TORONTO, Sept. 17 (UPI) — IFC Films says it has acquired The Bleeder, a boxing drama that screened at the Venice and Toronto film festivals.
Directed by Philippe Falardeau, and written by Jeff Feurzeig and Jerry Stahl, the Chuck Wepner biopic stars Liev Schreiber, Elisabeth Moss and Naomi Watts. It will get a North American theatrical release in the spring.
“The Bleeder‘s journey could not have found a better conclusion. I’m thrilled that IFC Films acquired our film. I love the group’s philosophy and during the past days, their passion for The Bleeder was certainly contagious. I look forward to working with them in the near future,” Falardeau said in a statement.
“I am truly thrilled our film has found a home at IFC Films and Showtime. The team at IFC Films is pretty much leading the way in terms of effective and substantive theatrical releases right now,” added Schreiber. “As for Showtime, they’ve become family in the past five years, so to have them be a part of this movie just feels right. Such a great outcome.”
Showtime will be the pay television home for the movie after its theatrical release. The network is also where Schreiber’s series Ray Donovan airs.
Opening and Closing Master of Ceremonies Sonia Bergamasco (Photo courtesy of ASAC Images/La_Biennale di Venezia Cinema)
Film stars and celebrities, who are currently in the Venice Lido for the Venice International Film Festival, have been visiting the Biennale Architettura 2016 (open until November 27th at the Giardini and Arsenale) and expressed great admiration for the display.
Deborah and John Landis have said: “While attending the wonderful Venice Film Festival, we had the good fortune to spend a day at the Biennale Architettura – exciting, inspiring and unmissable.”
Amongst today’s visitors of the Biennale Architettura2016, one could find Pablo Larraín, director of Jackie, one of the films in competition at Venezia 73. Actress Natalie Portman, who plays the title role in Larraín’s latest work, also visited the Exhibition yesterday morning before speaking at the film’s press conference. On the same day, the Festival’s host Sonia Bergamasco also toured the Exhibition in the Giardini and at the Arsenale.
The Biennale Architettura 2016 also welcomed several jury members, such as the presidentof Venezia 73, British director Sam Mendes, as well as others: the director and artist Laurie Anderson, actors Gemma Arterton, Nina Hoss, Chiara Mastroianni and Zhao Wei, writer Giancarlo De Cataldo, directors Joshua Oppenheimer, and the winner of the Golden Lion at Venezia 72, Lorenzo Vigas. From the Orizzonti jury, actor Moon So-ri and critic Jim Hoberman also toured the Exhibition.
Beneath a mound of makeup and fake proboscis, Woody Harrelson performs the hell out of Lyndon Baines Johnson in LBJ, yet another dramatization of the 36th president of the United States.
The subject of President Johnson has been well trod. There have been four magnificent books written on LBJ by Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Caro; the Tony Award-winning 2012 Broadway play All the Way by Robert Schennkan; and the 2016 HBO adaptation of the play, which will most certainly win its star, Bryan Cranston, another Emmy Award this Sunday.
Now comes director Rob Reiner’s LBJ,which has yet to set a release date in North America but made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
“You got your show horses and you got your workhorses,” LBJ says to an aide early in the film, referring to then-President John F. Kennedy’s popularity versus his vice president’s respectability. “And when the field needs plowin’, you need the right one leavin’ the barn.”
LBJ chronicles Johnson’s reluctance to accept the vice presidency from JFK, followed by his taking of the reins in the shadow of the latter’s assassination. Harrelson plays the irascible yet sly Texan as a tough SOB who still obsessed over not being liked.
“I could walk on the Potomac River and the next day’s headlines would say, ‘Johnson can’t swim,'” he complains.
Expectations were low for the film. Reiner has had his share of hits (When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men), but he’s had more misses of late (Being Charlie, Rumor Has it, The Story of Us). Considering Reiner also directed the widely-popular 1995 film The American President, this is territory he’s comfortable with—and it shows.
Harrelson, whose dramatic turns increase with every project (one recent highlight being HBO’s True Detective), mines his own Texas roots to uncover subtleties in LBJ than many other actors haven’t been able to deliver. For that reason alone, LBJ is worth seeing and goes a long way to making it Reiner’s best film since The American President.
The 29th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) is just around the corner!
TIFF is pleased to announce that two Japanese films, Japanese Girls Never Die and Snow Woman have been selected for the 29th TIFF Competition section.
This year, a total of 1,502 titles from 98 countries and regions were submitted to TIFF.
A total of 16 films will be shown in the competition section at the 29th TIFF, to be held October 25 (Tue) – November 3 (Thu). The full lineup of the competition section will be announced at the press conference on September 26 (Mon), 2016.
