Buzz / Rumors

LAT | FIRST LOOK: Cannes colors "Blindness"

If eyes are the window to the soul, then Cannes Film Festival organizers' choice of "Blindness" as the opening night film promises a 24-frames-per-second allegory about the fragile state of civil society and the human spirit. Sheigh Crabtree reports with a trailer sneak peak.

AFP: The year that shook Cannes

A year of revolt the world over, tumultuous 1968 also brought high drama to Cannes, the single time the film festival had to be cut short, with no one taking home a prize and no red-carpet finale. Claire Rosemberg herereports.

Reuters: Cannes pits Hollywood against obscure arthouse

Hollywood legends and obscure arthouse directors descend on Cannes from Wednesday for the world's biggest film festival that combines edgy cinema with A-list celebrities, glitzy parties and frenetic deal-making. Mike Collett-White

iW NEWS | Provincetown Celebrates 10 Years With Garcia Bernal

The 10th Annual Provincetown International Film Festival announced some of its programming and its annual honorary awards Monday, with Gael Garcia Bernal taking the Excellence in Acting Award and Jane Lynch receiving the Faith Hubley Memorial Award. As previously announced, Quentin Tarantino will be awarded the Filmmaker of The Edge Award. All previous winners of that award have been invited back to participate in the 10th anniversary celebration, including John Waters, Christine Vachon, Ted Hope, James Schamus, Gus Van Sant, Todd Haynes, Jim Jarmusch, Mary Harron, Gregg Araki and Todd Solondz. The festival will open with Madonna's "Filth and Wisdom" and close with Clark Gregg's "Choke." The centerpiece selections will be Alan Ball's "Towelhead" and James Marsh's "Man on Wire." [Peter Knegt]

iW NEWS | Weekend Estimates: "The Fall" Leads

While "Speed Racer" became the first major casualty of the summer blockbuster season, new specialty releases also failed to significantly impress this weekend, with Tarsem's "The Fall" leading the specialty-focused iW BOT, according to those films that submitted numbers to indieWIRE Box Office Tracking (iW BOT) estimates from Rentrak this afternoon. Roadside Attractions' "The Fall" grossed $80,188 from 9 screens for a decent $8,910 average. Other openers included Bruce Burgess's doc "Bloodline," which took in $6,200 from one screen for Cinema Libre. Fairing worse were two ThinkFilm openers, Bruce McDonald's Ellen Page starrer, "The Tracey Fragments," which grossed $3,330 on one screen, and Henry Bean's "Noise," starring Tim Robbins and Bridget Moynahan, which averaged just $2,025 on 2 screens. Among holdovers, Claude Lelouch's "Roman De Gare," distributed by IDP and Samuel Goldwyn, continued to pull good numbers, grossing $64,000 from 15 screens for a $4,267 average and a $333,582 cume. Last week's top two openers, "Mister Lonely" and "Son of Rambow," switched places this week, with "Rambow" averaging $3,833 from an expanded 36 screens, and "Lonely" just behind with a $3,600 average, about a fifth of its opening average. Finally, Spring's specialty breakout, Tom McCarthy's "The Visitor," expanded to 217 screens and maintained a healthy average of $3,521, taking its total to over $2.5 million. indieWIRE publishes its weekly box office column on Mondays and final weekend numbers for specialty and limited release films on Tuesdays. Get the latest in the indieWIRE Box Office section. [Peter Knegt]

iW NEWS | Edinburgh Film Fest Announces Slate

The Edinburgh International Film Festival announced its programming for its 62nd edition this week. This year the Festival, which runs from 18 - 29 June, will host fifteen World premieres including the previously announced Opening Night Gala, John Maybury's "The Edge of Love," while the Closing Night Gala will be the World premiere of "Faithheart," a comedy by Vito Rocco. The Festival will showcase 142 feature-length films from 29 countries, including 15 World premieres. Highlights include new Pixar release "Wall-E" screening as the Family Gala; Shane Meadows' "Somers Town" and Duane Hopkins' "Better Things" both in the British Gala section; Brad Anderson's "Transsiberian" and Isabel Coixet's "Elegy" both screening in the Gala section. The festival runs June 18-29, 2007. [Peter Knegt]

iW NEWS | Lionsgate To Release "W"

Lionsgate has announced that it has acquired all North American distribution rights to Oliver Stone's anticipated George W. Bush biopic, "W." Lionsgate will also distribute the film in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand. "W" stars Josh Brolin as the current president, Elizabeth Banks as his wife Laura, James Cromwell and Ellen Burstyn as his parents and former first couple, Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice, Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, Scott Glenn as Donald Rumsfeld and Ioan Gruffud as Tony Blair. The film begins production on May 12, 2008 in Louisiana, and Lionsgate will released the film on October 17, 2008, just a few weeks before the presidential election. "The impact of George W. Bush's presidency will be felt for many years to come," said Oliver Stone in a statement." Despite a meteoric, almost illogical rise to power, and a tremendous influence on the world, we don't really know much about Mr. Bush beyond the controlled images we've been allowed to see on TV. This movie's taking a bold stab at looking behind that curtain. I'm real pleased that Lionsgate has the independence necessary to bring this provocative story to an American audience." [Peter Knegt]

iW NEWS | Participant Media and Pangea Day Announce Winners

Participant Media, as part of its involvement with Pangea Day, a global event showcasing short films from around the world on May 10, 2008, has announced the five films whose filmmakers will receive $5,000 grants in the "Outstanding Filmmakers Awards Program." One winner from each continent was announced at a filmmakers retreat in Santa Monica Thursday night: From Africa, Dara Kell and Christopher Nizza's "Dear Mandela;" from Asia/Australia, Zeina Aboul Hosn's "I Remember Lebanon;" from Europe, Saleyha Ashan's "My Mother's Daughter;" from North America, Ari Kushnir's "Moving Windmills;" from South America, Jaoquin Baldwin's "Papiroflexia." In addition, Participant is sponsoring the "Filmmaker Development Grant Program," in which all 34 filmmakers whose films will be broadcast on television and/or posted on the Pangea Day website are eligible to submit a treatment for a feature film or documentary. These filmmakers will also compete for the grand prize of $20,000 to continue the development of the treatment and a non-binding first look deal with Participant for the treatment. [Peter Knegt]

