Film Festival Today

Viva French Cinema

admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:55:01 +0000

THE UNTOUCHABLES (France)

New Yorkers have the opportunity to fall madly in love with French cinema (again) as the 17^th edition of the annual Rendez-Vous with French Cinema festival will take place for 10 days starting March 1. Hosted by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Unifrance Films, the event will showcase more than 24 French films, premiering for the first time in New York. The program includes the latest gems from such beloved auteurs as André Téchiné, Benoit Jacquot, and Alain Cavalier, as well as the introduction of the newest generation of French film artists. Festivities begin with the Opening Night film, THE UNTOUCHABLES by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano. The film has been a phenomenon in France, shattering box-office records to become the second most successful film of all time, THE UNTOUCHABLES tells the true story of the unlikely friendship between a handicapped white millionaire (François Cluzet) and his unconventional Senegalese caretaker (breakout star Omar Sy). The film will be released by The Weinstein Company later this year.

Closing the event on March 11 is the premiere of DELICACY (La Délicatesse) by the team of David and Stéphane Foenkinos. French superstar Audrey Tautou (AMELIE) returns to the big screen with this touching portrait of a woman trying to put her life back together after the loss of her husband. In this charming adult fable, she embarks on an unexpected affair with a co-worker. The film will be released later this year by Cohen Media Group. Other highlights of the program include a retrospective screening of one of the most beloved French films of all time, CHILDREN OF PARADISE (1943) by Marcel Carné, and a collaboration with digital distributor Emerging Pictures, which will showcase a group of films by emerging French filmmakers including Delphine Gleize’s MOON CHILD, Rabah Ameur-Zaïméche’s SMUGGLERS’ SONGS, Alain Cavalier’s PATER and Laurent Achard’s THE LAST SCREENING, with video-delivered question and answer sessions with the directors. Also look for French superstars Daniel Auteuil in THE WELL-DIGGER’S DAUGHTER and Mathieu Amalric in THE SCREEN ILLUSION. Screenings will take place all over New York including the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the IFC Center and the Brooklyn Academy Of Music. For more information on the full program, visit: www.rendezvouswithfrenchcinema.com or www.filmlinc.com

Dreamworks Deal With China

admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:51:21 +0000

Dreamworks Animation has agreed to form a joint venture with China Media Capital to establish a China-focused family entertainment company. Oriental DreamWorks will develop original Chinese animated and live-action content for distribution both within China and around the world. Its first film should be released in 2016. Live entertainment, theme parks, games and consumer products are also planned. DreamWorks Animation has enjoyed a strong track record at the Chinese box office, led by its blockbuster KUNG FU PANDA franchise. The original KUNG FU PANDA was the #1 animated film upon its release in China in 2008 and last year, KUNG FU PANDA 2 became the highest-grossing animated film of all time in the region, grossing approximately $100 million. “When you look out five to seven years from now, China will be the number one media market in the world ,” Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg was quoted in the LA Times. “It’s a huge opportunity for us.” The joint venture plans to launch business operations in Shanghai later this year.

Adopt Films Picks Up Another Berlin Film

admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:00:54 +0000

Adopt Films, the new New York City-based distribution shingle which has already secured deals for Berlin International Film Festival award winners CAESAR MUST DIE and BARBARA, has announced its acquisition of all U.S. rights to Ursula Meier’s SISTER, which world premiered in competition in Berlin last week. SISTERS stars Léa Seydoux and Kacey Mottet Klein as siblings struggling for survival amid the high-end ski resorts of the Swiss Alps. It was written was directed by Meier, who co-wrote the original screenplay with Antoine Jaccoud. “Few directors can effectively and effortlessly tell such an intimate story on such a vast and epic visual canvas,” Adopt’s Jeff Lipsky said of the film. This is a film that sends chills down your spine.” Adopt is planning a late 2012 theatrical release.

