Sally Potter, and Wim Wenders. Available across all media, the collection’s latest addition includes 4K restorations of David Cronenberg’s cult classic CRASH (1996), Wim Wender’s LISBON STORY (1994) and a premium HD restoration of Neil Jordan’s dynamic thriller, THE CRYING GAME (1992).

Visit us at www.hanwayfilms.com

MEDIA CONTACT INFO

DISTRIBUTOR CONTACT Emma Manfredi - [email protected]
PRODUCER CONTACT Pembridge Pictures - [email protected]
INTERNATIONAL SALES Hanway Films – [email protected]
PRESS CONTACTS Kate Bowe – [email protected]
Suzanne Doyle – [email protected]


OFFICIAL TRAILER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev367Fb38UY