CANNES '08 BIZ DAILY | Reliance Talks Big Numbers, Weinsteins Acquire "Lake" & Make Asian TV Deal, GreeneStreet Takes "Long Time," The Argentine Pavilion, and More

Continuing coverage of the Marche du Film in Cannes, indieWIRE reports on the latest deals and news from the Croisette. India-based media company Reliance Big Entertainment commits to a $1 billion slate, the Weinsteins acquired "Eden Lake," and inked a pan-Asian deal with TV network STAR, Greenstreet nabs the international rights to "Long Time Gone," Flip Video puts on a shorts competition at Cannes, the Argentina Pavilion celebrates a full slate at the Festival, and more.
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NY NY | Forum Screens Godard, BAM Screens Lachman, Doxita Screens Shorts

This week, New Yorkers in the film industry fled the city like rats from a sinking ship to attend the Cannes Film Festival. Those of us unlucky enough to be left behind at least had ample distraction from our jealousy, in the form of BAM's tribute to ace cinematographer Ed Lachman and Lachman's bevvy of oddball guests (Larry Kramer, William Schrader and David Byrne among them), as well as the Doxita festival of short docs, and Film Forum's retrospective of Godard's 60s. Anyway, supposedly it's raining in Cannes.
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CANNES '08 DISPATCH | Serious, Silly Intersect In First 24 Hours of 61st Cannes Festival

While attendees sat inside the Cannes Film Festival's Debussy theater on Wednesday watching the morning press screening of Fernando Meirelles' harrowing "Blindness," nearby on the Croisette dozens of costumed pandas danced with Jack Black to hype the animated festival entry, "Kung Fu Panda." Like the abandoned characters depicted in the horrific world of "Blindness," the French locals wearing the 100 lb. bear costumes yesterday had to be carefully escorted from the Carlton Beach pier because they were unable to see anything. Such was the scene during the first twenty-four hours of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, an event comprised of serious films for cinephiles and PR stunts aimed at movie industry insiders and thousands of attending journalists.
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CANNES '08 BIZ DAILY | Update: Hyde Park Million Dollar Asian Fund; Celluloid Follows "Prophet," MTV Wants Their Elephant Eye, Canadians All Business, and More

Continuing coverage of the Marche du Film in Cannes, indieWIRE reports on the latest deals and news from the Croisette. Hyde Park hypes a multi-million dollar fund for Singapore productions, MTV acquires "Planet B-Boy from Elephant Eye, Celluloid Dreams begins pre-sales of Jacques Audiard's latest, Jada Pinkett- Smith brings her directorial debut to Cannes, Origin Pictures will launch in June, a look at the Canadian pavillion, and more.
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CANNES '08 BIZ DAILY | IFC Takes Two, Salt Launches, Fortissimo Busy, Delpy Pre-Sales, Ukranian Pavilion, and More

Continuing coverage of the Marche du Film in Cannes, indieWIRE reports on the latest deals and news from the Croisette. IFC has acquired a pair of Cannes festival entries, Arnaud Desplechin's "A Christmas Tale" and Josh Safdie's "The Pleasure of Being Robbed." Meanwhile, Fortissimo has had a busy round of sales leading up to the festival, while Salt launches for its first market after being re-branded. Finally, Julie Delpy inks pre-sales for her passion project, a look at the Ukranian pavillion, and more.
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indieWIRE PRODUCTION REPORT | "Gigantic," "Peter and Vandy," "Phantomschmerz," "The Seminar with Robert McKee," and "You Won't Miss Me."

