While George Miller is currently in the midst of production on the Mad Max prequel, we do have another film of his to look forward to before our return to the wastelands. MGM has released a new clip from Three Thousand Years of Longing, the upcoming fantasy film starring Idris Elba and Tilda Winston.
Based on the short story The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye by A.S. Byatt, Three Thousand Years of Longing stars Tilda Swinton as Dr. Alithea Binnie, an academic and creature of reason who is content with her life. While in Istanbul attending a conference, she encounters a Djinn (Idris Elba) who offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. The Three Thousand Years of Longing clip finds Dr. Binnie attempting to tell the Djinn that she has no desire for one wish, let alone three. When she abruptly wishes that they’d never met, things go sideways. George Miller directed Three Thousand Years of Longing and co-wrote the script alongside Augusta Gore.
The official synopsis for Three Thousand Years of Longing:
Dr Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) is an academic – content with life and a creature of reason. While in Istanbul attending a conference, she happens to encounter a Djinn (Idris Elba) who offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. This presents two problems. First, she doubts that he is real and second, because she is a scholar of story and mythology, she knows all the cautionary tales of wishes gone wrong. The Djinn pleads his case by telling her fantastical stories of his past. Eventually she is beguiled and makes a wish that surprises them both.
Three Thousand Years of Longing debuted at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year (where it received a six-minute standing ovation) and will hit theaters in the U.S. on August 26th.