The City of Your Final Destination

Synopsis

The film follows a graduate student, Omar Razaghi (Omar Metwally), who wishes to write a biography on an obscure writer, Jules Gund, who died years before. Omar must travel to Uruguay to persuade the Gund family to authorize the biography.

Cast

(in order of appearance)

Background

Most of the story in the novel takes place in a small town in Uruguay. The novel's beginning chapter takes place in Lawrence, Kansas, where the protagonist is a graduate student at the University of Kansas. The story ends at New York City Opera Hall.

Music List

Release

It had an early preview in New York City on November 27, 2007 (at the ceremony of the Trophée des Arts for James Ivory from the French Institute New York). In October 2009, James Ivory brought the film to Rome, where it received its official world premiere at the International Rome Film Festival, out of competition, then showing at Tokyo International Film Festival for Hiroyuki Sanada's special screening. Screen Media distributed it in the United States on April 16, 2010.

Controversy

In early 2007, Anthony Hopkins claimed he had yet to be paid for his work on the film, and that Merchant Ivory had short-changed the cast and crew. Merchant Ivory counter-argued that Hopkins' payment terms had, in fact, recently been renegotiated higher. Later in the year, the actor filed court papers to take the company to an arbitrator. In October 2007, Hopkins filed a lawsuit against Merchant Ivory for payment of his salary of $750,000.

In 2008, actress and singer Susan (Suzy) Malick also filed suit against Merchant Ivory and James Ivory for producer credit and half a million dollars in an unpaid loan, used when the film was threatened to be shut down due to lack of funding. In 2012 Malick moved for trial by jury and the suit was finally settled out of court.