[EDITOR'S NOTE: indieWIRE's monthly production report looks at independent films in various stages of production. If you'd like to tell us about a film in production for future columns, please contact us.] In March's edition of indieWIRE's production column, Jason Guerrasio profiles five new films in various stages of production. This month's group includes Matt Aselton's "Gigantic," Jay DiPietro's "Peter and Vandy," Matthias Emcke's "Phantomschmerz," Bradley Glenn's "The Seminar with Robert McKee" and Ry Russo-Young's "You Won't Miss Me"
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CANNES '08 DISPATCH | Rain or Shine? Cannes Market Opens Amidst Changing Forecast

Rainy skies and industry-wide gloom-and-doom hover over this year's Cannes, but the nearly 11,000 registrants attending this year's festival and Market can't all be depressed. With thousands of new films on offer, from auteur visions to star-driven genre pictures, and hundreds of distributors in need of product, the supply-and-demand business of Cannes must go on. Along the Cote d'Azur Tuesday, in fact, the dreary weather finally broke to reveal sunny skies.
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CANNES '08 BIZ DAILY | Cannes Market Kickoff, Fortissimo Gets Killer Film, AmPav Turns 20, and More

In the first of a series of daily dispatches focusing on the business side of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival: indieWIRE talks to Marche du Film director Jerome Paillard; Fortissimo acquires the rights to "Gigantic;" TFI is set to show some of Spike Lee's "Miracle at St. Anna," Arthouse Films acquires "Louise Bourgeois, Echo Bridge debuts a new slate, and the American Pavilion celebrates twenty years.
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DISPATCH FROM KOREA | Jeonju Fest: Eyeing Korean Film, and Some Major Talent

This year's Jeonju International Film Festival, the 9th, boasted ten world premieres of features and feature-length documentaries. There was a retrospective dedicated to Bela Tarr, and another to Alexander Kluge. There were works by James Benning and Nina Menkes and sidebars dedicated to Vietnamese and Central Asian cinema. But with the exception of a brief revisit to Kluge's 1965 debut, "Yesterday Girl" (which still seems remarkable, more than four decades on), it was the Korean films that I chose to focus upon. It only made sense, having come so far to South Korea...
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REVIEW | Book Smart: Joachim Trier's "Reprise"

[An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] Norwegian Joachim Trier directs his debut feature, "Reprise," with such assured kineticism that it's only a matter of time before Hollywood gets his hands on him and turns him into an anonymous hack. That's not merely cynicism or a judgment call on Trier's foregrounded visual flair, which, unlike most other flashy films pitched at the speed of youth, actually contains more true invention than gimmick; it's just a sad fact of a ravenous industry that subsumes European directors the same way it snatches up the new foreign, art-house ingenue and plunks her down as the latest Bond girl--it only sees the surface sheen. Trier's considerable talents will be easy to exploit: "Reprise" courses on the amiable full-tilt thrill of first-time filmmaking. And though the film perhaps tries a mite too hard to ingratiate itself to the viewer (rarely does it leave an emotion not underlined), its rhythms are well matched to its two main characters' restless pursuits for niche fame and artistic fulfillment.
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REVIEW | Father Figurines: Christopher Zalla's "Sangre de mi sangre"

[An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] If writer-director Christopher Zalla's intent in "Sangre de mi sangre" was to sympathetically and realistically depict the plight of impoverished Mexican illegal immigrants trying desperately to eke out anonymous existences in urban U.S. areas, why does he litter his workmanlike debut film with characters directly out of Hispanic-cliche central casting? Though it's infinitely better than last year's execrable "Trade" (the worst movie...ever?), Zalla's film similarly traffics in south-of-the-border stereotypes, opening, of course, with the usual touristy-dangerous shots of Mexico, set to "indigenous" rhythms, which only prove to further distance the viewer from what should be a more intimate, humane experience.
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NEWFEST '08 | 20th Anniversary Marked With 250 Films, New Additions

The New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Film Festival (NewFest) announced the program of films and events for its 20th annual edition. The line-up features nearly 250 films, representing over 30 countries, and including 49 New York Premieres, 14 U.S. Premieres and 8 World Premieres. "Each year we try to make NewFest bigger and better than the last one," Basil Tsiokos, Artistic Director of NewFest in a statement. Among the new additions is NewDraft Screenplay Competition & Reading Series, which is discovering and fostering LGBT features screenwriters and their screenplays.
[ read more in On The Scene ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Festival News, Lead Story, Lineups, Queer Cinema ]

