Titles include ’Aftersun’, ’Enys Men’, ‘Birchanger Green’ and ‘A Gaza Weekend’.
Cannes premieres Aftersun, sold by Charades, and Enys Men, sold by Protagonist Pictures, are among the titles selected for year’s Great 8, the annual Cannes buyers’ showcase of UK films from emerging directors.
The other six titles are all in post-production.
Now in its fifth edition, the 2022 Great 8 showcase is funded and run by the BFI and the British Council, in partnership with BBC Film and Film4.
Unseen footage from all of the titles will be introduced by their filmmakers and screened on May 12 exclusively to buyers and festival programmers during the online-only showcase,...
Cannes premieres Aftersun, sold by Charades, and Enys Men, sold by Protagonist Pictures, are among the titles selected for year’s Great 8, the annual Cannes buyers’ showcase of UK films from emerging directors.
The other six titles are all in post-production.
Now in its fifth edition, the 2022 Great 8 showcase is funded and run by the BFI and the British Council, in partnership with BBC Film and Film4.
Unseen footage from all of the titles will be introduced by their filmmakers and screened on May 12 exclusively to buyers and festival programmers during the online-only showcase,...
- 5/5/2022
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
The BFI and British Council have revealed the line-up for this year’s Great8 showcase, which allows international distributors and festival programmers to get an early look at eight releases from emerging U.K. filmmakers in the run-up to Cannes Marché.
Now in its fifth year, the showcase on May 12 will allow filmmakers to screen unseen footage from the films, which will be available to buy during the market, which runs from May 17-28.
Of the eight films selected for the showcase, one has also been selected for the official Directors’ Fortnight and another for the Critics’ Week line-up. The remaining six films are in post-production.
The Great8 showcase is funded and organized by the BFI and the British Council, in partnership with BBC Film and Film4. It has previously presented films including “I Am Not A Witch” and “Calm with Horses.”
Neil Peplow, the BFI’s Director of Industry and International Affairs,...
Now in its fifth year, the showcase on May 12 will allow filmmakers to screen unseen footage from the films, which will be available to buy during the market, which runs from May 17-28.
Of the eight films selected for the showcase, one has also been selected for the official Directors’ Fortnight and another for the Critics’ Week line-up. The remaining six films are in post-production.
The Great8 showcase is funded and organized by the BFI and the British Council, in partnership with BBC Film and Film4. It has previously presented films including “I Am Not A Witch” and “Calm with Horses.”
Neil Peplow, the BFI’s Director of Industry and International Affairs,...
- 5/4/2022
- by K.J. Yossman
- Variety Film + TV
Voice cast includes Sally Hawkins, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe and Raffey Cassidy.
UK sales outfit Bankside Films has released a first-look image from Kensuke’s Kingdom, directed by Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry.
The UK-Luxembourg-France co-production is adapted from Michael Morpurgo’s children’s novel of the same name, published in 1999. Morpurgo is also the author of War Horse.
The voice cast features Sally Hawkins, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe and Raffey Cassidy.
Boyle is a director and animator who has previously worked on Ethel And Ernest and Space Jam. The screenplay has been penned by Frank Cottrell-Boyce.
The film tells the...
UK sales outfit Bankside Films has released a first-look image from Kensuke’s Kingdom, directed by Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry.
The UK-Luxembourg-France co-production is adapted from Michael Morpurgo’s children’s novel of the same name, published in 1999. Morpurgo is also the author of War Horse.
The voice cast features Sally Hawkins, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe and Raffey Cassidy.
Boyle is a director and animator who has previously worked on Ethel And Ernest and Space Jam. The screenplay has been penned by Frank Cottrell-Boyce.
The film tells the...
- 10/28/2021
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
Former Umedia exec Adrian Politowski’s new company invests $6.5m into the animated feature.
Adrian Politowski’s LA-based production and finance company Align has boarded Kensuke’s Kingdom, the animated adaptation of the best-selling 1999 novel by UK author Michael Morpurgo.
Sold by Bankside Films, Kensuke’s Kingdom has been put together as a UK-France-Luxembourg co-production. It is directed by Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry, and has Sally Hawkins, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe and Raffey Cassidy in the voice cast.
The film tells the story of a boy swept overboard with his dog during a storm while on a sailing trip with his family.
Adrian Politowski’s LA-based production and finance company Align has boarded Kensuke’s Kingdom, the animated adaptation of the best-selling 1999 novel by UK author Michael Morpurgo.
Sold by Bankside Films, Kensuke’s Kingdom has been put together as a UK-France-Luxembourg co-production. It is directed by Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry, and has Sally Hawkins, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe and Raffey Cassidy in the voice cast.
The film tells the story of a boy swept overboard with his dog during a storm while on a sailing trip with his family.
- 4/16/2021
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
Titles include animation ’Kensuke’s Kingdom’ and Terence Davies’ next feature, ‘Benediction’.
The 10 biggest recipients of BFI production funding in 2020 received a total of £11.6m in support.
They include additional Covid-related production awards for BFI-backed projects interrupted at the start of pandemic such as Benediction, True Things and Pirates.
Nearly all 10 titles, with the exception of Earwig, also received £20,000 as part of pilot initiative BFI Step-up, which enabled productions to provide opportunities for production crew from under-represented groups to work on BFI-funded features
1. Kensuke’s Kingdom, Jigsaw Films (£1.62m)
Sally Hawkins, Cillian Murphy and Ken Watanabe are among the English-language voice cast of this animated feature,...
The 10 biggest recipients of BFI production funding in 2020 received a total of £11.6m in support.
They include additional Covid-related production awards for BFI-backed projects interrupted at the start of pandemic such as Benediction, True Things and Pirates.
Nearly all 10 titles, with the exception of Earwig, also received £20,000 as part of pilot initiative BFI Step-up, which enabled productions to provide opportunities for production crew from under-represented groups to work on BFI-funded features
1. Kensuke’s Kingdom, Jigsaw Films (£1.62m)
Sally Hawkins, Cillian Murphy and Ken Watanabe are among the English-language voice cast of this animated feature,...
- 12/27/2020
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
Voice cast includes Sally Hawkins, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe and Raffey Cassidy.
Animated feature Kensuke’s Kingdom, which includes Sally Hawkins and Cillian Murphy among its voice cast, has secured fresh finance and animation partners as it goes into production.
UK-based Lupus Films, whose credits include Ethel & Ernest, will receive backing from the BFI, Ffilm Cymru, Creative Wales and Film Fund Luxembourg on the adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s bestselling children’s novel.
Cardiff-based firm BumpyBox has come on board as the production’s Welsh animation partner. Previously announced production partners include Luxembourg-based Melusine Productions and French production company Le Pacte.
Animated feature Kensuke’s Kingdom, which includes Sally Hawkins and Cillian Murphy among its voice cast, has secured fresh finance and animation partners as it goes into production.
UK-based Lupus Films, whose credits include Ethel & Ernest, will receive backing from the BFI, Ffilm Cymru, Creative Wales and Film Fund Luxembourg on the adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s bestselling children’s novel.
Cardiff-based firm BumpyBox has come on board as the production’s Welsh animation partner. Previously announced production partners include Luxembourg-based Melusine Productions and French production company Le Pacte.
- 9/7/2020
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Sally Hawkins (The Shape Of Water), Cillian Murphy (Inception), Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai) and Raffey Cassidy (The Killing Of A Sacred Deer) are to voice the animated adaptation of War Horse scribe Michael Morpurgo’s novel Kensuke’s Kingdom.
The children’s book tells the story of Michael, who is taken by his family on a round-the-world sailing trip. When a storm strikes he is washed overboard and ends up on a remote island in the Pacific where he struggles to survive on his own. He soon realizes there is someone close by, someone who is watching over him and helping him to stay alive.
Sherlock Gnomes animator Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry (Junk) will direct the adventure story with an ecological message whose script comes from Frank Cottrell-Boyce (The Railway Man). Bankside is handling sales at the Efm and has previously closed pre-sales in France (Le Pacte...
The children’s book tells the story of Michael, who is taken by his family on a round-the-world sailing trip. When a storm strikes he is washed overboard and ends up on a remote island in the Pacific where he struggles to survive on his own. He soon realizes there is someone close by, someone who is watching over him and helping him to stay alive.
Sherlock Gnomes animator Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry (Junk) will direct the adventure story with an ecological message whose script comes from Frank Cottrell-Boyce (The Railway Man). Bankside is handling sales at the Efm and has previously closed pre-sales in France (Le Pacte...
- 2/7/2019
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Bankside Films boards feature animation from Ethel & Ernest producers.
Kensuke’s Kingdom, the feature animation based on a Michael Morpurgo’s 1999 children’s novel from the team behind Ethel & Ernest, has secured a sales deal ahead of Cannes with UK outfit Bankside Films.
