Exclusive Pre-Release screening of MACBETH Set for Notre Dame October 24th

Shakespeare at Notre Dame announces the first United States screening of Kit Monkman's film Macbeth, a bold new interpretation of the classic tragedy filmed entirely on green screens. Macbeth will screen at 8pm on Tuesday, October 24th at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center at the University of Notre Dame. A Q&A with the film's co-writer and Shakespeare advisor, Judith Buchanan, will follow.

"This is a wonderful opportunity," says Peter Holland, McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies and Associate Dean for the Arts at the University of Notre Dame, "a chance to be at the first-ever US screening of a brand-new film version of Macbeth, the first Shakespeare film to be entirely shot using green-screen technology. I'm very excited to be hosting this event and to have with us at Notre Dame Professor Judith Buchanan (University of York, UK) who co-wrote the screenplay."

In this bold new cinematic adaptation from GSP Studios, Shakespeare's Macbeth is retold with technical bravura, an aesthetic eye, and an emotionally invested core. The film is an experiment in form, as well as a committed engagement with the play. Shot entirely against green screens, background matte painting and computer modelling generate the world in which the live action plays out. Throughout, the painterly theatrical frames suggest a landscape that is more psychologically determined than realistically mappable.

Through a visually poetic and anti-naturalistic style, familiar characters and words are made new as encountered in a constructed and fluid world - a world that is artistically underpinned but historically and geographically unplaced. Directed by Kit Monkman, the film stars Mark Rowley as Macbeth, Akiya Henry as Lady Macbeth, Al Weaver as Banquo, and Dai Bradley as the (unspeaking) Porter. The designer is Kimie Nakano and the score is composed by Gregory Spears. The adaptation is co-written by Judith Buchanan, Tom Mattinson and Kit Monkman.

Judith Buchanan is Professor of Film and Literature and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of York (UK). She writes widely on Shakespeare performance histories on stage and screen and speaks regularly to public as well as academic audiences around the world. Books include Shakespeare on Film (2005), Shakespeare on Silent Film: An Excellent Dumb Discourse (2009) and The Writer on Film: Screening Literary Authorship (2013). She has worked with the British Film Institute to bring out DVDs of silent Shakespeare films and is co-Director of the York International Shakespeare Festival. She is Director of Silents Now, bringing silent films to contemporary audiences to give renewed delight in fresh ways, and is currently writing a book on Shakespeare and live theatre broadcasts with John Wyver, Director of Screen Productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Free tickets for this screening are available at shakespeare.nd.edu. The film features some nudity, sexual situations, and violent images; parental discretion is advised. Call (574) 631-3777 or visit shakespeare.nd.edu to learn more.

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