Sign of the Times? Insiders React To Picturehouse, Warner Indie Closures

The tragedy was in plain sight, but nobody thought it would hit this hard. As word spread today that Warner Bros. planned to close its specialty divisions Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures, shifting all projects currently in development to the larger studio and its recently absorbed subdivision New Line, a mournful tone took hold of the independent film industry. "It is a sad day when any film company, large or small, bites the dust," said President of THINKfilm Mark Urman. "One had heard and one had even considered that this was a possible scenario. It's still surprising when you see it in print."
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DISPATCH FROM SAN FRANCISCO | America's Oldest Fest Takes on the Future

"Last year we celebrated our past, but tonight we begin our future," commented San Francisco Film Society Executive Director Graham Leggat in his opening night remarks of the 51st San Francisco International Film Festival. Leggat was referring to the Film Society's plans to expand its identity into a more far-reaching and consistently present local force in terms of education outreach and year-round exhibition. But the promises, and more pointedly, the potential perils of what lies ahead in the larger scheme of things, seemed to be on many filmmakers' minds as well.
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BIZ | Cablevision Stretches its Rainbow to Sundance Channel

Rainbow Media announced today a plan to purchase the Sundance Channel for $496 million. Confirming reports that the network was seeking a buyer and Rainbow Media was the lead contender, the deal finds Rainbow Media Holdings, LLC, a programming subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation, buying the channel from its current owners NBC Universal, CBS, Showtime Networks and Robert Redford. The Sundance founder, meanwhile, will continue his role as the network's creative director, in addition to recieving just under $50 million from the deal, with the rest of the money divided up between the other owners.
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CineVegas '08 | "Rocker," "Howard" and Debuts Crown 10th CineVegas Fest

The world premiere of Peter Cattaneo's "The Rocker," starring Rainn Wilson as a failed drunmmer who joins his nephew's high school band, will open the 10th annual CineVegas Film Festival, taking place in Las Vegas June 12 - 21. Among this year's debuts are seven world premieres the festival has packaged in its "Jackpot Premieres" section (listed below) in addition to the festival's documentary section (including three world debuts), a sidebar on Mexican films and directors as well as high profile work that have been making the festival rounds and more. Closing the festival is Sean McGinly's "The Great Buck Howard," starring John Malkovich, Colin Hanks, Emily Blunt and Tom Hanks.
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REVIEW | Imagine That: Tarsem Singh's "The Fall"

[An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] Playwright John Guare must have had Indian director Tarsem Singh (or as he's often simply known, Tarsem) in mind when he wrote about the increasing exteriorization of the term "imaginative": "Why has 'imagination' become a synonym for style?" Singh makes films that inspire a bevy of similarly misused adjectives: "sumptuous," "surreal," "eye-popping," "hallucinatory." He specializes in audacious compositions, shoots in exotic locales, fits his actors in unique costumes that appear simultaneously futuristic and old-fashioned, and in only two features, including the new and fifteen years in the making "The Fall," has shown a predilection for stories about, yes, "the power of the imagination."
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LAFF '08 | Universal Pics "Wanted and "Hellboy II" Bookend Los Angeles Fest in June

Universal Pictures' "Wanted" by Timur Bekmambetov will open the 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival June 19 in Westwood, organizers announced Tuesday. Based upon Mark Millar's graphic novel series the film tells the story of one apathetic nobody's transformation into an unparalleled enforcer of justice. Closing the festival, which is organized by Film Independent, is writer/director Guillermo del Toro's "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" also from Universal on June 29. Sundance 2008 doc "Anvil! The Story of Anvil" will screen as the Centerpiece June 26 at the Ford Amphitheater in a program that will include live musical performances and "special guests." "I am proud of the festival's on-going growth within the community, and pleased that we continue to attract world-class filmmakers like Guillermo Del Toro and Timur Bekmambetov," said festival director Rich Raddon in a statement. "The Los Angeles Film Festival celebrates the best in filmmaking as well as discovering new voices from around the world."
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iW BOT | Chart-Topping 'Mister Lonely' Makes Harmony Korine the Comeback Kid

