The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel is a 2014 comedy-drama film written and directed by Wes Anderson. The film's seventeen-actor ensemble cast is led by Ralph Fiennes as Monsieur Gustave H., famed concierge of a twentieth-century mountainside resort in the fictional country of Zubrowka. After being framed for the murder of a wealthy dowager (Tilda Swinton), he and his recently befriended protégé Zero (Tony Revolori) embark on a quest for fortune and a priceless Renaissance painting amidst the backdrop of an encroaching fascist regime. Anderson's American Empirical Pictures produced the film in association with Studio Babelsberg, Fox Searchlight Pictures, and Indian Paintbrush's Scott Rudin and Steven Rales. Fox Searchlight supervised the commercial distribution, and The Grand Budapest Hotel's funding came from Indian Paintbrush and German government-funded tax rebates. Anderson and longtime collaborator Hugo Guinness conceived The Grand Budapest Hotel as a fragmented tale following a character inspired by a mutual friend. They initially struggled in brainstorming, but the experience touring Europe and researching the literature of Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig shaped their vision for the film. The Grand Budapest Hotel draws visually from Europe-set mid-century Hollywood films and the United States Library of Congress's photochrom print collection of alpine resorts. Filming took place in eastern Germany from January to March 2013. The film's soundtrack was composed by French composer Alexandre Desplat, incorporating symphonic and Russian folk-inspired elements and expanding on his earlier work with Anderson. It explores themes of fascism, nostalgia, friendship, and loyalty, and further discourse analyze the function of color as a storytelling device. The Grand Budapest Hotel premiered in competition at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival on February 6, 2014. It was released in theaters in March to highly positive reviews, and grossed $174 million at the box office. It was nominated for nine awards at the 87th Academy Awards including Best Picture, winning four, and received numerous other accolades. Since its release, The Grand Budapest Hotel has been assessed as one of the greatest films of the twenty-first century.