Tribeca Film Institute Expands Education Initiatives

admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:00:28 +0000

The Tribeca Film Institute has announced the expansion of its Tribeca Teaches program to Los Angeles, with an after-school digital storytelling program at Lennox Middle School. The program, presented in partnership with California non-profit Southern California Crossroads, is TFI’s first pilot outside of New York City and will focus on the medium of video games to guide a bilingual, storytelling curriculum to students. Tribeca Teaches Los Angeles joins TFI’s established youth programs in New York, which are expected to serve more than 15,000 students in 2012. Beginning this month, Tribeca Teaches Los Angeles will partner experienced filmmakers with teachers, community activists and parents to help students script their own stories using the familiar narrative of video games. At the same time, in its New York City base, Tribeca Teaches will continue working in schools in all five of the city’s boroughs. TFI also announced a new season of the Tribeca Youth Screening Series which will expand its programming at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival to bring a select number of festival films to students in all five boroughs of New York City. The Youth Screening Series offers free screenings to thousands of New York City public school students throughout the year with the aim of developing critical viewing skills. A new partnership with the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and the Women and Girls Lead campaign will offer free screenings of a series of ITVS documentary films that examine and celebrate African American women’s leadership, empowerment and social justice.

Kodak To Break Ties With Academy Awards

admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:00:22 +0000

One of the more shocking news stories of the past few months was the bankruptcy filing by Kodak, one of the industry’s pioneers that has left studios out millions and the landlord for the Oscar theater in the market for a new sponsor. Since the Academy Awards moved to the Kodak Theater at Hollywood & Highland a decade ago, the 131-year-old company’s name has been synonymous with the Academy Awards. That could soon change. Last week, Kodak asked a U.S. bankruptcy court judge to allow it to get out of its $75 million naming rights deal with the real estate company behind the complex. If Kodak gets approval to withdraw its sponsorship, CIM Group, the developer of the mall, is free to seek another corporate sponsor, but the Motion Picture Academy’s board of governors can veto the choice. The Academy’s Board of Governors is weighing a move to a new venue, which would be a seismic shift in Los Angeles politics and the continued economic recovery of the once-blighted Hollywood district.

Oscars May Move To Earlier Date

admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 05:30:14 +0000

The Oscars, the final and penultimate awards show of this endless awards season, takes place this Sunday. However, word comes from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that it may announce a new date for the ceremony as early as next month. There has been pressure on the Academy to shorten the awards season and also to position the Oscars well before the various guild award shows and the Golden Globes, its biggest television competitor. With the Academy moving to an online voting system next year that will markedly speed up the process of sending out and collecting ballots, there seems to be a move to bring the final awards ceremony to either late January or early February. That would create a seismic shift in the television schedule for ABC, which has the US rights to the telecast, and for distributors with films in the running. It would also greatly cut down on the advertising revenue that trade publications and online film and entertainment websites currently count on for promotion of films, actors and other technicians for nominations and ultimate wins. Stay tuned….

Berlin’s Golden Bear

admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:34:09 +0000

It was certainly not a foregone conclusion that the docudrama CAESAR MUST DIE, the latest film from veteran Italian directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, would be a big hit at the recently concluded Berlin International Film Festival. Berlin often has showcased new, sometimes decidedly weak, films from European filmmakers whose glory has long since passed. However, in this case, the film about prisoners performing Shakespeare impressed the jury enough to win it the Golden Bear, the Festival’s highest honor. Acknowledged for their 1980s and 1990s hits PADRE PADRONE, THE NIGHT OF SAN LORENZO, KAOS and GOOD MORNING BABYLON, the Tavianis, both in their mid-80s, have long been out of favor.

CAESAR MUST DIE (Italy)

CAESAR MUST DIE is their most satisfying work since their heyday nearly 25 years ago. It takes a simple idea – following the preparations for a stage performance of Shakespeare’s JULIUS CAESAR by a group of inmates at the Rebibbia maximum security prison outside of Rome – from which it mines an impressive variety of riches. Beginning with the end of the triumphant performance, and then flashing back to the start of casting and rehearsals, the film, in a mere 76 minutes, explores the complex relationship between life and art. The actors, hard-boiled Mafiosi types serving life sentences for murder or drug crimes, are extremely candid in their comments on how the plays feels relevant to their own experiences of loyalty, rivalry, violence, loss and redemption. While some of the action is clearly scripted, the film offers an intriguing mix of reality and artifice, which operates on several levels at once, always opening up new strands of meaning and relevance.

It is no misstep that the play’s heart of betrayal and power struggles is made to reflect not only on the dynamics of the prison population but on contemporary Italian politics. As the age of Berlusconi drifts into history and a more austere Italy must face up to its internal corruption and lack of forward-thinking energy, the film offers a rich tapestry in keeping with the Tavianis’ previous themes of failed idealism, communal action and the value of a commitment to art and heritage. As one inmate confides in a revelatory moment after returning to his routine prison existence after the exhilaration of performing in the play, “Ever since I discovered art, this cell has truly become a prison.” In this sense, art not only elevates but also decimates, which is very much a subtext of all the Taviani Brothers’ great films, of which this latest deserves an honored place.

