THE MOVIE

The extraordinary adaptation to screen of Virginia Woolf's acknowledged masterpiece, "Mrs. Dalloway", is the end result of a collaborative effort by some of the finest talents of our time, including Oscar-winner Vanessa Redgrave in the title role; Marleen Gorris (Academy Award-winning Dutch film, ANTONIA'S LINE) as director; and Eileen Atkins, award-winning actress and co-creator of the popular British television series, "Upstairs, Downstairs" and "House of Eliot," as screenwriter. Atkins has recently focused her energies on giving dramatic life to Virginia Woolf's literary legacy, appearing as Woolf, both off-Broadway and on tour, in her one-woman show, "A Room of One's Own"; adapting and reading Woolf's diaries for a five-part BBC radio series; and starring as Virginia Woolf on Broadway in 1994 in her own play, "Vita and Virginia," with Vanessa Redgrave as Vita Sackville-West, Woolf's inspiration for "Orlando".

London 1923. Clarissa Dalloway is preparing for a party that evening. While the maid is preparing the house, Mrs. Dalloway is going to buy the flowers. On her walk through London she thinks about her youth when she and her friend Sally lived with there parents in Bourton (rural England). There she had a friend Peter Walsh who wanted to marry her. Although she loved him she decided not to marry him but to marry Richard Dalloway. Peter Walsh came back the day before out of India and later that day he calls at her house to talk with her. They still feel a lot for one another. And the rest of that day they both think of the time in Bourton. We also follow Septimus Warren Smith, a veteran of the great war (WOI). This war gave him a very traumatic experience which lead him to kill himself. Then the party starts and she doesn't like it until the party seems to turn right after all.

MARLEEN GORRIS (Director) found international fame when her film, ANTONIA'S LINE, which she wrote and directed, won the 1995 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the People's Choice Award at the 1995 Toronto Film Festival. Gorris was honored as Best Director at the 1995 Dutch Film Festival and again at the Hamptons International Film Festival. MRS. DALLOWAY is Gorris's fifth film. Her first two films, A QUESTION OF SILENCE and BROKEN MIRRORS, from her own screenplays, were praised internationally and both won Best Feature at the Dutch Film Days Festival. Her first English language feature, THE LAST ISLAND, was also shot from her own screenplay. Born in the Netherlands, Gorris was educated at Dutch universities where she studied English and Dramatic Art before earning her Masters degree at the University of Birmingham, England. The themes of her films all deal with the emergence of the modern woman with all her strengths and shortcomings. In addition to her films, Gorris has directed a five-part television series entitled "Tales From a Street" for Dutch television in 1993, which chronicled five unusual characters in everyday situations.