The Railway Man screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce has adapted Morpurgo’s novel for the screen. Producers are Sarah Radclyffe, who co-founded UK powerhouse Working Title, Camilla Deakin and Ruth Fielding, the co-founders of Ethel & Ernest animation studio Lupus Films, with Barnaby Spurrier (Somers Town) and Stephan Roelants (Ernest & Celestine).
The project is being directed by Neil Boyle,...
Kensuke’s Kingdom, the feature animation based on a Michael Morpurgo’s 1999 children’s novel from the team behind Ethel & Ernest, has secured a sales deal ahead of Cannes with UK outfit Bankside Films.
The Railway Man screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce has adapted Morpurgo’s novel for the screen. Producers are Sarah Radclyffe, who co-founded UK powerhouse Working Title, Camilla Deakin and Ruth Fielding, the co-founders of Ethel & Ernest animation studio Lupus Films, with Barnaby Spurrier (Somers Town) and Stephan Roelants (Ernest & Celestine).
The project is being directed by Neil Boyle,...
- 5/1/2018
- by Tom Grater
- ScreenDaily
Script from The Railway Man writer will be produced by the Ethel & Ernest team and Working Title co-founder Sarah Radclyffe.
Lupus Films and Melusine Productions, two of the companies behind critically-praised feature animation Ethel & Ernest, have identified their next project.
They are joining forces with producers Sarah Radclyffe and Barnaby Spurrier on Kensuke’s Kingdom, an animated feature adaptation of War Horse author Michael Morpurgo’s 1999 children’s novel.
Directors Neil Boyle (whose credits as an animator include Space Jam and Ethel & Ernest) and Kirk Hendry (who directed 2011 Bifa-nominated short Junk) will oversee the project from a script by The Railway Man writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce.
Camilla Deakin and Ruth Fielding of Lupus Films are producing with Sarah Radclyffe, who co-founded UK production outfit Working Title Films, as well as Stéphan Roelants of Melusine Productions and Barnaby Spurrier.
The film’s plot follows the adventures of a young boy and his dog who are shipwrecked on a remote...
Lupus Films and Melusine Productions, two of the companies behind critically-praised feature animation Ethel & Ernest, have identified their next project.
They are joining forces with producers Sarah Radclyffe and Barnaby Spurrier on Kensuke’s Kingdom, an animated feature adaptation of War Horse author Michael Morpurgo’s 1999 children’s novel.
Directors Neil Boyle (whose credits as an animator include Space Jam and Ethel & Ernest) and Kirk Hendry (who directed 2011 Bifa-nominated short Junk) will oversee the project from a script by The Railway Man writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce.
Camilla Deakin and Ruth Fielding of Lupus Films are producing with Sarah Radclyffe, who co-founded UK production outfit Working Title Films, as well as Stéphan Roelants of Melusine Productions and Barnaby Spurrier.
The film’s plot follows the adventures of a young boy and his dog who are shipwrecked on a remote...
- 3/7/2017
- by tom.grater@screendaily.com (Tom Grater)
- ScreenDaily
Titles backed by Film4 this year have a total of 15 Oscar nominations including a Best Picture and Best Director nomination and three of the five Oscar Best Actress Nominees: Cate Blanchett, Brie Larson, Charlotte Rampling. The total tally of Film4’s awards nominations and wins across the Academy, BAFTA, critics groups, guilds, etc. in 2015 to date is: 181 wins out of a total 581 nominations (95% of which were in the U.S.) across 11 films - “Room”, “Carol”, “Suffragette”, “Youth”, “The Lobster", "Ex Machina", "45 Years”, “Amy”, “Macbeth”, “Slow West”, and “Dark Horse”.
Film4 has already had two Academy Best Picture wins in recent years with "Slumdog Millionaire" and "12 Years A Slave" amid other Academy Award nominations, so we can declare they are a force to be reckoned with.
This year again they have more nominations than most Hollywood Studios! The New York based Distribution and Production Company A24 has seven nominations, and people are talking about them as serious players in the Oscar race, so let’s talk about Film4.
Film4 is known for working with the most distinctive and innovative, both new and established, talent. It develops and co-finances films and is well known for its involvement with “The Last King of Scotland” (2006), “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008), “This is England” (2006), “Seven Psychopaths” (2012), “12 Years a Slave” (2013) as well as its most recent crop of successes in the current awards season which has also already garnered a record number of BAFTA nominations this year - 22 in all.
Sue Bruce Smith is the head of distribution and brand strategy at Channel 4’s feature film division, Film4. She supports the building and financing of projects from the U.K. broadcaster. She works in some capacity across most of the Film4 slate but has been particularly associated with films like “Room”, “The Lobster”, “Slumdog Millionaire”, “The Last King of Scotland”, “Tyrannosaur”, “The Imposter” and “Le Weekend”,
Sue has been at Film4 over 12 years. Prior to this she has worked variously in U.K. distribution, broadcaster investment in film, international sales and independent production at Palace Pictures, BBC Films, Littlebird and Film4.
Sl: Can you define what exactly you do at Film4?
Sue Bruce Smith: What I do varies quite a bit from film to film. Some of the seasoned producers are more adept at finding partners and don’t need much in the way of help putting their finance together. However, we also work with emerging producers and directors who require more guidance so I am on hand to help them access the right co-production or distribution partners to ensure the film is built in the best possible way. Once the film is completed, I again get involved in the strategy for the launch of the film and I oversee the distribution activity. Protecting and maximizing the strength of our Film4 brand is a key consideration in everything I do. We are also the only free-to-air channel dedicated to film in the U.K. so this really helps define our strong brand.
Sl: How are productions greenlit at Film4?
Sue Bruce Smith:The creative and commercial team within Film4 will guide a project through development to final greenlight. David Kosse, Director of Film4 is a key part of the whole progression of the film and his final decision, based very much on the soundings he gets from his senior team, also obviously draws heavily on his valuable experience and understanding of film investment and the international marketplace. The Film4 team is a very inclusive team of about 23 people working across development, production, finance and distribution. it is also able to draw upon additional resources within the Channel4, most specifically in marketing and press.
Sl: Do you do co-productions?
Sue Bruce Smith: If you mean financial co-productions, yes lots. These tend to be U.S. set financial co-productions or they might come out of Europe. But official co-productions are relatively rare as it is more difficult and takes longer to set up. “Room”, however, was an official co-production with Telefilm Canada and “The Lobster” was the result of a wonderful collaboration of over five different European co-producers.
Sl: What sort of budget parameters do you work with?
Sue Bruce Smith: We span from the very low to sometimes quite high. We try not to limit ourselves and allow the project to find its optimum level. When we developed “Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk” with Ink Factory, in the course of looking for partners we found a fan in Tom Rothman who at that time was in the process of rebuilding production at TriStar and we have ended up, as a result, being involved in an Ang Lee film! However these are the exceptions and the range is usually between Us $3m to Us$15m.
Going forward, we are keen to be bolder in how Film4 invests especially when we feel a film is a potential break out. We operate a cross subsidy model where the bigger, more commercial investments allow us to generate revenue that then supports the new emerging talent. It is worth noting that absolutely everything we earn from our films goes straight back into more development and film investment.
Sl: Do you have special “strands” for particular types of films?
Sue Bruce Smith: We don’t really distinguish films in strands we just work across many levels and genres. First time filmmakers tend to have smaller budgets - around Us$3m and they are built in a slightly different way. For our larger projects I’d say our sweet spot is $10 – 15 million.
Sl: How do you find projects?
Sue Bruce Smith:: We are constantly scouting for interesting new talent, watching shorts like “Robots of Brixton” where we found Kibwe Tavares, culling talent from our TV arm (like Yann Demange who worked with us on the TV series “Top Boy” before making “'71”) from theater (Lucy Kirkwood who we are making a short film with and developing a feature), the arts (which is where Steve McQueen originated and is still very active) and writing (Alex Garland who adapted “Never Let Me Go” for us and went on to make his striking debut “Ex Machina”)
Sl: I notice you don’t do international sales like you used to in the 80s.
Sue Bruce Smith: Yes we shed the international sales division and the U.K. Distribution arm back in 2002 and brought the focus back to our core development and co-financing activities. We currently work with a wide range of sales agents like Protagonist, Hanway, Cornerstone, FilmNation, Westend, Pathe, Studio Canal, Independent and others.
Sl: In the early days in the 1980s operations were different.
Sue Bruce Smith: David Rose, in 1982, was the real visionary behind Film4. He decided Channel4 would be different from all other TV channels. Channel4 was the first U.K. broadcaster, through its film arm, Film on Four, to develop and co-finance films and, crucially, to allow these films to play in cinemas before their television transmission on Channel4. Our theatrical model became Film on Four and HBO, Sbs and Arte followed this lead. “Walter” by Stephen Frears followed this route in 1982. Frear's next film “My Beautiful Laundrette” followed shortly after in 1985
(An aside here by Sydney Levine):
If my readers will indulge me for a little history lesson in how films change with technological change, I want to point out that in the early days of home video, in 1985, Sue and I (a couple of the pioneer women in the modern business) shared in the good fortune resulting from the shift in the movie and TV business.
