Evita is a Cinergi/Robert Stigwood Organization/Dirty Hands Production of an Alan Parker Film, adapted for the screen and directed by Alan Parker. The film is produced by Robert Stigwood, Alan Parker, and Andrew G. Vajna, with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. The film will be released by Hollywood Pictures in the US and Latin America, by Paramount (through UIP) in Germany and Japan, and licensed in the rest of the world by Summit Entertainment. Alan Parker's film of Evita, based on the successful opera, chronicles the brief but dynamic life of Eva Perón, the wife of Argentine President Juan Perón. Eva rose from poverty to become one of the most powerful women in the world. Attracting attention like no other woman before or since, Eva Perón hypnotized a nation of eighteen million people for seven years before her untimely death in 1952 at the age of thirty-three. An entirely musical film shot in Argentina, Budapest, and the UK, Evita presents an historical re-creation spanning the thirty-three years of Eva Perón's life (1919­1952). Evita features the technical and artistic contributions of Line Producer David Wimbury, Cinematographer Darius Khondji, Production Designer Brian Morris, Editor Gerry Hambling, and Choreographer Vincent Paterson. Costume Designer Penny Rose, who was given special access to Eva Perón's wardrobe in Argentina, copied and adapted many original outfits and shoes. Principal photography began in February 1996, and the production wrapped at 2 a.m. on the morning of May 30. For those interested in the nuts and bolts of filmmaking, Alan Parker offers a few statistics in his book The Making of Evita: "We had filmed for 84 days, shooting in 3 different countries, involving over 600 film crew. We had done 299 scenes and 3,000 slated shots on 320,000 feet of film with 2 cameras. Penny Rose's costume department, with a staff of 72 in 3 different countries, had fitted 40,000 extras in period dress. Over 5,500 costumes were used from 20 different costume houses in London, Rome, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Buenos Aires and Budapest, including over 1,000 military uniforms. Madonna's wardrobe alone consisted of 85 changes, 39 hats, 45 pairs of shoes and 56 pairs of earrings. Almost all of these were handmade in London. Martin Samuel, our chief hairstylist, created 42 different hair designs for Madonna. Brian Morris's art department created 320 different sets involving 24,000 different items of props. . . . All this -- plus the wonderful work fueled by the imagination, professionalism and passion of film technicians who don't even blink at a 100-hour workweek far from home -- adds up to the movie we have made." Hollywood Pictures will release the film on Christmas Day, 1996, in Los Angeles and New York, with wide release on January 10, 1997. The Making of Evita will be published by Collins Publishers and available in bookstores on December 10, 1996.