Man to Man (2005 film)

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Man to Man
Directed by	Régis Wargnier
Produced by	Aïssa Djabri Farid Lahouassa
Written by	William Boyd Régis Wargnier
Starring	Joseph Fiennes Kristin Scott Thomas Lomama Boseki Cécile Bayiha Iain Glen Hugh Bonneville
Music by	Patrick Doyle
Cinematography	Laurent Dailland
Editing by	Yann Malcor
Release date(s)	10 February 2005 13 April 2005 27 April 2005 27 May 2005 21 July 2005 18 August 2005 19 August 2005 8 September 2005 30 September 2005 (Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival) 25 October 2005 (São Paulo International Film Festival) 16 December 2005 (São Paulo) 9 March 2007 16 June 2007 (TV premiere)
Running time	122 min
Country	France / South Africa / UK
Language	English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

For the song by Gary Allan, see Man to Man (song).

The film Man to Man, directed by Régis Wargnier and scripted by William Boyd (writer), had its world premiere at the Berlinale in 2005.

[edit] Plot

Jamie Dodd (Joseph Fiennes) captures a male and female pygmy (Lomama Boseki and Cécile Bayiha) in central Africa, and transports them to Scotland. He is aided by Elena van den Ende (Kristin Scott Thomas), widow of a Dutch hunter, a kind of impresario cum agent who knows Africa and is initially in it for the money. Two scientists (Iain Glen and Hugh Bonneville) force through proof of their theory before an eager Edinburgh academy. What begins as an earnest inquiry ends in human tragedy.

Régis Wargnier - the director

The film is directed by Frenchman Régis Wargnier, responsible for Indochine (1992) and East-West (1999). Boyd, who has excellent French, got to know him 10 years ago when they worked together on a Catherine Deneuve project (Boyd wrote the script, which Wargnier turned into French, but the film was never made). Already a fan of his novels, Wargnier approached Boyd about the African project.

William Boyd - the scriptwriter

Boyd comments in an interview: It's the kind of film David Lean might have made," says Boyd, talking in London. "It's got this great sweep to it - an old-fashioned adventure movie, my sort of thing. Also, given that Africa and Scotland are both in there, it was an obvious one for me ... The idea was developed in French, and existed as a 120-page document before I was asked to work on it in early 2002 ... It went through six drafts, and Régis (the director) was closely involved in the writing..^[1]

Boyd was involved in pre-production and saw a lot of the filming, which took place in South Africa, Cornwall and the Scottish border country - the latter the area of Boyd's family home.