Lost in La Mancha

Lost in La Mancha
Directed by	Keith Fulton Louis Pepe
Produced by	Lucy Darwin
Written by	Keith Fulton Louis Pepe
Starring	Terry Gilliam Johnny Depp Jean Rochefort
Narrated by	Jeff Bridges
Music by	Miriam Cutler
Release date	30 August 2002
Running time	93 minutes
Language	English/French

Lost in La Mancha is a 2002 documentary film about Terry Gilliam's unfinished film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, a film adaptation of the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. It was shot in 2000 during Gilliam's first attempt to make the film with the purpose of being its making-of, but Gilliam's failure in making the movie led it to be retitled Lost in la Mancha and to be released independently.

Written and directed by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, Lost in La Mancha presents Gilliam's quest to make Don Quixote as a parallel to Quixote's quest to become a hero. It co-stars Johnny Depp, Jean Rochefort, and Vanessa Paradis, all supposed to star in The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, and is narrated by Jeff Bridges.

Finding the source material written by Miguel de Cervantes too vast, Gilliam and his co-writer decided to create their own version of the Quixote story, including a major change inspired by Mark Twain's novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The character of Sancho Panza would appear only very early in the film, to be replaced by Toby Grisoni, a twenty-first century marketing executive thrown back through time, whom Quixote mistakes for Panza.

Terry Gilliam was very excited to make this movie, since Don Quixote embodies many of the themes that run through his own work (such as the individual versus society, the concept of sanity, etc.). The entire movie would have been filmed in Spain and throughout Europe. Jean Rochefort was picked to play Don Quixote, in preparation for which he spent seven months learning English. Toby was to be played by Johnny Depp, and Vanessa Paradis would have been his love interest.

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