From writer/director Tom Ford comes a haunting romantic thriller of shocking intimacy and gripping tension that explores the thin lines between love and cruelty, and revenge and redemption. Academy Award nominees Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal star as a divorced couple discovering dark truths about each other and themselves in Nocturnal Animals.
A Focus Features presentation of a Fade To Black production. A Tom Ford Film. Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal. Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Isla Fisher, Karl Glusman, Armie Hammer, Laura Linney, Andrea Riseborough, Michael Sheen. Casting by Francine Maisler, CSA. Costume Designer, Arianne Phillips. Music, Abel Korzeniowski. Film Editor, Joan Sobel, ACE. Production Designer, Shane Valentino. Director of Photography, Seamus McGarvey, ASC, BSC. Co-Producer, Diane L. Sabatini. Based upon the novel Tony and Susan by Austin Wright. Produced by Tom Ford, p.g.a., Robert Salerno, p.g.a. Screenplay by Tom Ford. Directed by Tom Ford. A Focus Features Release.
(Excerpt from Nocturnal Animals Press Notes)
(ctr l-r.) Academy Award nominees Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Shannon star as Tony Hastings and Bobby Andes in writer/director Tom Ford’s romantic thriller NOCTURNAL ANIMALS, a Universal Pictures International release. Credit: Merrick Morton/Universal Pictures International
Nepali film Seto Surya(White Sun) directed by Deepak Rauniyar was premiered in the Orizzonti section — an international competition — at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival to much appreciation on September 6.
*Video and photos are courtesy of ASAC Images/Biennale Cinema
It has also won 6th INTERFILM Award for Promoting Interreligious Dialogue under Collateral Awards of the 73rd Venice Film Festival.
“From a shortlist of finally three films the INTERFILM Jury at the 73rd International Film Festival Venice has chosen the winner of the 6th INTERFILM Award for Promoting Interreligious Dialogue.
The jury decided for the Nepalisian film Seta Surya(White Sun) by Deepak Rauniyar which was screened in the Orizzonti section of the festival,” the website of the Award writes.
“It is obviously a moment of joy to be receiving an award at one of the world’s oldest and biggest film festivals of the world. We all are happy,” director Rauniyar expressed to The Himalayan Times via a Facebook interview. Sadly, he wasn’t there to receive the award.
Highway was his first feature film and it also became “the first feature of Nepal to premiere in a major international film festival. Now, White Sun has taken us to another level”.
He has had a deep belief that “Nepali films like other films can be distributed and screened across the audience of the world.
I would be jubilant that day when our films will be distributed easily like other films reach us. My belief has been firm after White Sun was screened at two big film festivals in a gap of four days and the response we got.”
After Venice Film Festival, White Sun had a North American premiere at Toronto International Film Festival on September 10. The 87-minute-film is a story after the country’s civil war.
It features Dayahang Rai, Asha Magrati, Rabindra Singh Baniya, Sumi Malla and Amrit Pariyar among others.
With the win, lead actor Rai feels that “the country and Nepali films have garnered respect”. When the film was well received at the premiere at Venice with a long applause in a hall of more than 1,200 audience, he is on cloud nine.
He shared, “I felt that this is the success for what I have worked till now!” He had also not expected that people would be interested in a Nepali film.
The Festival ran from August 31 to September 10. INTERFILM is the international network for dialogue between church and film promoting the appreciation of cinema’s artistic, spiritual and social significance in the church and calls attention to the relevance of church, theology and religion for cinema.
As festivals are critical for the activities of INTERFILM, it participates in festivals like Venice and award prizes to outstanding films.
Searchlight announced the acquisition early Tuesday shortly after the Pablo Larrain-directed film played at the Toronto International Film Festival. Though the market has been quiet in Toronto, Jackie has been the most hotly pursued film since its Venice Film Festival debut last week. The film cuts between the events surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy and other moments in the first lady’s life.
Natalie Portman as First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in Pablo Larrain’s Jackie. (Photo courtesy of ASAC Images/Biennale Cinema)
Fox Searchlight will release the movie Dec. 9, and it’s widely expected to catapult Portman into the best-actress Oscar race. Fox’s specialty division is an awards season regular that has ushered many films into the Academy Awards, including best-picture winners “12 Years a Slave” and “Birdman,” as well as Portman’s own “Black Swan,” which won her best actress.
Searchlight’s other fall release, Nate Parker’s Nat Turner slave revolt drama “The Birth of a Nation,” had been seen as the studio’s horse in this year’s Oscar race. But that film’s awards hopes have been badly damaged by a rape accusation from Parker’s past. In Toronto, Parker deflected questions about the case in a press conference.
