About

[When] I saw the letters and diaries of Gertrude Bell, hearing her voice and reading her voice, I immediately knew this was big. It was so big that I had to accept this challenge. And the vehemence in which this great figure came at me was what decided everything.

Queen of the Desert is a grand epic centred on the life of Gertrude Bell, who left her aristocratic existence in late-19th Century England to adventure through the Middle East, before eventually playing a pivotal role in the crafting of the nations that emerged in the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.

This is a deliberate throwback to the large-scale adventure filmmaking of classics such as Lawrence of Arabia 1962 (the eponymous hero of which, T.E. Lawrence, even appears in Queen of the Desert, portrayed by Robert Pattinson). Nicole Kidman embodies Bell with an aura of steely determination that drives her journey, with Herzog's eye for majestic desert vistas as powerful as ever.