Jon Amiel | 108 mins | USA

Darwin is a handsome man in his early forties who lives a quiet life in an idyllic English village.  He is a brilliant and deeply emotional man, devoted to his wife and children, but clearly distanced from them.  When we first meet the family, the void between Darwin and his wife Emma seems to engulf the children.  Their chaotic house is full of shadows and secrets.

Only when Darwin retreats to his study and begins to discuss his day with his daughter Annie, a precocious and inquisitive ten year old, do we see him come to life.  But when Emma comes in to find Darwin alone, we realise he has not been talking to a living being.  Not an apparition, but the vibrant spirit of Darwin’s favourite child who died several years earlier.

The story moves back and forth through Annie’s short life and the years following her death.  Not only does a portrait of a deeply connected father-daughter relationship emerge, so does Darwin’s magnificent theory.  Annie’s death sharpens Darwin’s conviction that natural laws have nothing to do with divine intervention.  To his contemporaries, this is a very dangerous and threatening idea.  In a box in Darwin’s study, we discover the manuscript of ‘On the Origin of Species.’

Darwin makes a poignant pilgrimage to the hotel in Malvern where Annie died whilst receiving treatment.  The journey marks a change in him, and he is finally able to share his grief with Emma.  The couple reconnect at last.  Emma is both shocked by her husband’s views and in love all over again with his passion and intellect.  Darwin decides that Emma must make the decision about publishing his work.  After reading the manuscript, she quietly returns it to him addressed to a publisher in London.  For both of the Darwins, love takes priority over belief.

Darwin walks down the lane, holding the package.  The postman arrives.  Darwin falters, almost letting him go empty-handed.  The postman rides away unaware of the time-bomb he’s carrying out into the world.  As Darwin walks home, a little girl skips happily alongside him.

SCREENING SCHEDULE
7:00PM      Wednesday, Oct  20, 2010
CUNY GRADUATE CENTER

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Newmarket Films Presents a Jon Amiel Film

Paul Bettany
Jennifer Connelly
Jeremy Northam
Toby Jones
Benedict Cumberbatch
Jim Carter
Bill Paterson
Martha West

Hair and make-up designer | Veronica McAleer
Costume designer | Louise Stjernsward
Music | Christopher Young
Casting | Celestia Fox
Editor | Melanie Oliver
Production Designer | Laurence Dorman
Director of Photography | Jess Hall BSC
Based on the book ‘Annie’s Box’ by Randal Keynes
Screen Story | Jon Amiel and John Collee
Executive Producers | Peter Watson, Christina Yao, Janice Eymann, Jamie Laurenson, David Thompson
Screenplay | John Collee
Co-Producer | Nick O’Hagan
Producer | Jeremy Thomas
Director | Jon Amiel

DIRECTOR’S BIO
The British director, Jon Amiel, graduated from Cambridge University, where he studied English literature.  He ran the Oxford and Cambridge Shakespeare Company, which frequently toured the United States, and subsequently became literary manager for the Hampstead Theatre Company and began directing there before moving on to direct for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Amiel joined the BBC as a story editor before starting to direct for television.  His film The Silent Twins, based on the true story of twin girls who invented their own language to cut themselves off from the rest of the world, was the BBC selection for entry at the Locarno and Montreal Festivals and is still regularly shown on television.

In 1986 he directed all six episodes of the multi award-winning drama series The Singing Detective which has come to be regarded as one of the greatest dramas ever made for television.

Amiel’s feature film debut Queen of Hearts opened at the Cannes Film Festival, and was named Best First Film at the Montreal Film Festival and won the Best British Feature Film Award at the Birmingham Festival.  Tune in Tomorrow, based on the novel ‘Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter’ by Mario Vargas Llosa, and starring Barbara Hershey and Keanu Reeves, was his American film debut and won the Prix Publique at the Deauville Film Festival.

Amongst his feature film credits are The Core with Hilary Swank & Aaron Eckhart, Entrapment with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, The Man Who Knew Too Little with Bill Murray, Copycat with Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter, and Sommersby with Richard Gere and Jodie Foster.

He has also continued his career in television in the US and recently directed four successful pilots – Eyes, Reunion, Damages and Wedding Bells. Most recently he directed the season finale episodes of The Tudors.

Amiel is currently developing new series ideas for television and several feature projects, including 105 Degrees, an account of the last ten days leading to the fall of Saigon.