“Pablo Larrain’s Jackieis a daring, one-of-a-kind cinematic portrayal of a beloved icon,” said Fox Searchlight Pictures Presidents Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula.
Movies aren’t often acquired in Toronto and so quickly put into theaters. Usually they open sometime the following year. But Fox Searchlight has managed it before; in 2008, it picked up Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” and led it to Oscar nods for both Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei.
*Featured photo: Actress Natalie Portman arriving for the premiere of the film ‘Planetarium’ during the 73rd Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. (Photo credit: Ettore Ferrari/ANSA via AP)
Heartstone, Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson’s debut feature, won the Queer Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival. Heartstone was one of ten films from all of the sections of the festival that were eligible for the award. The film also came in second in the voting for Best Film in the Venice Days section.
The Queer Lion Award is awarded to the best film with homosexual and queer culture themes. Regarding their choice of Heartstone for the award, the jury wrote, “For the exquisite touch in showing the coming of age of two young friends and analyzing the acceptance of homosexual feelings and passions. For the strong and valid representation of the inner conflict that separates and then re-unites the two main characters, set against a natural environment as breathtaking as it can be hard and cruel.”
The Queer Lion was awarded this year for the tenth time. Former winners include A Single Man by Tom Ford, Philomena by Stephen Frears and The Danish Girl by Tom Hooper.
Heartstone was one of 11 films invited to participate at Venice Days, where it had its world premiere. This was the first time that an Icelandic film has been selected for Venice Days, a competitive and autonomous section at the Venice Film Festival.
Heartstone now continues its festival run. Next up are the Toronto International Film Festival, the Busan International Film Festival, the Warsaw Film Festival and the Chicago International Film Festival.
About the film
Heartstone is set in a remote fishing village in Iceland. Teenage boys Thor and Christian experience a turbulent summer as one tries to win the heart of a girl while the other discovers new feelings toward his best friend. When summer ends and the harsh nature of Iceland reclaims its rightful place, it’s time for the boys to leave the playground and face the acrimony of adulthood.
Heartstone was written and directed by Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson. In the last few years, Gudmundsson has garnered considerable notice for his award-winning short films, most notably Whale Valley. Among Whale Valley’s 45 international awards is a special mention in the main competition at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
Heartstone was produced by Anton Máni Svansson and Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson for Join Motion Pictures and Lise Orheim Stender and Jesper Morthorst for the Danish production company SF Studios Production. The film was shot by the Norwegian cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, edited by the Danes Anne Østerud and Janus Billeskov Jansen, and the score was composed by the Dane Kristian Eidnes Andersen. International sales will be handled by the Berlin-based Films Boutique. The film was made with support from the Icelandic Film Centre and the Danish Film Institute.
Heartstone stars the promising young actors Baldur Einarsson, Blaer Hinriksson, Diljá Valsdóttir, Katla Njálsdóttir, Jónína Thórdís Karlsdóttir, Rán Ragnarsdóttir, Daníel Hans Erlendsson, Theodór Pálsson and Sveinn Sigurbjörnsson. The young cast is ably supported by veterans Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir, Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson, Nanna Kristín Magnúsdóttir, Søren Malling and Gunnar Jónsson.
Fox Searchlight has acquired U.S. rights to Jackie, which sees Natalie Portman star as former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
In an otherwise sleepy Toronto market, the deal marks the first significant sale of a finished film. Searchlight will release the historical drama on Dec. 9, giving it a prime awards-season birth.
Jackie, directed by Pablo Larraín, takes place in the days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, focusing on Theodore H. White’s Life magazine interview with the widow at Hyannis Port.
Noah Oppenheim wrote the original script, which won best screenplay at this year’s Venice Film Festival.
“Pablo Larraín’s Jackieis a daring, one-of-a-kind cinematic portrayal of a beloved icon,” said Searchlight presidents Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utley. “Led by an indelible performance from Natalie Portman and supported by a richly talented ensemble of actors and artists, the film is one we are thrilled to bring to audiences later this year.”.
Larraín will now have two potential awards-season contenders this year, as The Orchard will be pushing his Neruda, which is also playing at the Toronto Film Festival, in the foreign-language category.
Added Larraín: “[Searchlight’s] movies have been an important influence on me as a filmmaker, and it is a personal achievement for me to have them bring this very special story of a beautiful, sophisticated and mysterious woman to the world. Jackie was the most unknown of the known women of the 20th century.”