Working for the biggest TV production house in U.S. in the days of “Dallas”, I came to Lorimar to buy for home video, the fastest growing new technological distribution tool yet. We put up $175,000 advance to acquire home video rights to the Film4 feature “My Beautiful Laundrette” for U.S. $75,000 of that was to be used as P&A by theatrical distributor Orion Pictures Classics’ platform theatrical release – to platform first in N.Y. and L.A for critical reviews, and then, if profitable, to expand across the nation. It was the first British film to come to U.S. in many a year (except of course for the James Bond franchise). Orion Classics was headed by Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Donna Gigliotti who paid no advance but used the P&A allotment wisely and well. It was a happy association that we shared a couple of more times before they moved on to form Sony Pictures Classics and I moved on to Republic Pictures, reconstructed by Cnb’s Russell Goldsmith, former CEO of Lorimar. This Film4 picture, “My Beautiful Laundrette” was by complete unknowns in the U.S. and was a first for us all. We did not know it would go on to gross $7 million at the box office (a huge amount at that time for an independent film) and would sell 75,000 video units (at $50 wholesale a piece = $3,750,000). We at Lorimar made a $1 million profit and overages of $1 million went to Channel 4 and $1 million went to Working Title. I got a $100 bonus, and we were all delighted. My association with Film4 was followed by many loyal and loving years and reunions, but that is another lesson.
To quote Adam P. Davies, the writer of the U.K. Film Finance Handbook 2005/6: How to Fund Your Film:
Stephen Frears’s 1985 “My Beautiful Laundrette” signalled a change in direction for the industry in that TV backed film investment started to feed local productions. The Channel4 film encouraged the broadcasters to increase investment in filmmaking over the late 80s and also launched Working Title, initially run by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radcliffe (who left in 1992 to run her own company) and later Eric Fellner, with whom Bevan runs the company today [in a longstanding deal with Universal-Focus]. Video distributor and producer Palace Pictures, run by Nik Powell and Stephen Woolley, followed the success in 1985 of Neil Jordan’s “Company of Wolves” with “Mona Lisa” in 1986. The British Film Commission launched in 1992 [when “The Crying Game” had its world success].
Sue was at Palace Productions when I was at Lorimar and Republic and our paths crossed many times and so I was quite eager to share the latest good fortune of the 2016 Academy Awards at a time when the Academy is being besieged by negative publicity. At that time, back in ’85, I suggested to Michael and Tom that they put up Daniel Day Lewis for Best Actor Nomination and as I recall, they told me British films or British actors in British films were not acceptable to the Academy, and so neither he nor the film was put up for nomination.
“My Beautiful Laundrette” obviously had Asian actors; it was about a gay skinhead and a Pakistani. Diversity was at its core, but it did not get past the British line of demarcation the Academy had drawn in ’85. Its ethnic boundaries might have existed if anyone had tried to test them but that was not even an issue in 1985. “Diversity” in those days did not exist as a word one used and the very idea of diversity was even more limited than today.
Film4 has had a key role in proactively promoting different voices and stories since the 1980s. And today diversity is a crucial consideration in the decisions Film4 makes about its developments and productions with the aim of increasing diversity across all areas of the business. They have several films currently in development with Bame writers and directors and are successfully working with many female directors such as Andrea Arnold, Debbie Tucker Green, Susanna White, Clio Bernard, Sarah Gavron and Lynne Ramsay.
In January last year parent company Channel4 launched the 360 Degree Diversity Charter which is all about a commitment to implementing diversity on and off screen and to measuring its progress. It is tied to Project Diamond, an industry-wide diversity monitoring system. Its results will be published in the next few months.
Film4 has developed and co-financed many of the most successful U.K. films of recent years, Academy Award-winners such as Steve McQueen’s "12 Years a Slave", Danny Boyle’s "Slumdog Millionaire", Phyllida Lloyd’s "The Iron Lady” and Martin McDonagh’s "In Bruges" in addition to critically-acclaimed award-winners such as Mike Leigh’s "Mr. Turner", Chris Morris’ "Four Lions", Shane Meadows’ "This is England", Ben Wheatley’s “Sightseers", Clio Barnard’s "The Selfish Giant" Jonathan Glazer’s "Under the Skin" and David Mackenzie’s "Starred Up".
Film4’s recent releases include; Lenny Abrahamson’s “Room", Todd Haynes’ “Carol", Sarah Gavron’s “Suffragette", Justin Kurzel’s “Macbeth", Yorgos Lanthimos’ "The Lobster", Asif Kapadia’s box office record breaking documentary “Amy", Andrew Haigh’s "45 Years", Alex Garland’s "Ex Machina", Paolo Sorrentino’s “Youth", Peter Strickland’s "The Duke of Burgundy", Daniel Wolfe’s "Catch Me Daddy" and John Maclean’s "Slow West".
Forthcoming releases include; Ben Wheatley’s "High-Rise" and "Free Fire", Ang Lee’s "Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk", Benedict Andrews’ “Una" and Andrea Arnold’s "American Honey".
For further information visit www.film4.com/productions, but for now, here is the Cheat Sheet on Film4’s 2016 Total Oscar Nominations numbering 15. It will be at my side as I watch the Awards on February. Parenthetically, I am also looking forward to watching the fashions before the show, and inside the show, to catching that one loose cannon who will deliver the only inspirational speech in a rather inspirationless, basically boring, but still worthy traditional show.
3 of 5 Oscar Best Actress Nominees – Cate Blanchett, Brie Larson, Charlotte Rampling
Nomination tally by film:
“Room” – 4 - Picture, Actress, Director, Best Adapted Screenplay
“Carol” – 6 –Actress, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Costume Design, Original Score
“Ex Machina” – 2 –Original screenplay, Visual Effects
“Amy” – 1 – Documentary Feature
“45 Years” – 1 – Actress
“Youth” – 1 – Original Song
Film4-backed films Oscar® nominations in full:
“Carol”
Actress in a Leading Role: Cate Blanchett
Actress in a Supporting Role: Rooney Mara
Adapted Screenplay: Phyllis Nagy
Achievement in Cinematography: Ed Lachman
Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original score): Carter Burwell
Achievement in Costume Design: Sandy Powell
“Room”
Best Motion Picture of the Year: Ed Guiney
Achievement in Directing: Lenny Abrahamson
Actress in a Leading Role: Brie Larson
Adapted Screenplay: Emma Donoghue
“Ex Machina”
Original Screenplay: Alex Garland
Achievement in Visual Effects: Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett
“45 Years”:
Actress in a Leading Role: Charlotte Rampling
“Youth”
Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original song): Simple Song # 3, music and lyrics by David Lang
“Amy”
Best Documentary Feature: Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees...
Film4 has already had two Academy Best Picture wins in recent years with "Slumdog Millionaire" and "12 Years A Slave" amid other Academy Award nominations, so we can declare they are a force to be reckoned with.
This year again they have more nominations than most Hollywood Studios! The New York based Distribution and Production Company A24 has seven nominations, and people are talking about them as serious players in the Oscar race, so let’s talk about Film4.
Film4 is known for working with the most distinctive and innovative, both new and established, talent. It develops and co-finances films and is well known for its involvement with “The Last King of Scotland” (2006), “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008), “This is England” (2006), “Seven Psychopaths” (2012), “12 Years a Slave” (2013) as well as its most recent crop of successes in the current awards season which has also already garnered a record number of BAFTA nominations this year - 22 in all.
Sue Bruce Smith is the head of distribution and brand strategy at Channel 4’s feature film division, Film4. She supports the building and financing of projects from the U.K. broadcaster. She works in some capacity across most of the Film4 slate but has been particularly associated with films like “Room”, “The Lobster”, “Slumdog Millionaire”, “The Last King of Scotland”, “Tyrannosaur”, “The Imposter” and “Le Weekend”,
Sue has been at Film4 over 12 years. Prior to this she has worked variously in U.K. distribution, broadcaster investment in film, international sales and independent production at Palace Pictures, BBC Films, Littlebird and Film4.
Sl: Can you define what exactly you do at Film4?
Sue Bruce Smith: What I do varies quite a bit from film to film. Some of the seasoned producers are more adept at finding partners and don’t need much in the way of help putting their finance together. However, we also work with emerging producers and directors who require more guidance so I am on hand to help them access the right co-production or distribution partners to ensure the film is built in the best possible way. Once the film is completed, I again get involved in the strategy for the launch of the film and I oversee the distribution activity. Protecting and maximizing the strength of our Film4 brand is a key consideration in everything I do. We are also the only free-to-air channel dedicated to film in the U.K. so this really helps define our strong brand.
Sl: How are productions greenlit at Film4?
Sue Bruce Smith:The creative and commercial team within Film4 will guide a project through development to final greenlight. David Kosse, Director of Film4 is a key part of the whole progression of the film and his final decision, based very much on the soundings he gets from his senior team, also obviously draws heavily on his valuable experience and understanding of film investment and the international marketplace. The Film4 team is a very inclusive team of about 23 people working across development, production, finance and distribution. it is also able to draw upon additional resources within the Channel4, most specifically in marketing and press.
