CANNES ‘08 | Guerrilla Film: “Che”

"(We are) trying to give you a sense of what it was like to hang out with this person," Steven Soderbergh explained today, talking about his striking new two-part film, "Che". Elaborating, he noted, "We came to the current version of the movie backwards. To understand why [Che Guevara] thought they could win in Bolivia, you had to see [what happened] in Cuba." The unconventional biography has already provoked a critical debate, some challenging Soderbergh and writer Peter Buchman's decision to avoid what they called today the typical "movie moments" found in most filmed biographies. Probed about the move during today's press conference in Cannes, Soderbergh defended, "I find it hilarious that some of the stuff being written about movies is how conventional they are, and then you have people upset that they are conventional." As for the distribution challenges inherent in balancing a more than four hour, two-part film, Soderbergh said that his ideal release plan would employ a sort of roadshow approach. He elaborated today that he would like the film to open in a town for a week as one movie with no credits and a printed program. And then it would be split up into two films for the rest of its run in the theater. He said, "To me that would be an event, that would be something fun."