What price would you pay for peace? Inspired by an extraordinary true story, ‘Red Joan’ is the taut and emotional discovery of one woman’s sacrifice in the face of incredible circumstances. Starring Dame Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson, in cinemas June 6. Watch the Red Joan trailer here.
The year is 2000 and Joan Stanley is living in contented retirement in suburbia at the turn of the millennium. Her tranquil life is suddenly disrupted when she’s arrested by MI5 and accused of providing intelligence to Communist Russia.
Cut to 1938 where Joan is a Cambridge physics student who falls for young communist Leo Galich and through him, begins to see the world in a new light.
Working at a top-secret nuclear research facility during WWII, Joan comes to the realisation that the world is on the brink of mutually assured destruction. Confronted with an impossible question – what price would you pay for peace? Joan must choose between betraying her country and loved ones or saving them.
Red Joan is directed by Trevor Nunn (original London production of Les Misérables, Twelfth Night or What You Will), from an adapted screenplay by Lindsay Shapero and based on Jennie Rooney’s best-selling novel of the same name. Multi-award winning actress Judi Dench (Skyfall, Shakespeare in Love) and Sophie Cookson (Gypsy, Kingsman: The Secret Service) star as the eponymous central character.
Based on a true story, Red Joan is a small film on a huge subject.
“We are immensely privileged to have Judi Dench playing the older Joan; nobody could possibly be more substantial and believable as a woman faced with a vast moral problem, a human, political, personal and intellectual problem. Her impassioned confession is the climax of the film,” says director Trevor Nunn.
For more details on this must-see film, click here. In cinemas June 6.
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