Sl: Do you do co-productions?
Sue Bruce Smith: If you mean financial co-productions, yes lots. These tend to be U.S. set financial co-productions or they might come out of Europe. But official co-productions are relatively rare as it is more difficult and takes longer to set up. “Room”, however, was an official co-production with Telefilm Canada and “The Lobster” was the result of a wonderful collaboration of over five different European co-producers.
Sl: What sort of budget parameters do you work with?
Sue Bruce Smith: We span from the very low to sometimes quite high. We try not to limit ourselves and allow the project to find its optimum level. When we developed “Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk” with Ink Factory, in the course of looking for partners we found a fan in Tom Rothman who at that time was in the process of rebuilding production at TriStar and we have ended up, as a result, being involved in an Ang Lee film! However these are the exceptions and the range is usually between Us $3m to Us$15m.
Going forward, we are keen to be bolder in how Film4 invests especially when we feel a film is a potential break out. We operate a cross subsidy model where the bigger, more commercial investments allow us to generate revenue that then supports the new emerging talent. It is worth noting that absolutely everything we earn from our films goes straight back into more development and film investment.
Sl: Do you have special “strands” for particular types of films?
Sue Bruce Smith: We don’t really distinguish films in strands we just work across many levels and genres. First time filmmakers tend to have smaller budgets - around Us$3m and they are built in a slightly different way. For our larger projects I’d say our sweet spot is $10 – 15 million.
Sl: How do you find projects?
Sue Bruce Smith:: We are constantly scouting for interesting new talent, watching shorts like “Robots of Brixton” where we found Kibwe Tavares, culling talent from our TV arm (like Yann Demange who worked with us on the TV series “Top Boy” before making “'71”) from theater (Lucy Kirkwood who we are making a short film with and developing a feature), the arts (which is where Steve McQueen originated and is still very active) and writing (Alex Garland who adapted “Never Let Me Go” for us and went on to make his striking debut “Ex Machina”)
Sl: I notice you don’t do international sales like you used to in the 80s.
Sue Bruce Smith: Yes we shed the international sales division and the U.K. Distribution arm back in 2002 and brought the focus back to our core development and co-financing activities. We currently work with a wide range of sales agents like Protagonist, Hanway, Cornerstone, FilmNation, Westend, Pathe, Studio Canal, Independent and others.
Sl: In the early days in the 1980s operations were different.
Sue Bruce Smith: David Rose, in 1982, was the real visionary behind Film4. He decided Channel4 would be different from all other TV channels. Channel4 was the first U.K. broadcaster, through its film arm, Film on Four, to develop and co-finance films and, crucially, to allow these films to play in cinemas before their television transmission on Channel4. Our theatrical model became Film on Four and HBO, Sbs and Arte followed this lead. “Walter” by Stephen Frears followed this route in 1982. Frear's next film “My Beautiful Laundrette” followed shortly after in 1985
(An aside here by Sydney Levine):
If my readers will indulge me for a little history lesson in how films change with technological change, I want to point out that in the early days of home video, in 1985, Sue and I (a couple of the pioneer women in the modern business) shared in the good fortune resulting from the shift in the movie and TV business.
Working for the biggest TV production house in U.S. in the days of “Dallas”, I came to Lorimar to buy for home video, the fastest growing new technological distribution tool yet. We put up $175,000 advance to acquire home video rights to the Film4 feature “My Beautiful Laundrette” for U.S. $75,000 of that was to be used as P&A by theatrical distributor Orion Pictures Classics’ platform theatrical release – to platform first in N.Y. and L.A for critical reviews, and then, if profitable, to expand across the nation. It was the first British film to come to U.S. in many a year (except of course for the James Bond franchise). Orion Classics was headed by Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Donna Gigliotti who paid no advance but used the P&A allotment wisely and well. It was a happy association that we shared a couple of more times before they moved on to form Sony Pictures Classics and I moved on to Republic Pictures, reconstructed by Cnb’s Russell Goldsmith, former CEO of Lorimar. This Film4 picture, “My Beautiful Laundrette” was by complete unknowns in the U.S. and was a first for us all. We did not know it would go on to gross $7 million at the box office (a huge amount at that time for an independent film) and would sell 75,000 video units (at $50 wholesale a piece = $3,750,000). We at Lorimar made a $1 million profit and overages of $1 million went to Channel 4 and $1 million went to Working Title. I got a $100 bonus, and we were all delighted. My association with Film4 was followed by many loyal and loving years and reunions, but that is another lesson.
To quote Adam P. Davies, the writer of the U.K. Film Finance Handbook 2005/6: How to Fund Your Film:
Stephen Frears’s 1985 “My Beautiful Laundrette” signalled a change in direction for the industry in that TV backed film investment started to feed local productions. The Channel4 film encouraged the broadcasters to increase investment in filmmaking over the late 80s and also launched Working Title, initially run by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radcliffe (who left in 1992 to run her own company) and later Eric Fellner, with whom Bevan runs the company today [in a longstanding deal with Universal-Focus]. Video distributor and producer Palace Pictures, run by Nik Powell and Stephen Woolley, followed the success in 1985 of Neil Jordan’s “Company of Wolves” with “Mona Lisa” in 1986. The British Film Commission launched in 1992 [when “The Crying Game” had its world success].
Sue was at Palace Productions when I was at Lorimar and Republic and our paths crossed many times and so I was quite eager to share the latest good fortune of the 2016 Academy Awards at a time when the Academy is being besieged by negative publicity. At that time, back in ’85, I suggested to Michael and Tom that they put up Daniel Day Lewis for Best Actor Nomination and as I recall, they told me British films or British actors in British films were not acceptable to the Academy, and so neither he nor the film was put up for nomination.
“My Beautiful Laundrette” obviously had Asian actors; it was about a gay skinhead and a Pakistani. Diversity was at its core, but it did not get past the British line of demarcation the Academy had drawn in ’85. Its ethnic boundaries might have existed if anyone had tried to test them but that was not even an issue in 1985. “Diversity” in those days did not exist as a word one used and the very idea of diversity was even more limited than today.
Film4 has had a key role in proactively promoting different voices and stories since the 1980s. And today diversity is a crucial consideration in the decisions Film4 makes about its developments and productions with the aim of increasing diversity across all areas of the business. They have several films currently in development with Bame writers and directors and are successfully working with many female directors such as Andrea Arnold, Debbie Tucker Green, Susanna White, Clio Bernard, Sarah Gavron and Lynne Ramsay.
In January last year parent company Channel4 launched the 360 Degree Diversity Charter which is all about a commitment to implementing diversity on and off screen and to measuring its progress. It is tied to Project Diamond, an industry-wide diversity monitoring system. Its results will be published in the next few months.
Film4 has developed and co-financed many of the most successful U.K. films of recent years, Academy Award-winners such as Steve McQueen’s "12 Years a Slave", Danny Boyle’s "Slumdog Millionaire", Phyllida Lloyd’s "The Iron Lady” and Martin McDonagh’s "In Bruges" in addition to critically-acclaimed award-winners such as Mike Leigh’s "Mr. Turner", Chris Morris’ "Four Lions", Shane Meadows’ "This is England", Ben Wheatley’s “Sightseers", Clio Barnard’s "The Selfish Giant" Jonathan Glazer’s "Under the Skin" and David Mackenzie’s "Starred Up".
Film4’s recent releases include; Lenny Abrahamson’s “Room", Todd Haynes’ “Carol", Sarah Gavron’s “Suffragette", Justin Kurzel’s “Macbeth", Yorgos Lanthimos’ "The Lobster", Asif Kapadia’s box office record breaking documentary “Amy", Andrew Haigh’s "45 Years", Alex Garland’s "Ex Machina", Paolo Sorrentino’s “Youth", Peter Strickland’s "The Duke of Burgundy", Daniel Wolfe’s "Catch Me Daddy" and John Maclean’s "Slow West".
Forthcoming releases include; Ben Wheatley’s "High-Rise" and "Free Fire", Ang Lee’s "Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk", Benedict Andrews’ “Una" and Andrea Arnold’s "American Honey".
For further information visit www.film4.com/productions, but for now, here is the Cheat Sheet on Film4’s 2016 Total Oscar Nominations numbering 15. It will be at my side as I watch the Awards on February. Parenthetically, I am also looking forward to watching the fashions before the show, and inside the show, to catching that one loose cannon who will deliver the only inspirational speech in a rather inspirationless, basically boring, but still worthy traditional show.
