Alliance of Women Film Journalists Selection! Read an excerpt from Joan Amenn's AWFJ review: "Anyone who found themselves uninspired by their high school English classes might remember that there was a small spark of fun to look forward to, if they were lucky. Should your instructor assign you to read, or better yet, watch a performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, you could anticipate some magical entertainment. Julie Taymor staged her own version of the classic in 2014 and fortunately, it was captured on film because it is astonishing."

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From the mind of award-winning director Julie Taymor (The Lion King on Broadway, Frida, Titus) comes a Shakespeare adaptation like none other. Rich with Taymor's trademark creativity, this immersive and darkly poetic cinematic experience brings the play's iconic fairies, spells and hallucinatory lovers to life. Filmed at her sold-out stage production with cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto (Argo, Frida) and music by Academy Award-winning composer Elliot Goldenthal, the feats of visual imagination are ingenious and plentiful, but beating at the center of the film is an emotionally moving take on the deeper human aspects of Shakespeare's beloved tale.

Julie Taymor’s bewitching rendition of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and is “in Bottom's words, a most rare vision. It flickers before us almost too quickly, passing by "swift as a shadow, short as any dream" (Seattle Times).

DIRECTED BY JULIE TAYMOR
UNITED STATES, UNITED KINGDOM | 2015 | ENGLISH LANGUAGE