Moments of Permanence - Network

Posted by MIKE FLEMING JR

http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/finally-cannes-dealing-radius-twc-nabs-directors-fortnight-film-blue-ruin/

http://www.deadline.com/?p=503674

EXCLUSIVE: Hours after it made its World Premiere in Director’s Fortnight at Cannes, the Jeremy Saulnier-directed Blue Ruin was acquired by Radius-TWC. Radius co-presidents Tom Quinn and Jason Janego bought North American rights, and plan to release the film theatrically this fall. (Watch a clip from the film here.) Saulnier, whose film is one of the few American offerings in Directors’ Fortnight sidebar, here directs a story of a man who finds his quiet life upended by unwelcome news and subsequently sets off for his childhood home to carry out an act of revenge. Proving an improbable assassin, he winds up in a brutal fight to protect his estranged family. Blue Ruin was produced by Anish Savjani, Richard Peete and Vincent Savino.

Saulnier first directed Murder Party, which Radius co-presidents Tom Quinn and Jason Janego released at Magnolia. They called his followup Blue Ruin “a masterpiece and a future cult classic. It is one of the most exceptional discoveries of the last few years thanks to Jeremy’s deft hand. We couldn’t be more excited for our second collaboration.”

Said Saulnier: “Tom and I go way back when he championed my first film…I’m thrilled that my new film has found a home with him. Radius is absolutely the perfect fit for Blue Ruin.” Quinn and Janego negotiated the deal with Memento’s Ram Murali, Emilie Georges and Tanja Meissner.

This gives Radius two films playing here at Cannes; the label is also releasing the Nicolas Winding Refn-directed Only God Forgives, which premieres next week and stars Ryan Gosling and Kristen Scott Thomas. Footage on that film was shown at a TWC slate sampling, and is was shocking, in Refn’s signature stylized way. Quinn and Janego’s upcoming slate also includes the Aaron Eckhart-starrer Erased, the Errol Morris-directed The Unknown Known, Morgan Neville’s Twenty Feet From Stardom, Stacie Passon’s Concussion, the Rob Epstein/Jeffrey Friedman-directed Lovelace, the Jacob Kornbluth-directed Sundance winner Inequality For All, and Cutie And The Boxer, for which Zachary Heinzerling won the Sundance U.S. Documentary Directing Award.

Maybe this will break the deal making logjam. So far, journalists have been mostly fed press releases for deals that were made months or as long as a year ago; and distributors have only wet socks and ruined shoes to show as they march up and down the Croisette between the Carlton and Majestic Hotels, try to drum up new picture business in the midst of rain that refuses to let up. The only other deals of note made here on the ground so far has been the one The Weinstein Company made for the Stephen Frears-directed Philomena with Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, based on seven minutes of footage shown by Pathe. And Lionsgate acquired North American rights to The Quiet Ones. Just before the festival market opened, Warner Bros acquired How To Catch A Monster, the film that marks the directorial debut of Only God Forgives‘ star Gosling.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/finally-cannes-dealing-radius-twc-nabs-directors-fortnight-film-blue-ruin/

http://www.deadline.com/?p=503674

Posted by THE DEADLINE TEAM

http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/world-war-z-to-open-35th-moscow-international-film-festival/

http://www.deadline.com/?p=503678

Paramount‘s zombie tentpole World War Z will open the Moscow International Film Festival held June 20-29, the fest’s Leonid Vereshchagin announced today at Cannes. The Marc Forster pic opens stateside June 21. Also announced today for the fest were retrospectives of Olympic Games-themed documentaries, films by Bernardo Bertolucci and Costa Gavras, and a Dutch cinema program. The Moscow Business Square sidebar will host 20 Russian and international projects, while the Generation Campus program will offer young filmmakers training in writing, directing, cinematography, and editing. Ten in-competition titles announced today include: Matterhorn (dir. Diederik Ebbinge, Netherlands), Drogowka (dir. Wojciech Smarzowski, Poland), Rol/The Role (dir. Konstantin Lopushansky, Russia), Spaghetti Story (dir. Ciro de Caro, Italy), Sayonara Keikoku/The Ravine Of Goodbye (dir. Tatsushi Ômori, Japan), Los Chicos Del Puerto (dir. Alberto Morais, Spain), Rosie (dir. Marsel Gisler, Switzerland), Zerre/Particle (dir., Erdem Tepegöz, Turkey), Disorder (dir. Archil Kavtaradze, Georgia), and Skolzheniye/Slide (dir. Anton Rozenberg, Russia).