3 of 5 Oscar Best Actress Nominees – Cate Blanchett, Brie Larson, Charlotte Rampling
Nomination tally by film:
“Room” – 4 - Picture, Actress, Director, Best Adapted Screenplay
“Carol” – 6 –Actress, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Costume Design, Original Score
“Ex Machina” – 2 –Original screenplay, Visual Effects
“Amy” – 1 – Documentary Feature
“45 Years” – 1 – Actress
“Youth” – 1 – Original Song
Film4-backed films Oscar® nominations in full:
“Carol”
Actress in a Leading Role: Cate Blanchett
Actress in a Supporting Role: Rooney Mara
Adapted Screenplay: Phyllis Nagy
Achievement in Cinematography: Ed Lachman
Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original score): Carter Burwell
Achievement in Costume Design: Sandy Powell
“Room”
Best Motion Picture of the Year: Ed Guiney
Achievement in Directing: Lenny Abrahamson
Actress in a Leading Role: Brie Larson
Adapted Screenplay: Emma Donoghue
“Ex Machina”
Original Screenplay: Alex Garland
Achievement in Visual Effects: Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett
“45 Years”:
Actress in a Leading Role: Charlotte Rampling
“Youth”
Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original song): Simple Song # 3, music and lyrics by David Lang
“Amy”
Best Documentary Feature: Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees...
- 2/10/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Just 20 movies.
First starting in the brilliant John Schlesinger film Sunday Bloody Sunday, Daniel Day-Lewis has become arguably one of the greatest and most highly regarded thespians in the history of cinema. And yet he has only 20 credits to his name. For a craft that sees even the biggest of Hollywood stars sign on for just about any project that comes their way, Daniel Day-Lewis has become a genre defining actor on almost a part-time like schedule.
It’s not something new for the actor either.
Look at one of his greatest achievements, Stephen Frears’ My Beautiful Laundrette. 14 years after his debut, this marked his first performance of any real note, taking secondary billing in what would become one of the definitive cinematic achievements of 1980s British cinema.
Penned by Hanif Kureishi, My Beautiful Laundrette stars Gordon Warnecke as Omar, a young man who convinces his uncle Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey...
First starting in the brilliant John Schlesinger film Sunday Bloody Sunday, Daniel Day-Lewis has become arguably one of the greatest and most highly regarded thespians in the history of cinema. And yet he has only 20 credits to his name. For a craft that sees even the biggest of Hollywood stars sign on for just about any project that comes their way, Daniel Day-Lewis has become a genre defining actor on almost a part-time like schedule.
It’s not something new for the actor either.
Look at one of his greatest achievements, Stephen Frears’ My Beautiful Laundrette. 14 years after his debut, this marked his first performance of any real note, taking secondary billing in what would become one of the definitive cinematic achievements of 1980s British cinema.
Penned by Hanif Kureishi, My Beautiful Laundrette stars Gordon Warnecke as Omar, a young man who convinces his uncle Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey...
- 7/24/2015
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
Unrepped writer Richard Galazka’s romantic comedy Matinee Idol and Malachi Smyth’s Gateway 6 topped the annual Brit List of best unproduced screenplays. Both projects received nine votes. The list is compiled by UK producers, agents, distributors and sales companies, who aren’t allowed to vote for their own projects. Other qualifying criteria include receiving a minimum of three votes and not having featured on previous Brit Lists.
Previous films to appear on the Brit List include The King’s Speech, Welcome To The Punch, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and most recently The Riot Club.
Matinee Idol is being produced by Rooks Nest Entertainment. Sentinel Entertainment is behind Gateway 6, a futuristic sci-fi project. 42, one of the UK’s most dynamic production and management companies, had two projects on the shortlist: Jay Basu’s The Pier and Outside The Wire, from screenwriting duo Rowan Athale and Rob Yescombe
There were 140 entries,...
Previous films to appear on the Brit List include The King’s Speech, Welcome To The Punch, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and most recently The Riot Club.
Matinee Idol is being produced by Rooks Nest Entertainment. Sentinel Entertainment is behind Gateway 6, a futuristic sci-fi project. 42, one of the UK’s most dynamic production and management companies, had two projects on the shortlist: Jay Basu’s The Pier and Outside The Wire, from screenwriting duo Rowan Athale and Rob Yescombe
There were 140 entries,...
- 11/20/2014
- by Ali Jaafar
- Deadline
Rom-com and sci-fi top industry selection of hot unproduced screenplays.Scroll down for full list
Romantic comedy Matinee Idol by writer Richard Galazka and sci-fi Gateway 6 by Malachi Smyth lead this year’s Brit List, the industry selection of hot unproduced screenplays.
Both scripts recorded nine industry votes to top the list.
Rooks Nest Entertainment are producing Matinee Idol, about a cinephile who tries to win a girl’s heart by pretending to be someone he’s not, only to learn that it takes more than grand gestures to turn fantasy into reality.
Sentinel Entertainment are behind futuristic sci-fi Gateway 6, in which on a war-ravaged Earth, four soldiers man the last bastion – an outpost in a sea-covered continent.
Jay Basu’s The Pier, produced by 42, and Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ Aether, from FilmNation, followed with eight votes.
The list is compiled by a combination of UK producers, agents, distributors and sales companies.
There were 140 entries...
Romantic comedy Matinee Idol by writer Richard Galazka and sci-fi Gateway 6 by Malachi Smyth lead this year’s Brit List, the industry selection of hot unproduced screenplays.
Both scripts recorded nine industry votes to top the list.
Rooks Nest Entertainment are producing Matinee Idol, about a cinephile who tries to win a girl’s heart by pretending to be someone he’s not, only to learn that it takes more than grand gestures to turn fantasy into reality.
Sentinel Entertainment are behind futuristic sci-fi Gateway 6, in which on a war-ravaged Earth, four soldiers man the last bastion – an outpost in a sea-covered continent.
Jay Basu’s The Pier, produced by 42, and Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ Aether, from FilmNation, followed with eight votes.
The list is compiled by a combination of UK producers, agents, distributors and sales companies.
There were 140 entries...
- 11/20/2014
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Megan Simpson Huberman has agreed to direct Salvation Creek, an Australian movie about a high-flying magazine editor whose husband and brother die within three days of each other.
The producer is Heather Ogilvie, CEO of Galvanized Film Group, who collaborated with the director on her two previous features, Alex (1992) and Dating the Enemy (1996).
Ross Grayson Bell is writing the screenplay based on the novel by Susan Duncan, which has sold more than 250,000 copies. The narrative follows the grief-stricken protagonist as she throws in her city job and buys a rundown shack on Sydney.s Pittwater, where she finds friendship, love and a new life.
Ogilvie optioned the book in 2010 and has developed the project with the support of Screen Australia and Screen Nsw. Grayson Bell is working on the third draft and shooting is planned for mid-.2014.
The producer has an in-principle agreement for Australian distribution with Paramount Pictures. MD Mike Selwyn.
The producer is Heather Ogilvie, CEO of Galvanized Film Group, who collaborated with the director on her two previous features, Alex (1992) and Dating the Enemy (1996).
Ross Grayson Bell is writing the screenplay based on the novel by Susan Duncan, which has sold more than 250,000 copies. The narrative follows the grief-stricken protagonist as she throws in her city job and buys a rundown shack on Sydney.s Pittwater, where she finds friendship, love and a new life.
Ogilvie optioned the book in 2010 and has developed the project with the support of Screen Australia and Screen Nsw. Grayson Bell is working on the third draft and shooting is planned for mid-.2014.
The producer has an in-principle agreement for Australian distribution with Paramount Pictures. MD Mike Selwyn.
- 8/20/2013
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
Around 200 European and international distributors and festival programmers are expected in London next week for the 10th edition of the London UK Film Focus (Luff), running June 24-27.
Premieres include Exclusive Media’s Formula 1 doc 1, StudioCanal’s horror thriller In Fear, the Damian Jones-produced Powder Room starring Sheridan Smith, Metro International’s raucous comedy The Stag and Altitude Film Sales’ The Hooligan Factory.
uConnect, the London-based sales outfit run by Peter Rogers, will be screening Summer In February, starring Dominic Cooper and Dan Stevens.
“The timing is very good for us. We did think it would stand out at Luff,” said Rogers. The love triangle tale was released in the UK earlier this month by Metrodome.
Luff will return to the BFI Southbank to showcase features.
Natalie Brenner, Evp of international sales at Metro International, said: “You have the best screening rooms in London. You have an invited list of really good distributors who sit and...
Premieres include Exclusive Media’s Formula 1 doc 1, StudioCanal’s horror thriller In Fear, the Damian Jones-produced Powder Room starring Sheridan Smith, Metro International’s raucous comedy The Stag and Altitude Film Sales’ The Hooligan Factory.
uConnect, the London-based sales outfit run by Peter Rogers, will be screening Summer In February, starring Dominic Cooper and Dan Stevens.
“The timing is very good for us. We did think it would stand out at Luff,” said Rogers. The love triangle tale was released in the UK earlier this month by Metrodome.
Luff will return to the BFI Southbank to showcase features.
Natalie Brenner, Evp of international sales at Metro International, said: “You have the best screening rooms in London. You have an invited list of really good distributors who sit and...
- 6/21/2013
- by geoffrey@macnab.demon.co.uk (Geoffrey Macnab)
- ScreenDaily
Screen Australia has committed more than $450,000 in development funding across 19 feature films.
