Tartan Gets "Red Road"

Tartan USA has acquired U.S. rights to Andrea Arnold's Cannes competition film "Red Road". The film is Arnold's debut feature following her Oscar for best short film for "Wasp" in 2005. [Eugene Hernandez] 
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Santa Barbara International Film Fest To Honor Kirk Douglas

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival announced in a company release that it will present the inaugural Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film to actor, producer and director Kirk Douglas at this summer's fest. A special evening honoring Douglas will take place Sunday, July 30 and will feature a look back at his career. "I feel so priveleged that we are able to celebrate a man whose work not only spans so many years but also is varied in the characters he has chosen to play," Santa Barbara International Film Fest Director, Roger Durling, said in a release. The presentation of the award will launch an annual summertime tradition for the festival. [Tamara Schweitzer] 
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Mandoki, Zierling and Gyllenhaal Win Monaco Fest Prize

Luis Mandoki won the best picture prie at the Monaco Charity Film Festival for "Innocent Voices." Also taking accolades, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ian Zierling ("Beverly Hills 90210") won the best actress and actor prizes for their roles in "Strip Search" by Sidney Lumet and "Stripped Down" by Elana Krausz. HSH Prince Albert II hosted the gala for the festival, which ran May 15 - 20. [Brian Brooks] 
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NY Times: One Auteur's Bumpy Trajectory Through a Decade of Cannes Festivals

Consider the strange case of Bruno Dumont. In 1997 Cannes showed that French filmmaker's feature debut, "Life of Jesus," outside the main selection in the parallel program, Directors' Fortnight. The film, which follows a group of unemployed young people in a desolate town in Normandy, received a special mention and subsequently hit the festival rounds. Like critics, festival programmers tend to have a proprietary relationship with directors they feel they have had a hand in discovering, so when Mr. Dumont was invited back to Cannes two years later with his second film, "Humanity," it was no surprise that this time he was welcomed into the main competition. During its first press screening "Humanity" suffered a fair share of critical derision, telegraphed with choruses of giggles, but nonetheless picked up three major awards. Now Mr. Dumont is back in competition at Cannes with "Flandres," about a young French farmer named Demester who goes off to fight in some unnamed war in an unspecified Arab country. If nothing else, Mr. Dumont's nearly 10-year Cannes trajectory from triumph to disappointment indicates that the burden of the auteur hangs over European directors as heavily as it does any digital savant hungry for Sundance. NY Times' Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott report.  
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Reuters: Zidane Takes To Big Screen in Offbeat Documentary

With World Cup fever building, French soccer star Zinedine Zidane appears on the big screen at the Cannes Film Festival this year in an offbeat documentary that took many viewers by surprise."Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait" is impressionistic and experimental, far removed from the standard documentary treatment of famous people. The midfielder is filmed in real time from 17 different cameras during a home game in April last year between his club Real Madrid and Villarreal, using closeups of his face, ankles, hands, legs and torso or panning out to show the whole stadium. Images move in and out of focus and the sound is at times a deafening roar and at others turned down to silence. Reuters reports. 
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Reuters: U.S. Film Looks At The Future Through Dark Lens

U.S. director Richard Linklater has turned a bleak 1977 science fiction novel into an animation film starring Keanu Reeves, and believes its vision of a country ruled by fear and heavy surveillance proved prescient."A Scanner Darkly" is based on a Philip K. Dick novel of the same name, and tells the story of a group of friends who end up spying on each other as the authorities seek to crack down on "drug terrorism." Linklater, whose "Fast Food Nation" is also being presented at the Cannes Film Festival but in the main competition, is wary of drawing direct comparisons between Dick's vision and today's reality, but he told reporters on Thursday: "You can read something written 30 years ago and by and large think it is your present, which is how I feel about Scanner Darkly to a large degree," he said. Reuters reports. 
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Ang Lee Signs On To Direct Another Focus Features' Film

