Brent Lang Executive Editor When his agent first suggested that Karim Aïnouz direct an adaptation of Elizabeth Fremantle’s “Queen’s Gambit,” a historical novel about Katherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of Henry VIII, he thought she was joking.
The Brazilian director of “The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão” wasn’t a natural choice to bring 16th century England to life on screen.
For one thing, Aïnouz didn’t really know anything about the oft-married monarch. “I could barely identify who Henry VIII was, and I’m not into the monarchy,” he says on the eve of the Cannes premiere of “Firebrand,” the movie he made from Fremantle’s book. “I’m not into British history.
I was very puzzled.” But he started to read up on Tudor history and on Parr and he became captivated by the queen who outmaneuvered her husband to survive his tumultuous final days on the throne.
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