Agora played at the Cannes Film Festival and will show  at Toronto Film Festival. I want to see this movie because the trailer is magnificent. The detail in the production and art design is phenomenal.  It is an absolutely stunning masterpiece directed by Spanish-Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Amenábar, who has done some great films: Open Your Eyes, Butterfly Tongues, The Others, The Sea Inside. The screenplay was co-written by Amenábar with his writing partner Mateo Gil for Open Your Eyes, Vanilla Sky, The Sea Inside.

Amenábar says that he wants audiences “to see, feel and smell a remote civilization as if it were as real as today.”  Watching this trailer and seeing Rachel Weisz stand up against these ancient beliefs, I can say it feels and smells like that civilization being the Egyptians of 4th Century AD.  However, what is really hard for me to understand is that Agora is still looking for a US distributor and doesn’t have a release date.