Russell Brand and Michael Winterbottom will unite for the political documentary The Emperor’s New Clothes, billed as an exposé of the social inequities which led to the financial crisis.
Winterbottom will direct a film that is expected to combine comedy, archive footage and interviews to show how “the people at the bottom are paying for the luxuries of those at the top”, according to backers StudioCanal. Brand will take the role of presenter-spectator, examining the crisis at financial centres in cities such as London and New York.
The Essex-born comic has taken a break from a budding Hollywood career to focus on his own unique brand of political activism and recently published the book Revolution, advocating the demise of “corporate tyranny, ecological irresponsibility and economic inequality”. Brand recently denied reports he was to run for mayor of London when incumbent Boris Johnson steps down in 2016.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row last week, Winterbottom said of the film: “It’s about inequality and why the 1% seem to have so much and the rest of us not quite so much. Everyone knows about equality and what’s going on in the world, so the idea is to point out the ludicrous extremes of our society.”
The Emperor’s New Clothes is due to be unveiled at the American Film Market in Santa Monica next week. The film began shooting earlier this month, according to Winterbottom, known for films such as 24 Hour Party People, In This World and The Road to Guantánamo. The acclaimed English film-maker recently premiered The Face of an Angel, which was inspired by the media furore around the killing of English student Meredith Kercher, at the Toronto film festival.