Focus Features CEO James Schamus announced today in a release from Cannes that Ang Lee, the award-winning director of "Brokeback Mountain," has agreed to make his second consecutive film, "Lust, Caution," with Focus Features. The film is described by the release as an "espionage thriller set in WWII-era Shanghai," and is being adapted from a short story by the late Chinese author Eileen Chang. Bill Kong, who worked with Lee on his film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," will produce the film and Schamus will executive produce it. Production is scheduled to begin in the fall, the release states. "I'm delighted that Ang is back with all of us here at Focus, and he's going to be making a very exciting film that's unlike anything he's done before," Schamus said in a company statement. "'Lust, Caution' is a uniquely Asian story which, in Ang's hands, will surprise and attract audiences around the world." [Tamara Schweitzer] 
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Reuters: Director Winkler Gets Real With Iraq War Film

Acclaimed U.S. director Irwin Winkler did not wait for U.S. troops to leave Iraq to make "Home of the Brave," a movie that looks not only at the horror of war but also at the lives that soldiers left behind. When finished later this year the film will join a long list of films on a similar theme, including the Vietnam-era tales "Coming Home" and "Born on the Fourth of July." But while those films were made well after the fighting was over, Winkler has chosen to comment on the impact of the Iraq war while the conflict is still in progress."I felt very much that I had to tell a story that was deeper than what you see on TV," Winkler told Reuters after a news conference to present clips from the film. Reuters reports. 
[permalink]   [ filed under Movies ]

Reuters: Cannes Market Proves Buoyant For Industry

While stars like Tom Hanks and Penelope Cruz grabbed the limelight on the red carpet at the Cannes film festival this week, deal-making for global movie rights proved fast and furious, industry players said. To the general public, images of the A-listers as they are dazzled by walls of paparazzi and TV crews are what the world's biggest film shindig is best known for. Behind closed doors, or over a bottle of champagne aboard a luxury yacht, the money does the talking, although more than ever this year players are having to grapple with technological changes on the Internet and devices like the iPod. Even though worldwide box offices suffered slightly in 2005, the industry is enjoying a healthy appetite for films in numerous arenas, including DVD, executives said. Reuters reports. 
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Cast Set for Wong Kar Wai's "Blueberry"

Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai, president of the competition jury here at the Festival de Cannes, willl begin pre-production on "My Blueberry Nights" following the festival. Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz and Norah Jones will star in his first English-language effort, Studio Canal has confirmed. The film is described as a "hip, romantic story, which explores the sensual link between love and distance," according the Paris-based company. "My Blueberry Nights" marks the big screen debut of Grammy Award-winning singer Norah Jones who will portray a young woman who travels across America to find answers to her questions about the true meaning of love. According to the announcement, Jones' character encounters a series of offbeat denizens played by Law and Portman. The film is a Block 2 Distributions presentation and produced by Wong Kar Wai, Jean Louis Piel, Jacky Pang and Wang Wei, and is a production of Jet Tone Films and Lou Yi Ltd. [Brian Brooks] 
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The Top Ten So Far...

Each Monday, indieWIRE receives the final weekend numbers for specialty releases in theaters. This is our top ten for the past weekend so far, with most numbers already in. The top ten is subject to change before the final chart is published tomorrow and the weekly box office column is written. Three day weekend box office data provided by Rentrak as of Monday, 6:00 p.m. EST. 1. "The King" (ThinkFilm) $8,927 wknd ($8,927 per scrn) 2. "Lemming" (Strand Releasing) $11,310 wknd ($5,655 per scrn) 3. "A Touch of Spice" (Menemsha Films) $5,377 wknd ($5,377 per scrn) 4."Army of Shadows" (Rialto) $25,831 wknd ($5,166 per scrn) 5. "The Russian Dolls" (IFC First Take) $19,605 wknd ($4,901 per scrn) 6. "The Lost City" (Magnolia Pictures) $185,155 wknd ($4,516 per scrn) 7. "Lady Vengeance" (Tartan Films) $12,642 wknd ($4,214 per scrn) 8. "The Proposition" (First Look) $62,723 wknd ($4,182 per scrn) 9. "Twelve and Holding" (IFC Films) $11,456 wknd ($3,819 per scrn) 10. "The Fallen Idol" (Rialto) $3,398 wknd ($3,398 per scrn) 
[permalink]   [ filed under Biz ]