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REUTERS | Canadian Finances Film Over Internet

Aspiring Canadian filmmaker Casey Walker launched a website earlier this year to raise C$1 million to finance his film "Free for all.. But you." He's doing so by selling frames of his film over the Internet for C$10 a piece. And as Reuters reports, investors will in return receive a credit in his movie, advertising rights on his site and a cut of the profits if the film makes money. So far Walker has raised C$170,000.

iW NEWS | Costantin Films Sets "Pandorum"

Costantin FIlm and Impact Pictures announced that Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster are in final negotiations to join "Pandorum," a science-fiction thriller set aboard an "abandoned pioneer space vessel." The film, to be directed by Christian Alvart will be financed by Constatin under its joint venture deal with Impact, and will be released in North America by Overture Films. Summit Entertainment is handling foreign sales for Constantin Film and will introduce the project to buyers at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival. [Peter Knegt]

iW NEWS | Golden Trailer Awards Announced

Thursday night at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, the 9th Annual Golden Trailer Awards were handed out in a ceremony hosted by comedian Sinbad. The upcoming "The Dark Knight" won best action trailer, while "Iron Man" won the best overall for summer 2008. "In Bruges" was named the most original, while "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" won for best music and best voice-over, respectively. "No Country For Old Men" was awarded the best dramatic trailer, "Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden?" best documentary, and "Day Night Day Night" for best independent. The awards will be televised on May 26, 2008 on MyNetworkTV, which will include the winner of the publicly voted "trailer of the year." All other winners were deciphered by a jury that included Joss Whedon, Jonathan D. Krane, Morgan Spurlock, Eli Roth, Gary Meyet and Claudia Puig. [Peter Knegt]

iW NEWS | Warner Bros. Shuts Picturehouse and Warner Independent

Warner Bros. President and COO Alan Horn has announced the closure of studio specialty divisions Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures today. The news follows the recent move to severely scale back New Line Cinema and incorporate it into the WB studio apparatus, cutting hundreds of jobs at the company. "With New Line now a key part of Warner Bros., we're able to handle films across the entire spectrum of genres and budgets without overlapping production, marketing and distribution infrastructures, Horn said, continuing, "We're confident that the spirit of independent filmmaking and the opportunity to find and give a voice to new talent will continue to have a presence at Warner Bros." The complete press release from Warner Bros. is available now via indieWIRE Insider. [Eugene Hernandez]

iW NEWS | Palm Pictures Croons to "Patti Smith"

North American rights to photographer Steven Sebring's directorial debut, "Patti Smith: Dream of Life," which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival have been acquired by Palm Pictures. The deal, which encompasses North American theatrical, non-theatrical and home video and VOD distribution rights, was announced by Jan Korbelin, managing partner of Palm Pictures. The agreement was negotiated by Pierre Menahem, on behalf of Celluloid Dreams. Palm is currently planning a late summer 2008 theatrical release, followed by the DVD release in the early 2009. The doc is a portrait of poet, artist, punk pioneer and activist Patti Smith. "Palm Pictures has long been dedicated to bringing audiences the best in music films." commented Korbelin in a statement. "Patti Smith is a cultural pioneer whose energy and powerful vision redefined the world of music." [Brian Brooks]

iW NEWS | Oberhausen Shorts Fest Announces Winners

The 54th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen was held May 1-6, 2008 in Oberhausen, Germany, and handed out awards Tuesday night at the Lichtburg Filmpalast. The Grand Prize of the City of Oberhausen, handed out by the international jury and worth 7,500 euros, went to Australian Dennis Tupicoff's "Chainsaw," for "its masterful synthesis of social commentary, formal experimentation, and its exploration of bareback riding both within the rodeo arena and beyond." The two Principal Prizes, worth 3,500 euros each, went to Romanian Radu Jude's "Alexandra" and Russian Alina Rudnitskaya's "Kak stat stervoi" ("Vixen Academy"). The Jury of the Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia gave its prize for regional work to Belgian director Alexia Bonta's "Parlez-moi d'amou" ("Tell Me About Love"), while the FIPRESCI Prize (International Critic's Prize) went to Russian Pavel Medvedev's "Nezrimoe" ("The Unseen"). [Peter Knegt]

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iW NEWS | Cinema Guild Takes "Myths"

The Cinema Guild announced its acquisition of the U.S. distribution rights to Margaret Brown's second feature film, "The Order of Myths." "Myths," a documentary which looks at race in America through the Mardi Gras celebration in Mobile, Alabama, will open in New York and Los Angeles in July and August, followed by a national release. "With 'The Order of Myths,' Margaret has made an incredibly engaging film, a beautifully-composed, thoughtful investigation into our nation's history and its lingering effect on one community," said Ryan Krivoshey, Director of Distrubution for The Cinema Guild. [Peter Knegt]