The folks over at the BFI London Film Festival must be ecstatic today, they just nabbed a major world premiere.
Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio” will have its very first showing at BFI. The film will likely be ready in the coming weeks, but Del Toro is confident enough about its completion that a first week in October bow is set in London.
The stop-motion film was directed by del Toro from a screenplay by the Mexican filmmaker and Patrick McHale. The film’s voice cast is staggering and includes Ewan McGregor, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Tim Blake Nelson, Christoph Waltz and Tilda Swinton.
One thing I find fascinating about this ‘Pinocchio’ adaptation is that it’s set just before the rise of Fascism in pre-WWII Italy. Del Toro’s Pinocchio is recruited by the militar because the fascists believe that if this puppet cannot die then he would make the perfect soldier.