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Bharat Nalluri’s, The Man Who Invented Christmas, Released Friday, 1 December

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Bharat Nalluri’s, The Man Who Invented Christmas, Released Friday, 1 December

Posted: 28th November 2017

Based on Lee Standiford’s book about how Charles Dickens brought A Christmas Carol to life, Bharat Nalluri’s The Man Who Invented Christmas, is released in Irish cinemas this Friday, 1 December. The film, which sees locations around Dublin and Wicklow transformed into 1840s Victorian England stars Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey, Beauty and the Beast) as Dickens alongside Christopher Plummer (The Sound of Music) as Scrooge and Jonathan Pryce (Game of Thrones) as Dickens’ father.

The Man Who Invented Christmas is set in October, 1843 and sees Charles Dickens struggling after a run of flops have left him both financially strapped and bereft of ideas. He is distracted from his wife and children, irritated by his leech of a father and grumpy with his best friend and advocate John Foster (Justin Edwards). Yet the lively streets of London are a place where inspiration can strike in any moment, and Dickens has an idea to write a book set at Christmas about an unloved miser.

Seized with the vision of a story that would fire the hearts of humanity, Dickens pitched his publishers A Christmas Carol, but they passed. Desperate, Dickens declared he would publish it himself. Slipping into the world of his novel, he spent the next six weeks laughing and arguing with his characters, acting out scenes like a madman on the streets of London for hours on end.  His family and friends worried he was going insane, but Dickens prevailed and finished just before Christmas, creating a masterpiece which gave birth to the Christmas we know and love today.

The Man Who Invented Christmas recently received its Irish premiere at the Cork Film Festival. The film will receive a gala screening in Dublin (Movies@Dundrum) tonight, 28 November, in an event which will be attended by director, Bharat Nalluri.

An Irish co-production, produced by Parallel Film and Rhombus Media with support from the Irish Film Board, the film is being released in Ireland by Wildcard Distribution.