http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/world-war-z-to-open-35th-moscow-international-film-festival/

http://www.deadline.com/?p=503678

Posted by Sharon Swart

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thr/news/~3/jF4sFp9cibA/cannes-hollywood-finds-global-business-525033

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thr/news/~3/jF4sFp9cibA/cannes-hollywood-finds-global-business-525033

Posted by tigtog

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HoydenAboutTown/~3/YhdXSqSnem8/

http://hoydenabouttown.com/?p=14104

I was going to add a quicklink to this clusterfuck in comments on the Open Thread, but then I realised that I had too much to say for the comment input box.

Over the weekend I’ve been following some of the FTB live-blogging of the second Women In Secularism conference (aka WISC2), and enjoying the speeches of thoughtful activist women on various topics. I didn’t bother to click on anybody’s liveblogging of the welcoming speech, because welcoming speeches are all pretty much the same, right? Welcome and thank you to the attendees, here’s the speaker lineup, the vendor stalls are in the lobby and the bar’s over there – isn’t that the job of the opening speech? With a few encouraging soundbites thrown in to get the audience excited? Usually 5-10 minutes, tops?

Well, I missed something different. The opening speech was given by Ron Lindsay, CEO of the event sponsor, the Center for Free Enquiry (CFI). Ron apparently thought that all those traditional aspects of a welcoming speech were entirely superfluous for WISC2, and instead dedicated half of his 30-minute opening talk to ‘splaining privilege and how feminists were misusing the concept to silence men and how all this fed into the divisive controversy etc etc

No mention of the sustained intimidation campaigns waged against women who have pointed out that atheism/skepticism/secularism is not immune from the same sexism/racism etc as the religions they’re rejecting, and that those campaigns are specifically designed to silence those women from speaking out at all ever, not just asking them to listen in certain spaces for a short while. The lack of respect and blatant hositility demonstrated by that sustained silencing campaign was obviously far less significant to Lindsay than (surprise) how Feminists R Doin It Rong.

Lindsay bizarrely equates social justice advocates asking those who are privileged along one or more of the axes of oppression to “shut up and listen” to those who lack those privileges with women being utterly forbidden to speak in houses of worship in many religions i.e. Lindsay is equating a request for the generally dominant group who have many platforms to step back and let others lead a discussion at the front of a platform for a change with a religious taboo whereby the generally subservient social group who has no platform is forbidden to speak at all in sacred spaces.  He even explicitly labels requests for the privileged to stay quiet and step back for once as dogma.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think the concept of privilege is useful; in fact it is too useful to have it ossified and turned into a dogma.

By the way, with respect to the “Shut up and listen” meme, I hope it’s clear that it’s the “shut up” part that troubles me, not the “listen” part. Listening is good. People do have different life experiences, and many women have had experiences and perspectives from which men can and should learn. But having had certain experiences does not automatically turn one into an authority to whom others must defer. Listen, listen carefully, but where appropriate, question and engage.

I started my talk with that reading from the New Testament which unmistakably assigned women a subordinate role. Both the symbol of that oppression and the vehicle for enforcing that oppression was silence. Enforced silence is always and everywhere the enemy of truth and progress. If someone is forbidden from speaking, you are obviously not going to hear what they have to say.

As many others have already pointed out, how Lindsay thinks anybody can listen if they don’t shut up? I dunno.