Of the 19 projects, six are new to Screen Australia.s developmental slate, while the other 13 will continue to receive support.
The new projects include the drama script Clive, about a privileged man whose life is transformed after a serious accident, and Em, a comedic take on Jane Austen.s classic Emma.
Clive comes from writer/director Natasha Pincus, producer Bridget Ikin and executive producer John Maynard.
Em will be set in 1950s rural Australia and comes from writer Matthew Dabner, director Kate Riedl and producers Karen Radzyner and Anna Vincent.
Psychological thriller Lonely Girl will also receive developmental support. Written by Lynne Vincent McCarthy and produced by Samantha Jennings, the project was also supported through Screen Australia.s Springboard Program.
The crime drama My Country, written by Sam Meikle and Serhat Caradee and produced by Matthew Dabner, will also receive funding.
Of the 19 projects, six are new to Screen Australia.s developmental slate, while the other 13 will continue to receive support.
The new projects include the drama script Clive, about a privileged man whose life is transformed after a serious accident, and Em, a comedic take on Jane Austen.s classic Emma.
Clive comes from writer/director Natasha Pincus, producer Bridget Ikin and executive producer John Maynard.
Em will be set in 1950s rural Australia and comes from writer Matthew Dabner, director Kate Riedl and producers Karen Radzyner and Anna Vincent.
Psychological thriller Lonely Girl will also receive developmental support. Written by Lynne Vincent McCarthy and produced by Samantha Jennings, the project was also supported through Screen Australia.s Springboard Program.
The crime drama My Country, written by Sam Meikle and Serhat Caradee and produced by Matthew Dabner, will also receive funding.
- 11/19/2012
- by Emily Blatchford
- IF.com.au
Over $450 000 in funding will be spread across 19 feature films following an announcement from Screen Australia today.
Of the 19 projects, six are new to Screen Australia.s developmental slate, while the other 13 will continue to receive support.
The new projects include the drama script Clive, about a privileged man whose life is transformed after a serious accident, and Em, a comedic take on Jane Austen.s classic Emma.
Clive comes from writer/director Natasha Pincus, producer Bridget Ikin and executive producer John Maynard.
Em will be set in 1950s rural Australia and comes from writer Matthew Dabner, director Kate Riedl and producers Karen Radzyner and Anna Vincent.
.Pyschological thriller Lonely Girl will also receive developmental support. Written by Lynne Vincent McCarthy and produced by Samantha Jennings, the project was also supported through Screen Australia.s Springboard Program.
The crime drama My Country, written by Sam Meikle and Serhat Caradee and produced by Matthew Dabner,...
Of the 19 projects, six are new to Screen Australia.s developmental slate, while the other 13 will continue to receive support.
The new projects include the drama script Clive, about a privileged man whose life is transformed after a serious accident, and Em, a comedic take on Jane Austen.s classic Emma.
Clive comes from writer/director Natasha Pincus, producer Bridget Ikin and executive producer John Maynard.
Em will be set in 1950s rural Australia and comes from writer Matthew Dabner, director Kate Riedl and producers Karen Radzyner and Anna Vincent.
.Pyschological thriller Lonely Girl will also receive developmental support. Written by Lynne Vincent McCarthy and produced by Samantha Jennings, the project was also supported through Screen Australia.s Springboard Program.
The crime drama My Country, written by Sam Meikle and Serhat Caradee and produced by Matthew Dabner,...
- 11/19/2012
- by Emily Blatchford
- IF.com.au
Brendan Cowell
Writer and actor Brendan Cowell will make his feature film directorial debut with the adaptation of his play Ruben Guthrie - the story of a wild-boy agency creative who burns himself out.
Cowell’s project is among 19 films to receive a cut of the $450,000 development support from Screen Australia.
Cowell has teamed up with Yael Bergman, producer of I Love You Too, which starred Cowell, and executive producers Laura Waters and Andrea Denholm.
The film’s synopsis reads: “By day, 29-year-old Ruben Guthrie is the wunderkind creative at one of Sydney’s hottest boutique ad agencies; by night, he is one of Sydney’s most notorious party boys until he jumps off a hotel roof into a wading pool and nearly kills himself. Over the next 12 months, Ruben tries to build a life around AA, cups of tea, inner growth and sex with a reformed addict. His friends,...
Writer and actor Brendan Cowell will make his feature film directorial debut with the adaptation of his play Ruben Guthrie - the story of a wild-boy agency creative who burns himself out.
Cowell’s project is among 19 films to receive a cut of the $450,000 development support from Screen Australia.
Cowell has teamed up with Yael Bergman, producer of I Love You Too, which starred Cowell, and executive producers Laura Waters and Andrea Denholm.
The film’s synopsis reads: “By day, 29-year-old Ruben Guthrie is the wunderkind creative at one of Sydney’s hottest boutique ad agencies; by night, he is one of Sydney’s most notorious party boys until he jumps off a hotel roof into a wading pool and nearly kills himself. Over the next 12 months, Ruben tries to build a life around AA, cups of tea, inner growth and sex with a reformed addict. His friends,...
- 11/19/2012
- by Colin Delaney
- Encore Magazine
Back to New York, post New Years. The Rabbi at the closing of the New Year said we still have until the next holiday (Sukkot) to ask forgiveness and to be written up in the Book of Life, and so I continue the blog I was writing regarding not only our recent New York trip but the unfinished topics that I did not get to complete in the past year, mostly about Cannes. As in Part I, this is a rambling account, so get ready for a long read.
We went to NYC after Tiff 12. Being at Ifp Filmweek in NYC where my partner Peter Belsito was on a speed dating table, we appreciated its new venue at Lincoln Center. At the same time as our event, Nyff was having its press screenings. Our own L.A. Times gave its Los Angeles stars some ink today. We hugged Rose Kuo, chatted with Eugene Hernandez, Eric Kohn and Peter Kneght, all hanging around together just like in the old Indiewire days. The layout of Ifp and Nyff at the newly designed Lincoln Center and the convergence between the two events is a great development. Joana Vicente has infused Ifp with new energy.
Rose (Kuo) is also so smart! I had wanted to discuss her unique views on distribution, festivals and exhibition in a blog. We talked about it at length during our 2 hour drive home from Monte Carlo during Cannes. Another conversation I had wanted to blog about was one held over lunch at the Plage des Palmes in Cannes with French producer, Sylvain Burnsztejn and John Kochman of Unifrance about the futility of factoring in U.S. revenues when writing up budgets and projections for French films. U.S. has to be ignored as a market because the chances of foreign language films making any money are so negligible, even when they are French which have proven to be the most popular of all foreign language films in the U.S. U.S. box office and video numbers are so small that the U.S. is excluded from important participation in the film activities among European countries unless, like the French, they offer incentives even for English language films. This is something new which is proving lucrative for mid-range U.S. productions. I spoke more about it over dinner at Antonia Dauphin and Peter Newman's 5th Avenue apartment. (Another New York great spots!)
Antonia has been casting American name actors in European funded films with great success. I told her I wanted to introduce her to my friend in Berlin, Geno Lechner of Volume57, a unique collective of international performers - actors, dancers, musicians and vagabonds - dedicated to the promotion of outstanding, independent performing artists. Geno, an actress in European art films is also the owner of an extraordinary house in Berlin which she is considering using for artist retreats. If you are lucky you could rent a unit that was recently rented by one of my favorite actresses, Tilda Swinton. You can read more about Antonia and casting in Backstage.
As Antonia and I talked, I told her about Tiff 12's Casting By, a new documentary paying tribute to the legacy of the late, legendary casting director Marion Dougherty. It shines a light on one of the most overlooked and least understood crafts in filmmaking. Packed with interviews with a "who's who" of top stars and filmmakers (she discovered James Dean and told Warren Beatty to lose his Brando accent), this world premiere screening was followed by a live, onstage discussion with people who were deeply affected by Dougherty, including some of the participants in the film. Dougherty surely would have won an Academy Award for Casting had there been any. I had never thought about this before, but the film seemed like a call to action about this issue. I am for adding an Oscar for Best Casting. The craft of casting seems like a predominately female craft. It also reminded me that I had wanted to write a blog about casting and my friend Ronnie Yeskel and her new British casting director partner. Another issue casting directors face every day is that when they submit a script to a talent agent for a client, by law the agent is supposed to send the script to the client. However, this often does not happen. This was not brought up in the film because Marion, her director clients and the actors she chose to push (Richard Dreyfus for The Graduate, Al Pacino, Robert de Niro, etc.) did not work that way. She brought new Broadway and off-Broadway talent to the directors. Anyway see the movie; it’s a great piece of New York and Hollywood history. HBO picked up No. American rights, but Submarine is still repping the film for the world.
That was quite a day; earlier the same day, my Peter (Belsito) and I had presented our ideas on the world market at Peter Newman’s 3rd year graduate class at Nyu’s Tisch School of Film. At our dinner with Peter and Antonia, we also talked with their 14 year old daughter recently returned from a year in Paris with her mother where Brodlie had studied at Gordon Bleu. She is already an accomplished food writer, and is being presented to the King and Queen of Sweden for her talent.
