Katherine of Alexandria

Directed By: Michael Redwood
Cast: Peter O'Toole, Brian Blessed, Joss Ackland, Steven Berkoff, Nicole Madjarov
Country: United Kingdom
Runtime: 100’
Language: English
Year of Production: 2011

333AD. The young and beautiful Katherine lies dying within the ruins of one of Alexandria's destroyed libraries. Three women and a Roman soldier try desperately to tend her injuries, but they know Katherine's situation is hopeless; she has suffered horrific torture on a wheel of spikes. The soldier, tearfully, breaks Katherine’s neck to end her suffering. ‘Jabal Ekatheirna,’ one of history’s most influential women, dies at the age of 28.

Katherine, brought up as a nomad living in the desert, was aged just 11 when emperor Maxentius saw her whilst out on patrol. Consumed by her beauty, impudence and uncanny talent for languages, he abducted the child, killing her family. The slaughter was witness by her young friend Constantine, who would later become Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. He never lost hope of finding Katherine.

As a young woman, Katherine refused to submit to Maxentius’ offers of marriage and she continually denounced his brutal enforcement of religion upon the masses. Still obsessed by her beauty, Maxentius brought Katherine before 50 of Rome’s finest scholars in an open court in Alexandria where she eloquently demolished their arguments. As Katherine’s victory reverberated across the Empire, an enraged Maxentius had the scholars burned to death and order her execution.

When Constantine learned of Katherine’s whereabouts and imprisonment at the hands of Maxentius, he lead his army from York in a desperate bid to save her.