"Mister Lonely," filmmaker Harmony Korine's sweet-natured drama about two lovelorn celebrity impersonators, rocketed past all art-house releases with a debut, per-screen average of $16,769 at New York's IFC Center. "Son of Rambow," British filmmaker Garth Jennings' coming- of-age comedy for Paramount Vantage, also debuted in the iWBOT top five, which ranks films by per-screen average, with $53,778 in weekend box office from five runs in New York and Los Angeles. Rounding out the iWBOT Top Five, were "Redbelt," director David Mamet's fight drama for Sony Pictures Classics, "Viva," director Anna Biller's sexploitation drama for Vagrant Films Releasing and Samuel Goldwyn's "Roman de Gare," a thriller from French master Claude Lelouch.
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TRIBECA '08 | Catching up on 20 Interviews, Critics Notebooks Dispatches and More from the Festival

The 2008 Tribeca Film Festival came to a close over the weekend in New York City and indieWIRE is wrapping up its coverage from the 12-day event. Our festival dispatches, interviews, critics notebooks amounted to twenty related articles on this year's festival, which took place April 23 - May 4 in addition to iPOP photos and buzz items. We invite you to check out iW's coverage from Tribeca.
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indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Redbelt" Director David Mamet

Well, you can't accuse David Mamet of slacking off. That "Redbelt," his new martial arts film, hits the screen May 2, while "November," a hilarious political broadside, plays to packed houses on Broadway highlights the man's amazing productivity. In the theatre, Mamet has created, of course, his own dramatic idiom, a tough-guy vernacular of fractured speech and pauses which masks male insecurity, while skewering venality and the decline of values. With his 1988 "House of Games" he annexed a second career directing films, often centered on con men and tricksters. The hyper-busy Mamet has also written numerous screenplays. Add to that essays, novels and non-fiction books, the TV series, "The Unit." Plus he's got a family and a life.
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DOC COLUMN | Arts Engine Celebrates 10 Years

Ten years can either be a blip or an eternity depending on your perspective. The year 1997 saw President Bill Clinton inaugurated for his second term, James Cameron's "Titantic" was the top movie and a book about a young wizard named Harry Potter first hit shelves. It was before the Internet stock bust and "information superhighway" was still a promise. The world of documentary in the U.S. was one of foundation funding, public television broadcast and educational distribution with precious few docs breaking into any kind of commercial success. It was in that entrenched world that then-new filmmakers Katy Chevigny and Julia Pimsleur felt like they had little opportunity.
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TRIBECA '08 | "Let the Right One In" and "Pray the Devil" Among Top Tribeca Fest Winners

Swedish director Tomas Alfredson's "Let the Right One In" (Lat den ratte komma in), recently acquired by Magnolia Pictures' genre label Magnet, won the Founders Award for Best Narative Feature tonight at the Tribeca Film Festival's awards event held at the Target-Tribeca Filmmaker Lounge in downtown New York City. The prize includes $25,000 in cash and an art award entitled, "Maternal Nocture: Clearing Storm" created by Stephen Hannock. Director Gini Reticker's "Pray the Devil Back to Hell" won best documentary feature, also receiving $25,000 and a piece of art called "Liza Minnelli" by Timothy White.
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DISPATCH FROM MIAMI | Miami Gay Fest Tosses on the Go-Go Boots and Throws a Bash

It's hard to believe that it's only the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival's 10th anniversary. In only a decade, it has established itself as the first major stop on the annual U.S. gay and lesbian festival circuit. Filmmakers, sponsors and audiences alike have jumped at the invitation to spend time amongst Miami's famed art deco facades, shirtless rollerbladers, and endless parade of girls pulling at their short skirts and falling over their heels. It's a distinctly Miami affair.
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TRIBECA CRITICS NOTEBOOK 3 | Some Gems at TFF: "Bitter & Twisted," "Bart Got a Room," "Days in Sintra"

