This week Toronto and Venice will announce at least the first part of their line-ups and one title sure to land amongst the slate is the latest film by Mike Leigh. Following Mr. Turner, his new drama Peterloo follows the British government facing off against 60,000 during a protest in which 15 died with more having numerous injuries.
Ahead of a November release, the first trailer has now arrived, which sets the stage for the massacre. “There has never been a feature film about the Peterloo Massacre,” Leigh said. “Apart from the universal political significance of this historic event, the story has a particular personal resonance for me, as a native of Manchester and Salford.”
See the trailer, first clip, and poster below, courtesy of Amazon Studios, for the film starring Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake, Pearce Quigley, Philip Jackson, Karl Johnson, Tim McInnerny, and David Moorst.
Internationally acclaimed and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Mike Leigh portrays one of the bloodiest episodes in British history, the infamous Peterloo Massacre of 1819, where government-backed cavalry charged into a peaceful crowd of 80,000 that gathered in Manchester, England to demand democratic reform.
Peterloo opens on November 9.