Return Of Jeff Lipsky

admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:32:10 +0000

Adopt Films, the new distribution shingle co-headed by former October Films founder Jeff Lipsky, had a veritable shopping spree at the recently concluded Berlin International Film Festival, where the newbie company, co-managed with Tim Grady, picked up U.S. rights to some of the Festival’s top award winners. The company announced pickups of CAESAR MUST DIE, the prison-set docudrama of inmates performing Shakespeare by Italian veterans Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, which was awarded the Berlin Golden Bear for Best Picture; as well as the rights to BARBARA, which won for its director, German wunderkind Christian Petzold, the Silver Bear as Best Director. Set in East Berlin in 1980, BARBARA is the riveting and compassionate story of a pediatric surgeon, whose desire to emigrate to the west has banished her to a small country hospital far from freedom. German actress Nina Hoss plays the lead role, marking her fifth collaboration with writer-director Petzold. Adopt Films plans to release both films at the end of 2012 and will mount an Academy Award campaign for the directors and their lead actors. The first release for the new company, THE BALLAD OF GENESIS AND LADY JAYE, a music-and-art documentary with a subversive twist that premiered at last year’s Berlin Film Festival, will make its U.S. bow on March 8^th. Lipsky took a very non-traditional route in the past 15 years, deciding to leave the distribution business to direct four well received feature films. However, in the past year, he saw that there were opportunities for a new distribution shingle to thrive in the art market. While he has not given up on his filmmaking career, clearly his distribution business is taking center stage at the moment. Good luck, Jeff…..

I, Claudius: 35th Anniversary Edition DVD

valexander — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 01:03:08 +0000

I was deep into watching a borrowed DVD of I, Claudius when I saw that Acorn Media Group was releasing a new re-mastered edition: I, Claudius: 35th Anniversary Edition.

With much delight, I started the series all over again.

The celebrated mini-series was originally broadcast in 1976 on BBC Television. Adapted by Jack Pulman from Robert Graves’s historical novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God, this new edition is far superior to the 2000 DVD I had been watching.

Even though Acorn clearly states that “Due to the age of these programs and the improved resolution that DVD provides, you may notice occasional flaws in the image and audio on this DVD presentation that were beyond our ability to correct from the original materials”, there is a significant, sharper image on I, Claudius: 35th Anniversary Edition. I could not notice any glaring audio problems.

If you are fans of HBO’s ROME (2005) or STARZ’s SPARTACUS (season 2 is currently airing), I, Claudius is historical debauchery with a terrific cast. Since it is a television mini-series, the large cast of characters is expertly fleshed out. Old Claudius (Derek Jacobi), Emperor of Rome, is working on a history of his family. And what a fantastic family it was! Every member of Claudius’s family lived only to lust after power, even if it meant manipulation, deception and murder.

I, Claudius is dominated by Claudius’s grandmother Livia (Siân Phillips), the third wife of Emperor Augustus (Brian Blessed). She is a conniving, merciless enemy to everyone but her son Tiberius (George Baker). But even he is subjected to the iron hand will of his mother. Augustus needs to groom an heir as his successor and has chosen his son-in-law. Livia is furious and brilliantly plots to remove every obstacle – and there are many – that present itself to having her son named emperor. Tiberius does not even want to be emperor.

Livia, (Phillips is mesmerizing) uses murder and blackmail with a chess master’s skill. Phillips is flawless.

Livia is cruelly dismissive of Claudius. He has a terrible stutter, limbs, and drools. He is ignored by everyone as an idiot. He has a front row seat to all that transpires in his highly dysfunctional family. No one considers him a threat.

Derek Jacobi is phenomenal. The role of Claudius is difficult. Not only does Jacobi go from a young man to an old man, he must stutter, limp, and straddle the line between acting the idiot and that of a brilliant observer. We all remember Jacobi in GLADIATOR (2000) and his wonderful, rueful portrayal of Gracchus: “I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob.”

What fun it is seeing a very young John Hurt prancing around as the golden-haired, depraved Caligula and a young Patrick Stewart as Sejanus.

The 5-DVD for I, Claudius: 35th Anniversary Edition is a 668-minute production of the 12 episodes on the first four discs, presented in the original full screen video with English audio and English subtitles, plus a fifth disc full of bonus material.