Now that I have seen dozens and dozens of films in this 7th Tribeca Film Festival, I want to correct myself. I was wrong in my first report. Tribeca is unique, and occupies a certain niche in New York that belongs to it alone. It is neither film festival nor film market. It is closer to Las Vegas's Showest, or Orlando's Show East, which are more mainstream in their focus than, say, artier events like the New York Film Festival, although it is eclectic enough to include "high art" movies, too.
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REVIEW | Changes: Lucia Puenzo's "XXY"

[An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] Though it's as sullen and damp-grey as its morose 15-year-old protagonist, Argentinean filmmaker Lucia Puenzo's directorial debut "XXY" doesn't really get inside the mind of young Alex as much as watch her with an awkward combination of fascination and empathy. It's both a success and a failing on the new filmmaker's part; her intention in making "XXY," to humanely depict a character who might in other films or literature be relegated to oddball supporting status, is undoubtedly noble. Yet by focusing almost exclusively on Alex's differences (she was born with both female and male genitalia), rather than offering other facets of her life for consideration, the film slightly shortchanges what could have been a beautifully full portrait of a teenager going through radical inner and outer turmoil.
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indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Mister Lonely" Director Harmony Korine

Much time has passed since Larry Clark discovered Harmony Korine skateboarding in Washington Square Park and hired him to write "Kids." In its wake, Korine exploded into the mainstream as a radical artist with a bad boy streak. His first two features, "Gummo" and the Dogme '95 entry "Julian Donkey-boy," divided critics and furthered his reputation as a fiercely independent figure. Just when his world seemed to be moving too fast, Korine left New York City for his native home in Nashville, got married and made a new movie to reflect his comparatively happier state of mind.
[ read more in People ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Interviews, Lead Story ]

iW BOT | Chinese Dam documentary "Up the Yangtze" Floods NY; Abu Ghraib film "Standard Operating Procedure" Fails to Catch Fire

With the Tribeca Film Festival underway at cross-town venues, "Up the Yangtze," the Zeitgeist Films documentary about China's Three Gorges Dam and its destructive impact, led all specialty films with a standout $15,851 in earnings at New York's IFC Center. Director Yung Chang's first feature-length documentary also became 2008's top non-fiction debut; out-performing Sony Pictures Classics' highly anticipated "Standard Operating Procedure," veteran filmmaker Errol Morris' documentary about the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. Other new releases in the iWBOT top five, which ranks by per-screen average, included "Roman de Gare," French master filmmaker Claude Lelouch's thriller for Samuel Goldwyn Films; and ThinkFilm's "Then She Found Me," actress Helen Hunt's directing debut. Returning to the iWBOT for the third straight week was Overture Films' "The Visitor," featuring Richard Jenkins as a middle-aged professor whose life changes after helping an illegal immigrant. "Holly," a drama about child prostitution from Priority Films and Slowhand Cinema Releasing, took advantage of corporate sponsorship from business information provider LexisNexis and advance group sales to earn $15,687 at New York's Quad Cinema.
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TRIBECA CRITICS NOTEBOOK 2 | Docs: Topical or Art? Or Both? The Highs and Lows

EDITOR'S NOTE: In the second of three critics notebooks, New York-based film critic Howard Feinstein takes a look at some of the documentary offerings at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. Feinstein, a former editor at the Village Voice and a current programmer at the Sarajevo Film Festival, also offers up some opinion on presenting docs as vehicles for discussion vs. their worthiness as art.
[ read more in On The Scene ]   [ 1 comments ]   [ filed under Festival Dispatches, Lead Story, New York ]

Nonfiction Campaign: Can Errol Morris's "Standard Operating Procedure" Break the Political Doc Deadlock?

Election years are typically strong for political documentaries. Capitalizing on citizens' hunger for issues that the mainstream media is either ignoring or mishandling, audiences flock to theaters to get a deeper sense of what's going on in the world. At least that was the thinking in 2004, with the blockbuster sales of "Fahrenheit 9/11" and also given the multi-million-dollar grosses of "The Fog of War," "Control Room," "Super Size Me," and "The Corporation." Even "Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry" wasn't swift-boated in theaters, earning more than $614,000.
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