A Different Loyalty

A Different Loyalty (2004) Director: Marek Kanievska. Cast: Rupert Everett, Sharon Stone.

This $15m romantic thriller based on the life of notorious British spy Kim Philby (Rupert Everett) and his wife Eleanor (Sharon Stone) visited Malta in June 2003. Set in 1963, it’s the story of Eleanor’s search for her husband after he disappears from his home in Beirut.

A bustling Beirut street market was recreated on the main square within 16th-century Fort St Elmo on the tip of the Valletta peninsula. The Fort is now home to the Malta Police Academy and you can visit the square featured in A Different Loyalty, because it’s used for the re-enactments of the Knights of Malta parades, every Sunday at 11am. 

The exterior of Philby’s Beirut apartment in the film is in a building that overlooks the terrace of the Sicilia Bar, just above Victoria Gate in Valletta. The film also shot at the Golden Sands Hotel (shortly before it closed for complete reconstruction and refurbishment) and on Golden Sands beach itself.