As an opening speech, this effort undermines the whole purpose of the conference. Might it possibly have been an interesting addition to the speech roster somewhere in the middle of the program? Maybe. But as an opening speech from the event sponsor it’s simply bizarre, does nothing to encourage the women in attendance, and does everything to encourage the already hyper-active flying monkeys.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HoydenAboutTown/~3/YhdXSqSnem8/

http://hoydenabouttown.com/?p=14104

Posted by PETE HAMMOND

http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/hammond-on-cannes-wet-fests-official-competition-finally-heats-up-with-coen-brothers-inside-llewyn-davis/

http://www.deadline.com/?p=503630

The first purely American entry in the 2013 Cannes Film Festival competition (opening nighter The Great Gatsby was Out of Competition), Joel Coen and Ethan Coen‘s terrific Inside Llewyn Davis had its first press screening Saturday night to strong response and big buzz on the very rainy Croisette. This tale of a talented folk singer unable to balance art and commerce, and  who never quite hits the big time in the late 50′s/early 60′s emerging folk scene, is pure Coen Brothers with a winning mixture of brilliantly observed comedy and darker moments that give it an edge most reminiscent of Coen movies like Barton Fink, which won the Palme d’Or on their first try at Cannes in 1991. Joel Coen also took the Director award that year and again for The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) among the seven previous times they have been in the Cannes competition. 1994′s The Hudsucker Proxy, 1996′s Fargo, 2000′s O Brother Where Art Thou, 2004′s The Ladykillers and 2007′s No Country For Old Men represent their other numerous chances to reap a second Palme d’Or since Barton Fink but none of them did the trick. 

Judging from initial reaction, at least among the press, Inside Llewyn Davis probably makes them an early front-runner for that second Palme. We say early since the film doesn’t have its official black tie premiere at the Palais until Sunday night, only the fourth day of the competition. But with its superb acting including leading man Oscar Issac, as the morose but oddly engaging Llewyn and a great supporting cast including Carey Mulligan, John Goodman (just great), Justin Timberlake, Stark Sands and a scene stealing cat (or cats? – you’ll see) among others, plus the Coens’ knack for catching this era in all its glory, I suspect this will remain a contender for the entire week of debuts to come. The musical score, supervised by T.Bone Burnett is also truly exceptional, perfectly capturing the period just as O Brother also did. One quibble is the full screen appearance of a movie poster for Disney’s 1963 The Incredible Journey near the end of the film. That would be fine but purists may quibble since Llewyn Davis is supposed to be set in 1961. That error aside, the Coens have clearly hit it out the park again and Cannes, which keeps bringing them back for more, has to be happy they are regular visitors to the South Of France whenever the timing works.

In terms of other early contenders, only Oscar winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi seems to have comparable buzz for his The Past which screened Friday night to strong response. It’s his followup film to his 2011 Academy Award winning Best Foreign Film, A Separation.  Reaction and reviews have been very strong for this ambitious drama which runs the gamut of human emotions and involves an ever twisting plot of secrets, lies, deceit, divorce, affairs, comas, pregnancy and many other traumatic situations usually found in daytime soaps. It verges on the edge of melodrama at times but Farhadi knows how to reign it in and bring it home in style. It’s no small achievement because the varying connecting plotlines might have done in a lesser director. Interestingly it was shot in Paris and is in French , freeing him of censorship problems in Iran. But since Iran got political in the Oscar qualifying process last year and chose to forbid any entry in 2012, it will be one to watch this year. Even though it is largely in French , rules are the country of birth for the director is the one which must submit to have a shot at Best Foreign Language Film. Depending on the momentum it picks up here out of Cannes, The Past could qualify in several categories including Original Screenplay, Director and Best Actress for star Berenice Bejo, who is excellent and very different than in her Oscar nominated Supporting role in The Artist.

