'22 July' Trailer: Paul Greengrass Explores The Horrors Of Terrorism Again

Paul Greengrass has never been one to shy away from reality. While American audiences may know him best as the creative force behind three of the five “Bourne” installments — “The Bourne Supremacy,” “The Bourne Ultimatum,” and “Jason Bourne” — the English director truly shines when he chooses to tackle projects set within the confines of the real world.

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While the biographical “Captain Phillips” and heartbreaking 9/11 thriller “United 93” serve as two celebrated examples of Greengrass translating real-life events onto the big screen, those digging into the filmmaker’s back catalog will discover that his roots extend further than simply chronicling American events; “Bloody Sunday,” which depicts the 1972 shootings that took place in Derry, Ireland, and “The Murder of Stephen Lawrence,” a true-crime thriller centered around a racially motivated murder in Britain both predate his work on the “Bourne” franchise.

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With that context taken into account, it should come as no surprise that Greengrass chose the horrifying 2011 Norway attacks — in which right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik murdered 77 people — to serve as the basis for his upcoming film “22 July.”

Based on the book “One of Us” written by Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad, the film will dramatize the events that unfolded from the perspective of the survivors and individuals involved.

Additionally, Greengrass released a director’s statement to accompany the film’s premiere at the 75th Venice Film Festival:

Cinema embraces many forms and many subjects, but its theme is always our humanity. It can show us love and wonder, find truth and beauty in the smallest of private moments, or thrill and entertain us with magnificent spectacles of imagined worlds. But from time to time, cinema must also dare to look unflinchingly at the way the world is – how it is moving, where it is going, and how we can confront it. This is the reason I set out to tell the inspiring story of Norway’s response to the right wing terrorist attack of 22 July 2011.

Following the film’s debut at the Venice Film Festival this week, Netflix will release “22 July” worldwide on October 10. Here’s the first trailer:

Check out all our coverage from the 2018 Venice Film Festival here.