Darren Aronofsky produced Jackie along with Juan de Dios Larraín, Mickey Liddell, Scott Franklin and Ari Handel. Pete Shilaimon, Jennifer Monroe, Jayne Hong, Wei Han, Lin Qi, Josh Stern executive produced.
The film made its North American premiere in the Platform section of the festival.
Searchlight had first and last rights to negotiate on the film, which was repped by CAA.
See what Natalie, Noah Oppenhiem and Pablo Larrain have to say about Jackie:
Three quarters of a century after its release in 1941, Orson Welles’ towering achievement CITIZEN KANE is still a triumph of style, an endlessly fascinating mystery, a masterpiece to be marveled at for all time. It continually places atop lists of the greatest films of all time, including AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Movies lists, both in 1998 and in 2007.Welles said, in an undated statement now included in the AFI Catalog entry on CITIZEN KANE, “I wished to make a motion picture which was not a narrative of action so much as an examination of character…There have been many motion pictures and novels rigorously obeying the formula of the ‘success story,’” he continued. “I wished to do something quite different. I wished to make a picture which might be called a ‘failure story.’”While that can certainly be said of the title character — whose rise and fall pivot around that infamous last dying word “rosebud” — the story of CITIZEN KANE is anything but.
In celebration of CITIZEN KANE’s 75th birthday (it was released in theaters on September 5, 1941), here are 15 facts about the groundbreaking film that can perhaps only begin to explain its historic, enduring impact.
1. The initial working draft screenplay of CITIZEN KANE, dated April 16, 1940, was titled “American.”
2. Orson Welles was just 25 years old when he directed, co-wrote, starred in and produced the film, his very first feature.
3. CITIZEN KANE was the feature film debut of Ray Collins, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead and Everett Sloane — all of whom had worked with Welles on his theater productions or radio broadcasts as members of his Mercury Theatre. It was also the screen debut of Welles himself.
4. Co-screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz dictated a majority of the CITIZEN KANE script while bedridden and being cared for by his nurse after shattering his leg in a car crash.
5. Newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst is the primary inspiration for CITIZEN KANE’s protagonist, Charles Foster Kane. Mankiewicz created Kane’s dialogue using — almost verbatim —lines from Hearst’s own writings and speeches.
6. Hearst was so angered by the film — and in order to keep it from being released — he accused Orson Welles of being a Communist, an accusation that, at the time, had the potential to destroy Hollywood reputations and garner government investigations.
7. The design of Kane’s estate, Xanadu, was inspired by Hearst Castle, Hearst’s extravagant mansion in San Simeon, California. In 2015 – 74 years after its release – CITIZEN KANE screened at Heart Castle for the very first time. Tickets for this benefit screening, which consisted of 60 attendees, cost $1,000 each.
8. CITIZEN KANE was nominated for nine Academy Awards®, but won only one: Best Screenplay. Co-writers Welles and Mankiewicz shared the award.
9. Welles viewed John Ford’s film STAGECOACH about 40 times over the course of one month while making the film, modeling shots from the director’s techniques. Nominated for CITIZEN KANE, Welles would end up losing out on the Best Picture Oscar® to Ford’s HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY held in 1942.
10. While filming a scene in which his character violently trashes a room, Welles was so immersed in his character that he cut both of his hands, causing them to bleed. Commenting on his dramatic commitment afterward, he said, “I really felt it.”
11. Welles, along with cinematographer Gregg Toland, popularized and perfected the technique of “deep focus,” keeping every object in the foreground, center and background in simultaneous focus. One example of this is during the scene inside Mrs. Kane’s house, where young Kane can clearly be scene throwing snowballs at the house in the distance while the audience is privy to the mother’s conversation inside.
12. On the ninth take of the sled-burning scene, the furnace had grown so hot, the flue caught fire, which caused the Culver City Fire Department to respond to the location. Welles was noted to be delighted with the commotion.
13. While filming a dramatic sequence in which Kane chases his rival down a flight of stairs, Welles tripped and fell about 10 feet, suffering a chipped ankle. The injury forced him to direct from a wheelchair for two weeks.
14. The opening scene, in which a dying Kane whispers the pivotal line of “Rosebud,” was shot in one take. It was the final scene shot during production. “Rosebud” ranks at #17 on AFI’s 100 top film quotes of all time.
15. In 1975, 34 years after the release of CITIZEN KANE, Welles was honored with the 3rd AFI Life Achievement Award. He was the first actor/director to receive the award. Watch his full acceptance speech below.
Heartstone, Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson’s debut feature, won the Queer Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival. Heartstone was one of ten films from all of the sections of the festival that were eligible for the award. The film also came in second in the voting for Best Film in the Venice Days section.
