QuickShots | Awards season, SummerFest, Woods Hole Fest, “Here” RIP Cunningham

“Dead Tone” finds US home

Deon Taylor Enterprises/Vista Taylor and Screen Media Films have entered into a distribution deal for the thriller film “Dead Tone” starring Rutger Hauer (“Blade Runner”). Based on true events, “Dead Tone” follows a group of college students whose prank phone calls accidentally target the wrong person. A madman traces their call and turns the night of fun and games into a horrifying game of survival. “Dead Tone” will be released theatrically by Deon Taylor Enterprises and Vista Taylor in select cities across the country beginning September 3rd. Screen Media Films acquired all other rights including DVD, VOD and ancillary in a deal negotiated by Deon Taylor’s agent Jay Cohen of Gersh with Screen Media Films’ Robert Baruc and David Fannon.

Foster and Azabal shooting “Here”

Ben Foster (“3:10 TO Yuma”) and Lubna Azabal (“Paradise Now”) have been cast as the leads in Braden King’s romantic road-trip drama “Here,” which is commencing principal photography July 22nd in Armenia. “Here” was co-written by King and Dani Valent, and is being produced by Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy through their company, Parts and Labor.

Choreographer Merce Cunningham dies at 90

U.S. choreographer and dancer Merce Cunningham, credited by many with revolutionizing visual and performing arts, has died at age 90, his foundation and dance company said on Monday, AP reports.

Uighur premiere a sell-out in Australia

The premiere of a documentary about a Uighur activist that Chinese officials tried to have pulled from Australia’s biggest film festival was a sell-out success, organisers said Monday. The Melbourne International Film Festival called in security guards for Sunday night’s premiere of “Ten Conditions of Love” fearing trouble amid Chinese anger over the film about exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, AFP reports.

New film puts the Coco into Chanel

Abandoned by her parents and brought up in an orphanage, Gabrielle Coco Chanel went on to build, arguably, the world’s most famous fashion house. So it is a bit of a surprise that only one film, 1982’s Coco Solitaire, has been made about Chanel’s life. Until now. This year, not one, but three movies are ready to be added to that collection. “It was the obvious time, when she was forming her personality,” says Belgian director and writer Anne Fontaine in an interview with BBC. “She was poor, she didn’t have a home. It is incredible that someone so young and from her social class, with no advantages, became this strong personality, the face of modern women.”