Dunkirk: New Christopher Nolan film stuns audience at CinemaCon

The footage was met with a standing ovation from gathered exhibitors

Christopher Nolan showed off footage of his new film Dunkirk at CinemaCon yesterday (29 March) to the excitement of assembled exhibitors.

The filmmaker himself introduced the clips taken from his World War II drama which stars Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance and Harry Styles. The feature charts the British military evacuation of the French region in 1940 - one of the war's biggest battles.

The footage is said to have been met with the event's biggest standing ovation yet.

Nolan previously teased that the film would take place across three different locations - on land, sea and in the air - and the footage shows characters concurrently: two young soldiers attempting to carry an injured soldier across a crowded bridge; Rylance's character taking a boat out to sea towards a battleship; Hardy's fighter pilot in battle. The Hollywood Reporter states that the scene plays out with an intense ticking sound “creating tension that promises to lead to an explosive moment.”

Speaking about the project, Nolan said: “Dunkirk and the legend of it is something that British people grow up with – it’s in our DNA. The idea of taking this paradoxical situation and putting it on the big screen – it’s something that’s been close to my heart for some time, it’s something I didn’t think I was ready to do.

“I wanted to tell the story in the most visceral way possible; I wanted to take that audience and put them on the beach.”

In retaliation to Warner Bros, who reportedly lobbied for an early VOD release, Nolan told exhibitors: “The only platform I’m interested in talking about is theatrical exhibition.“

The filmmaker shot his film in a combination of IMAX 65mm and 65mm large format film.

Dunkirk is released on 21 July.