SYNOPSIS
Lost in Karastan. Confused about where his career went wrong, film director Emil Forrester (Matthew Macfadyen) receives an unexpected invitation to attend a retrospective of his work at The Karastan International Film Festival. On arrival in Karastan, Emil is flattered by the attention he receives and soon finds himself persuaded by the country’s benign yet massively corrupt President Aleluyev (Richard van Weyden) to direct an epic retelling of the story of the medieval hero and founder of the country, with drunken actor Xan Butler (Noah Taylor) already on-board to star.
Forester quickly finds himself both in the midst of a large-scale production and seduced by the beautiful Chulpan (MyAnna Buring), whose relationship with Aleluyev and general politics of the region leave Forester confused and out of his depth. Shepherded to remote locations by local wrangler Ruslan (Lasha Ramishvili) where he encounters locals ‘encouraged’ by soldiers to take on various roles, Emil finds himself desperately struggling to create a local blockbuster in a language he doesn’t understand, against a political backdrop he has no idea about and with a questionable array of cast and crew.