Reuters: Piaf Biopic Among Hot Titles At Cannes

The Edith Piaf biopic "La Vie En Rose," starring French actress Marion Cotillard as the sultry Parisian singer, is emerging as the title most likely to generate a bidding war at the Cannes Film Festival. Director Olivier Dahan's title already has sold to Japan for a hefty $2 million price tag, sources suggested. "This is the one film that all the German distributors are chasing," one major buyer said. "It is definitely going to close down here." Sony Pictures Classics co-president Tom Bernard, who recently picked up the Tribeca Film Festival coming-of-age film "Driving Lessons," said buyers were "desperate.""There's nothing out there," he said. "There's so much money around, whoever gets picked up is going to hit the jackpot." Reuters reports. 
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Reuters: Berlusconi Satire Brings More Politics To Cannes

Italian director Nanni Moretti brought his cinematic swipe at former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to the Cannes Film Festival on Monday, bringing yet more politics to the competition's screens. Already released in Italy just two weeks before the recent election, "The Caiman" is one of 20 films vying for the coveted "Palme d'Or" at the world's biggest film festival. The political theme is a neat fit with other movies in competition, including Ken Loach's "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" about Ireland's struggle for independence, and Richard Linklater's "Fast Food Nation" about big U.S. restaurant chains. Reuters reports. 
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AP: Cannes Marks 20th Anniversary of "Platoon"

When his Vietnam saga "Platoon" appeared, Oliver Stone felt it was a painful reminder of an aggressive mentality he hoped America had left behind. Two decades later, the country has fallen back on old habits, Stone said Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival, where "Platoon" had a 20th anniversary screening in advance of a new DVD edition coming May 30. The Cannes screening of "Platoon" was preceded by footage of Stone's upcoming film "World Trade Center," starring Nicolas Cage in a Sept. 11 drama about two policemen trapped in the rubble of the twin towers after the terrorist attacks. AP reports. 
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The Guardian: Interview: Richard Linklater

Richard Linklater's film "Fast Food Nation" ends on the killing floor, as cattle march placidly up a ramp to be slaughtered. We see them shot and shackled, sliced and diced. Grey loops of intestine come sweeping down the conveyor belt like some demented version of "The Generation Game." Inside the cinema at Cannes, the audience groaned and covered their eyes. Linklater is known for his gentle, Gen-X movies. Now he's taking on the American meat industry with his latest movie. He talks with Xan Brooks. 
[permalink]   [ filed under Cannes, People ]

NY Times: "An Inconvenient Truth": Al Gore's Fight Against Global Warming

The frustrations of a man whose long-sought goal remains out of reach are vividly on display in the first few minutes of "An Inconvenient Truth," a new documentary about former Vice President Al Gore's quest to spur action against global warming. And the scene has nothing to do with the Supreme Court vote that denied Mr. Gore a chance to win the 2000 presidential election. In a recent interview in Manhattan, Mr. Gore said he was convinced that Americans would move on the issue, not just because of his documentary (and companion book), but also because of the vivid nature of recent climate-related disasters. Andrew C. Revkin reports. 
[permalink]   [ filed under Movies ]

Reuters: Penelope Cruz keeps Hollywood at arm's length

Penelope Cruz, one of the few European actresses able to command major roles on both sides of the Atlantic, will always consider herself a Hollywood outsider. The 32-year-old, who critics say is at her best in "Volver," her latest collaboration with fellow Spaniard Pedro Almodovar, has nothing against Tinseltown, but wants to avoid being caught in the glare of the movie capital's bright lights. Reuters reports. 
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"Dreamgirls" casts spell over Cannes audience

"The Da Vinci Code" may have fizzled with critics at Cannes, but the second major Hollywood movie to sweep into the festival, "Dreamgirls," cast a spell over audiences that led to early Oscar buzz. Movie studios Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks showed 20 minutes of their film, which is set for a December release, to a standing room only crowd late on Friday night at a side venue at the world's largest gathering of movie makers and stars. U.S. pop singer Beyonce Knowles and Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx, who star in "Dreamgirls," were on hand, as were major celebrities like Bruce Willis, Hugh Jackman and Britain's Sir Ian McKellen. Reuters reports. 
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