«Nostromo: David Lean’s impossible dream»

Georges Corraface preparing for his starring role as Nostromo.
Slated to be directed by: Sir David Lean.
Documentary film directed by: Pedro González Bermúdez
Date: 1986 – 2017
Photos by: Rosalie Wallock

The documentary film «El Sueño Imposible de David Lean», directed by Goya-winning director Pedro Gonzélez Bermúdez, opened the TCM Festival in Madrid on November 30th, 2017.

Georges Corraface was slated to play the title role in «Nostromo», based on the Joseph Conrad novel. Set in a fictional South American country, which would have been filmed in Almería, Spain, «Nostromo» is the tale of an honest Italian sailor who becomes “the providential man” for a town living from a silver mine’s income and is eventually destroyed by greed and corruption.

Lean, then 80 and reknowned for such epics as «Lawrence of Arabia», «The Bridge on the River Kwai» and «Doctor Zhivago», embarked on the «Nostromo» production project destined to be his final masterpiece. The documentary charts these six years of preparation, which ended with his death in April 1991 from throat cancer just weeks before filming was due to start.

The documentary features interviews with British playwright Cristopher Hampton, actor Georges Corraface and CA News editor, Richard Torné. It’s illustrated with archive images, screen tests of Tilda Swinton, Alan Rickman and Georges Corraface, story boards and drawings that David Lean and his team prepared for the shoot.