Exodus in November

28 September 2007

The Kent seaside town of Margate has become an increasingly popular film location in recent years, standing in for the anonymous asylum seeker holding area in Pawel Pawlikowski's Last Resort (2000) and being the actual setting for Jan Dunn's 2005 Gypo and the climax of Fred Schepisi's 2001 Last Orders. Now it has become the setting of of a modern take on the biblical story of Exodus, re-imagined in a futuristic Britain and exploring themes of identity, migration, terrorism and the search for a promised land.

Bernard Hill stars as Pharoah Mann, a politician who sets up a ghetto to segregate immigrants and criminals from society, and the story focuses on his adopted son Moses (Daniel Percival), who enters the ghetto as a man and following a terrible act stays in the camp to lead the suppressed community to freedom and fight everything his father stands for.

Directed by Penny Woolcock, whose 1997 Shakespeare update Macbeth on the Estate starring Ray Winstone was met with acclaim but no subsequent DVD release (we're dropping hints here), Exodus is the first feature film from Artangel, the organisation that commissions and produces projects by contemporary artists. In Exodus this collaboration between film and sculpture is realised with the making and burning of Anthony Gormley’s Waste Man sculpture.

Exodus has been announced for a UK DVD release by Soda Pictures on 26th November at the RRP of £15.99. Sound picture and extras details are unconfirmed as yet.