Another great dinner with a couple of friends, Richard Lorber, his wife Dovie Wingarsd, was at Back 40 West at Prince and Crosby in SoHo, formerly Savoy, a restaurant our friend Larry Bognanow designed and had taken us to before. We ate and rushed to the screening of his film Radio Unnamable. Speak of being So New York. This film got great coverage that very day in the N.Y. Times, not only with A.O. Scott’s review but with a separate article about “The Cuban Boys”. It was held at Karen Cooper’s Film Forum. The audience had film people in it I had not seen since my heady New York days in the early 80s like Jill Godmilow. I knew the audience was made of other New York intelligentsia though I did not know them, and consequently I did not go to the after party, a mistake I frequently make due to my innate shyness. Oh well, try as I might, I cannot entirely rid myself of this...Maybe during the New Year I'll be better.
The story of Wbai’s Bob Fass, an icon of free speech radio, his legacy and his archives, are, to quote Variety, “as epic as the medium gets”. Indiewire itself says that it “superbly recreates a time when radio mattered”. I loved this doc about the people who never sleep in the city that never sleeps. I knew Wbai’s call letters but did not know Bob Fass. He evokes a NYC that equals that New York of Weegee. The warm testimonies and radio appearances by such friends of his such as Larry Krassner, Arlo Guthrie, Kinky Freidman, Abbie Hoffman, Bob Dylan, Joni Collins, Carly Simon evoke an entire era. He created the community network in the days of be-ins and fly-ins, flash mobs via radio. I loved this movie, the venue, the audience. A totally New York experience. Thank you Richard and Dovie! See the film’s website www.radiounnameablemovie.com or on Facebook or via www.kinolorber.com.
We called on Susan Krim, Donald’s recent widow but didn’t connect. She welcomed in the New Year with her two children in a country house she and Don had bought not so long ago.
We went to Rosh Hashanah at B’nai Jeshurin, the Upper Westside Reconstructionist Synagogue whose music Shlomo Carlbach created and which is now under the leadership of Argentinean clergy and cantor. The next day, we were invited by an old friend from Peter’s childhood in Bayside, Queens to Temple Emanu-el, the High Reform Synagogue of the Upper Eastside. Their rabbi retires next year and this year’s sermon was by the woman rabbi there. This brave woman spoke of church and state, faith-based politics, the kashruth of what makes a fetus a human with a soul and what control a woman has over her own body, and when must we speak out for what we believe to be true. (And if now now, when?)
A press screening of Bianconieves (Isa: 6 Sales) which some after-tiff buzz was held in N.Y.and L.A. but I missed it! Pity! I do hope I will see it soon as Snow White ranks with my favorite Sleeping Beauty among childhood fairy tales I loved.
Hilary Davis of Bankside, here for Ifp No Borders, her husband, Peter and I had an outstanding dinner at Robert with a view from the 9th floor of 2 Columbus Circle at the Museum of Arts and Design. So New York! I later returned for lunch with my cousin and afterward visited the Museum whose elevator dropped me on the 3rd floor where there was a native arts’ exhibiton for modern and traditional art from the Americas.
Trisha Robinson who was in acquisitions with me at Lorimar in the late 80s and went on to head Academy Home Video when video was going through its changes, has moved to New York’s Upper East Side for the next year or two. Our dinner at Table d’hote, a small intimate and quiet restaurant with 6 tables on East 92ndStreet at Madison had wonderful waiters and great Italian food. The next day Trisha and I had lunch at the Vienneses café in Neue Galerie and then went to the Guggenheim to see the photograpy retrospective of contemporary Dutch woman, Rineke Dijkstra.
Dinner with Ben Barenholz at an old favorite of his in Chelsea from before he had moved to the Eastside brought up film history in yet another New York light. His first midnight screening (El Topo), his box office all time winner Cousin, Cousine and his experiment with dubbing, his opinions of film today, of the people we know, his remembering having hired John Tilley as soon as he graduated college in North Carolina, and of hiring Eamonn Bowles for his first job outside of college again made me want to write a book! I plan to look up his history on the internet in the coming year. Ben had wanted to go to Gotham Pizza which has the best pizza in N.Y., but it was too crowded, so we went down 9th St. to another old, small and intimate Italian restaurant.
Some of my readers might remember Joy Pereths. She was the first U.S. rep for U.K.’s Channel Four / Film Four and licensed My Beautiful Laundrette to me when I was buying for Lorimar and Orion Classics, in the days when it was run by Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Donna Giogliotti. Lorimar paid $75,000 for U.S. rights. That went toward P&A as it opened in N.Y. and L.A. and from there the film went on to make an astonishing $7 million at the box office and sold 75,000 video cassettes at wholesale, $59.95 a unit. The first film I acquired on my return to L.A. for Lorimar (and their first acquisition as well), the first film produced by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radcliffe, the first produced film written by Hanif Kureishi, starring Daniel Day Lewis, sold to U.S. by a British company, gay and with a Pakistani protagonist – what a record of firsts! I recall that when I made the deal, N.Y. was in hurricane-warning mode and Joy and I had to hold on to each other as we crossed the street from Lincoln Center. She is now raising money for marketing a documentary film.
Finally, my friend who dates back to before those Lorimar days, to the days she worked for Fox-Lorber and I was looking for my next job in New York after heading a special social issue documentyr branch of Films Inc, started by Charles’ wife Marge Benton. Susan Margolin of New Video had lots of news and ideas to share now that the company has been acquired by Cinedigm. She’s bringing together a new staff. Jeff Reichert from Magnolia heads theatrical marketing and former New Video executive Stephanie Bruder is VP of marketing; Vincent (Vinni) Scordino – who started with Sara Rose at Picurehouse -- is VP of acquisitions, and Bob Fiorella is Executive VP and Chief Strategy Officer of Entertainment. Also, Ellen Trost is their Business Affairs Manager is a great asset. We knew each other when she was in London working for a blue chip company, BFI if I remember correctly. I bumped into her on the streets in New York quite by accident.
Finally, we had lunch with Juan Caceras and Vanessa Erazo of the New York Latino Film Festival at Spice, a Thai restaurant on 9th Avenue in Chelsea. My readers know them as the originators ad writers of Latino Buzz which appears on SydneysBuzz every Wednesday (except today!). It was the first time we met face to faces. We discussed their wish to bring light to the Latino filmmakers in the U.S. in their blog and how pleased they are to be receiving news for others requesting blog space. I love having them use SydneysBuzz as their platform. Juan’s film was picked up for North American distribution by Tla and is winding down its festival run of about 20 film festivals. We discussed the Latin Film Festivals in the U.S. Vanessa’s ideas about the feasibility of a sort of Latino Film Festival co-ordinating umbrella and our discussion of the upcoming Film Festival Academy (Ffa) which will hold its first edition with the New York Film Festival this year spurred us on to creating a workable plan.
As I write this the High Holidays have come to a close. Completed are the processes of Atonement, Reconciliation and a Turning Back to what is important with my fellow humankind. Thursday I will take off on my next trip, this time a four- day trip to trinidad + tobago film festival. You’ll hear more from me then.
Until then, Le Shana Tova! A Sweet New Year! May you be inscribed in the Book of Life. Forgive me if my rambling has bored you, though if you got this far, it is a compliment for which I thank you!
We went to NYC after Tiff 12. Being at Ifp Filmweek in NYC where my partner Peter Belsito was on a speed dating table, we appreciated its new venue at Lincoln Center. At the same time as our event, Nyff was having its press screenings. Our own L.A. Times gave its Los Angeles stars some ink today. We hugged Rose Kuo, chatted with Eugene Hernandez, Eric Kohn and Peter Kneght, all hanging around together just like in the old Indiewire days. The layout of Ifp and Nyff at the newly designed Lincoln Center and the convergence between the two events is a great development. Joana Vicente has infused Ifp with new energy.
Rose (Kuo) is also so smart! I had wanted to discuss her unique views on distribution, festivals and exhibition in a blog. We talked about it at length during our 2 hour drive home from Monte Carlo during Cannes. Another conversation I had wanted to blog about was one held over lunch at the Plage des Palmes in Cannes with French producer, Sylvain Burnsztejn and John Kochman of Unifrance about the futility of factoring in U.S. revenues when writing up budgets and projections for French films. U.S. has to be ignored as a market because the chances of foreign language films making any money are so negligible, even when they are French which have proven to be the most popular of all foreign language films in the U.S. U.S. box office and video numbers are so small that the U.S. is excluded from important participation in the film activities among European countries unless, like the French, they offer incentives even for English language films. This is something new which is proving lucrative for mid-range U.S. productions. I spoke more about it over dinner at Antonia Dauphin and Peter Newman's 5th Avenue apartment. (Another New York great spots!)