Acorn has also added several bonus features: Extended original versions of episodes 1 (52 min.) and 2 (52 min.); I, Claudius: A Television Epic, a behind-the-scenes look at the series (74 min.); The Epic That Never Was, a documentary recounting the failed 1937 film adaptation is presented in black & white. Dirk Bogarde hosts a 1967 BBC documentary about the Alexander Korda/Josef von Sternberg 1937 movie of I, Claudius that was eventually abandoned. The piece is well over an hour and intercuts footage from the movie with clips of Robert Graves talking about his book (71 min.); a new Derek Jacobi interview (12 min.); favorite scenes of the cast and director (36 min.); and a booklet with an article by Jennifer Coggins about the series’ historical accuracy and, important in this large cast of characters, an abridged genealogical chart of the emperors from August to Nero.

I, Claudius: 35th Anniversary Edition from Acorn Media Group has a suggested retail price of $59.99. It contains violence, nudity, and sexual content. Select series are available for streaming at Acorn TV at http://acornonline.com/TV .

Member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association: www.bfca.org/ and the Las Vegas Film Critics Society: www.lvfcs.org/

Victoria’s weekly column, “The Devil’s Hammer,” is posted every Monday. http://www.fromthebalcony.com/editorials.php. If you would like to be included on Victoria’s private distribution list for a weekly preview, just email her at masauu@aol.com.

Victoria Alexander lives in Las Vegas, Nevada and answers every email. You can contact Victoria directly at masauu@aol.com.

Taviani Brothers Win Berlin Golden Bear

admin — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:47:32 +0000

One of the great living auteur collaborations in European film hailed another milestone, with Saturday evening’s win for Italy’s Paolo and Vittorio Taviani of the Golden Bear For Best Film at the 62^nd edition of the Berlin International Film Festival. The filmmakers, both in their 80s, were hailed for their prison docu-drama CAESAR MUST DIE, about prisoners in a maximum security prison in Rome who perform Shakespeare’s tragedy JULIUS CAESAR to revelatory results. The filmmakers spent six months following rehearsals for the prison stage production, demonstrating how the universality of Shakespeare’s language helps the actors to understand their roles and immerse themselves in the Bard’s interplay of friendship and betrayal, power, dishonesty and violence. This documentary does not dwell on the crimes these men have committed in their ‘real’ lives; rather, it draws parallels between this classical drama and the world of today, describes the commitment displayed by all those involved and shows how their personal hopes and fears also flow into the performance. Last year’s Golden Bear winner, the Iranian film A SEPARATION, has been one of the big arthouse hits of the year and seems on track to win the Oscar this coming Sunday as Best Foreign Film.

The Hungarian film JUST THE WIND by Bence Fliegauf, about the murder of gypsies in a small rural town and the investigation to uncover the political corruption that allowed it, won the Jury Grand Prize and Silver Bear. The Best Director prize went to local German director Christian Petzold for the fiction film BARBARA, about a doctor in 1980s-era East Germany who tries to defect to the West and suffer isolation and discrimination for her longing for freedom. Rachel Rwanza won Best Actress honors for her role as a child soldier in a war-torn African nation in the Canadian drama REBELLE. Danish actor Mikkel Boe Følsgaard won the Best Actor prize for his role as an unstable monarch in 18^th century Denmark who clashes with a doctor filled with revolutionary zeal and enlightenment in A ROYAL AFFAIR. Many other awards were announced at the gala awards ceremony at the Berlinale Palast, but below are the major jury prizes. We will report on other winners of this year’s Berlinale in future postings.

2012 BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS

GOLDEN BEAR FOR THE BEST FILM

Caesar Must Die (Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, Italy)

JURY GRAND PRIX-SILVER BEAR

Just The Wind (Bence Fliegauf, Hungary)

SILVER BEAR FOR BEST DIRECTOR

Christian Petzold for Barbara (Germany)

SILVER BEAR FOR BEST ACTRESS

Rachel Mwanza in Rebelle (Kim Nguyen, Canada)

SILVER BEAR FOR BEST ACTOR

Mikkel Boe Følsgaard in A Royal Affair (Nikolaj Arcel, Denmark)

SILVER BEAR FOR AN OUTSTANDING ARTISTIC CONTRIBUTION

Lutz Reitemeier (cinematographer for White Deer Plain, China)

SILVER BEAR FOR THE BEST SCRIPT

Nikolaj Arcel, Rasmus Heisterberg for A Royal Affair (Denmark)