At a press conference held on 4 April 2008 at the Saxony-Anhalt state representation in Berlin, director Michael Hoffman and producers Jens Meurer and Chris Curling presented the project, its lead actors and the team.
The German production tells the fascinating and stirring story of the final year in Leo Tolstoy’s life — a true story about passion, love, family, greed, intrigue and revolution. Director and screenwriter Michael Hoffman (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, One Fine Day) assembled an international star cast for his adaptation: Academy Award winner Helen Mirren (The Queen) as Tolstoy’s wife Sofia, Hollywood legend Christopher Plummer (The Insider, A Beautiful Mind) as Leo Tolstoy, rising star James McAvoy (Atonement, The Last King of Scotland) as private secretary Valentin Bulgakov, Anne-Marie Duff (The Magdalene Sisters) as Tolstoy’s youngest daughter Sasha, and Academy Award nominee Paul Giamatti (Sideways) as Vladimir Chertkov. Michael Hoffman is also relying on an internationally renowned team behind the camera. Production designer Patrizia von Brandenstein, who won an Academy Award for her work on Amadeus, is among those involved.
The screenplay is based on Jay Parini’s novel Tolstoy’s Last Years (original English title: The Last Station), due to be published in Germany in summer 2008 and based on diary entries by Tolstoy’s confidants. Descendants of Leo Tolstoy are also advising the production. Filming will take place mainly in Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Thuringia and Leipzig, as well as at original locations in Russia.
“The Last Station gives us the extraordinary opportunity to go beyond the standard biopic and make a vivid, moving film — a film about the difficulty of living with love and the impossibility of living without it,” says director Michael Hoffman of the project.
The Last Station is a production of Egoli Tossell Film Halle GmbH, a newly founded joint venture between Egoli Tossell Film AG, Berlin, and Zephyr Films Ltd., London. Jens Meurer (Egoli Tossell Film), Chris Curling (Zephyr Films) and Bonnie Arnold are the producers. Andrei Konchalovsky has joined as the Russian partner.
“After films such as Black Book and Shooting Dogs, it remains a pleasure for Egoli Tossell to tell great cinematic stories from Germany for audiences around the world. And, of course, it is an honour to work ‘at home’ with Academy Award winner Helen Mirren and a genuinely exciting cast. The Last Station is cinema ‘made in Germany’ — with a strong distributor such as Warner behind it, committed funding bodies, the Neumann Fund and innovative financing options such as state guarantees, the conditions are better than ever,” says producer Jens Meurer.
THE LAST STATION is being made with funding from Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and the FFA, and with support from the state of Saxony-Anhalt.
THE LAST STATION will be released in German cinemas by Warner Bros. in spring 2009.