Bejo could be a contender for the Actress prize in Cannes too, but faces early stiff competition already, particularly from newcomer and model turned actress, Marine Vacht in Francois Ozon’s absorbing french drama about a teen prostitute, Jeune & Jolie. She not only reminds you of a young Julia Roberts but the camera loves her and she carries the film easily. The less said the better about some of the other early competition films including Mexico’s grossly violent Heli, which even treats us to the sight of a young man’s genitals being lit on fire (from which the camera doesn’t shy away for what seems like an eternity) and Saturday night’s main premiere, Jimmy P. The Psychotherapy Of A Plains Indian which is about as compelling as that title might indicate, this despite the presence of Benecio Del Toro in the starring role. It’s an uninvolving story from  veteran French director Arnaud Desplechin and co-stars French actor Mathieu Almaric. Despite that French connection it was shot in English. No matter what the nationality, reaction was generally downbeat, as it was generally for China’s first entry in several years, Jia Zhangke’s Tian Zhu Ding (A Touch Of Sin), a segmented picture with four distinct stories set in different regions of the country but also (surprisingly for an officially sanctioned Chinese film) quite ultra-violent in parts.

Hopefully now with the one-two punch of Inside Llewyn Davis, which CBS Films will release domestically in the heart of awards season for Oscar magnets Joel and Ethan on December 6th, and The Past this competition, which was slow to start, is just finding its groove. Stay tuned.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/hammond-on-cannes-wet-fests-official-competition-finally-heats-up-with-coen-brothers-inside-llewyn-davis/

http://www.deadline.com/?p=503630

Posted by THE DEADLINE TEAM

http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/cannes-phase-4-and-xlrator-acquire-jamesy-boy/

http://www.deadline.com/?p=503653

Phase 4 and XLrator Media have teamed up on North American rights to Jamesy Boy, starring Mary-Louise Parker, James Woods, Ving Rhames, Taissa Farmiga, and newcomer Spencer Lofranco. Trevor White directed and co-wrote the true story pic with Lane Shadgett. Lofranco plays teenager James Burns, who befriends a convicted murderer (Rhames) in prison who helps him turn his life around. The Synergics Films and Star Thrower Entertainment production is produced by Tim White, Wayne L. Rogers, Steven P. Saeta, Maria Norman, Galen Walker and Scott Mednick. Phase 4′s Larry Greenberg and Gordon of XLrator Media negotiated the deal with the Paradigm Finance Group on behalf of the filmmakers. Atlas International is handling the foreign sales.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/cannes-phase-4-and-xlrator-acquire-jamesy-boy/

http://www.deadline.com/?p=503653

Posted by MIKE FLEMING JR

http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/ifc-midnight-takes-n-a-rights-to-raze/

http://www.deadline.com/?p=503629

IFC Midnight acquired North American rights to Cinipix’s action/thriller Raze, directed by Josh Waller. The film, written by Robert Beaucage, stars Zoe Bell, Rachel Nichols, Tracie Thoms and Sherilyn Fenn, and made its world premiere at last month’s Tribeca Film Festival. Cinipix financed Raze. The film was produced by Kenny Gage and Andy Pagana. Raze follows Sabrina, a woman who is mysteriously abducted and held captive in an underground lair, where she is forced to do battle with other innocents for the amusement of unseen spectators. Each of these reluctant warriors has something to lose, but only one will remain when the game is done.

Jonathan Sehring, President of Sundance Selects/IFC Films, said: “Josh Waller has crafted the most intense and unique action film that we have seen in a longtime. With the magnificent Zoe Bell leading a strong female cast, Raze delivers and then some. We can’t wait to unleash it upon audiences.”

The deal for the film was negotiated by Jeff Deutchman, Director of Acquisitions & Productions for Sundance Selects/IFC Films with Nate Bolotin of XYZ Films on behalf of the filmmakers. Celluloid Dreams is currently selling the film’s international rights at Cannes.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/ifc-midnight-takes-n-a-rights-to-raze/

http://www.deadline.com/?p=503629