Antonia has been casting American name actors in European funded films with great success. I told her I wanted to introduce her to my friend in Berlin, Geno Lechner of Volume57, a unique collective of international performers - actors, dancers, musicians and vagabonds - dedicated to the promotion of outstanding, independent performing artists. Geno, an actress in European art films is also the owner of an extraordinary house in Berlin which she is considering using for artist retreats. If you are lucky you could rent a unit that was recently rented by one of my favorite actresses, Tilda Swinton. You can read more about Antonia and casting in Backstage.
As Antonia and I talked, I told her about Tiff 12's Casting By, a new documentary paying tribute to the legacy of the late, legendary casting director Marion Dougherty. It shines a light on one of the most overlooked and least understood crafts in filmmaking. Packed with interviews with a "who's who" of top stars and filmmakers (she discovered James Dean and told Warren Beatty to lose his Brando accent), this world premiere screening was followed by a live, onstage discussion with people who were deeply affected by Dougherty, including some of the participants in the film. Dougherty surely would have won an Academy Award for Casting had there been any. I had never thought about this before, but the film seemed like a call to action about this issue. I am for adding an Oscar for Best Casting. The craft of casting seems like a predominately female craft. It also reminded me that I had wanted to write a blog about casting and my friend Ronnie Yeskel and her new British casting director partner. Another issue casting directors face every day is that when they submit a script to a talent agent for a client, by law the agent is supposed to send the script to the client. However, this often does not happen. This was not brought up in the film because Marion, her director clients and the actors she chose to push (Richard Dreyfus for The Graduate, Al Pacino, Robert de Niro, etc.) did not work that way. She brought new Broadway and off-Broadway talent to the directors. Anyway see the movie; it’s a great piece of New York and Hollywood history. HBO picked up No. American rights, but Submarine is still repping the film for the world.
That was quite a day; earlier the same day, my Peter (Belsito) and I had presented our ideas on the world market at Peter Newman’s 3rd year graduate class at Nyu’s Tisch School of Film. At our dinner with Peter and Antonia, we also talked with their 14 year old daughter recently returned from a year in Paris with her mother where Brodlie had studied at Gordon Bleu. She is already an accomplished food writer, and is being presented to the King and Queen of Sweden for her talent.
Another great dinner with a couple of friends, Richard Lorber, his wife Dovie Wingarsd, was at Back 40 West at Prince and Crosby in SoHo, formerly Savoy, a restaurant our friend Larry Bognanow designed and had taken us to before. We ate and rushed to the screening of his film Radio Unnamable. Speak of being So New York. This film got great coverage that very day in the N.Y. Times, not only with A.O. Scott’s review but with a separate article about “The Cuban Boys”. It was held at Karen Cooper’s Film Forum. The audience had film people in it I had not seen since my heady New York days in the early 80s like Jill Godmilow. I knew the audience was made of other New York intelligentsia though I did not know them, and consequently I did not go to the after party, a mistake I frequently make due to my innate shyness. Oh well, try as I might, I cannot entirely rid myself of this...Maybe during the New Year I'll be better.
The story of Wbai’s Bob Fass, an icon of free speech radio, his legacy and his archives, are, to quote Variety, “as epic as the medium gets”. Indiewire itself says that it “superbly recreates a time when radio mattered”. I loved this doc about the people who never sleep in the city that never sleeps. I knew Wbai’s call letters but did not know Bob Fass. He evokes a NYC that equals that New York of Weegee. The warm testimonies and radio appearances by such friends of his such as Larry Krassner, Arlo Guthrie, Kinky Freidman, Abbie Hoffman, Bob Dylan, Joni Collins, Carly Simon evoke an entire era. He created the community network in the days of be-ins and fly-ins, flash mobs via radio. I loved this movie, the venue, the audience. A totally New York experience. Thank you Richard and Dovie! See the film’s website www.radiounnameablemovie.com or on Facebook or via www.kinolorber.com.
We called on Susan Krim, Donald’s recent widow but didn’t connect. She welcomed in the New Year with her two children in a country house she and Don had bought not so long ago.
We went to Rosh Hashanah at B’nai Jeshurin, the Upper Westside Reconstructionist Synagogue whose music Shlomo Carlbach created and which is now under the leadership of Argentinean clergy and cantor. The next day, we were invited by an old friend from Peter’s childhood in Bayside, Queens to Temple Emanu-el, the High Reform Synagogue of the Upper Eastside. Their rabbi retires next year and this year’s sermon was by the woman rabbi there. This brave woman spoke of church and state, faith-based politics, the kashruth of what makes a fetus a human with a soul and what control a woman has over her own body, and when must we speak out for what we believe to be true. (And if now now, when?)
A press screening of Bianconieves (Isa: 6 Sales) which some after-tiff buzz was held in N.Y.and L.A. but I missed it! Pity! I do hope I will see it soon as Snow White ranks with my favorite Sleeping Beauty among childhood fairy tales I loved.
Hilary Davis of Bankside, here for Ifp No Borders, her husband, Peter and I had an outstanding dinner at Robert with a view from the 9th floor of 2 Columbus Circle at the Museum of Arts and Design. So New York! I later returned for lunch with my cousin and afterward visited the Museum whose elevator dropped me on the 3rd floor where there was a native arts’ exhibiton for modern and traditional art from the Americas.
Trisha Robinson who was in acquisitions with me at Lorimar in the late 80s and went on to head Academy Home Video when video was going through its changes, has moved to New York’s Upper East Side for the next year or two. Our dinner at Table d’hote, a small intimate and quiet restaurant with 6 tables on East 92ndStreet at Madison had wonderful waiters and great Italian food. The next day Trisha and I had lunch at the Vienneses café in Neue Galerie and then went to the Guggenheim to see the photograpy retrospective of contemporary Dutch woman, Rineke Dijkstra.
Dinner with Ben Barenholz at an old favorite of his in Chelsea from before he had moved to the Eastside brought up film history in yet another New York light. His first midnight screening (El Topo), his box office all time winner Cousin, Cousine and his experiment with dubbing, his opinions of film today, of the people we know, his remembering having hired John Tilley as soon as he graduated college in North Carolina, and of hiring Eamonn Bowles for his first job outside of college again made me want to write a book! I plan to look up his history on the internet in the coming year. Ben had wanted to go to Gotham Pizza which has the best pizza in N.Y., but it was too crowded, so we went down 9th St. to another old, small and intimate Italian restaurant.
Some of my readers might remember Joy Pereths. She was the first U.S. rep for U.K.’s Channel Four / Film Four and licensed My Beautiful Laundrette to me when I was buying for Lorimar and Orion Classics, in the days when it was run by Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Donna Giogliotti. Lorimar paid $75,000 for U.S. rights. That went toward P&A as it opened in N.Y. and L.A. and from there the film went on to make an astonishing $7 million at the box office and sold 75,000 video cassettes at wholesale, $59.95 a unit. The first film I acquired on my return to L.A. for Lorimar (and their first acquisition as well), the first film produced by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radcliffe, the first produced film written by Hanif Kureishi, starring Daniel Day Lewis, sold to U.S. by a British company, gay and with a Pakistani protagonist – what a record of firsts! I recall that when I made the deal, N.Y. was in hurricane-warning mode and Joy and I had to hold on to each other as we crossed the street from Lincoln Center. She is now raising money for marketing a documentary film.
Finally, my friend who dates back to before those Lorimar days, to the days she worked for Fox-Lorber and I was looking for my next job in New York after heading a special social issue documentyr branch of Films Inc, started by Charles’ wife Marge Benton. Susan Margolin of New Video had lots of news and ideas to share now that the company has been acquired by Cinedigm. She’s bringing together a new staff. Jeff Reichert from Magnolia heads theatrical marketing and former New Video executive Stephanie Bruder is VP of marketing; Vincent (Vinni) Scordino – who started with Sara Rose at Picurehouse -- is VP of acquisitions, and Bob Fiorella is Executive VP and Chief Strategy Officer of Entertainment. Also, Ellen Trost is their Business Affairs Manager is a great asset. We knew each other when she was in London working for a blue chip company, BFI if I remember correctly. I bumped into her on the streets in New York quite by accident.
Finally, we had lunch with Juan Caceras and Vanessa Erazo of the New York Latino Film Festival at Spice, a Thai restaurant on 9th Avenue in Chelsea. My readers know them as the originators ad writers of Latino Buzz which appears on SydneysBuzz every Wednesday (except today!). It was the first time we met face to faces. We discussed their wish to bring light to the Latino filmmakers in the U.S. in their blog and how pleased they are to be receiving news for others requesting blog space. I love having them use SydneysBuzz as their platform. Juan’s film was picked up for North American distribution by Tla and is winding down its festival run of about 20 film festivals. We discussed the Latin Film Festivals in the U.S. Vanessa’s ideas about the feasibility of a sort of Latino Film Festival co-ordinating umbrella and our discussion of the upcoming Film Festival Academy (Ffa) which will hold its first edition with the New York Film Festival this year spurred us on to creating a workable plan.
As I write this the High Holidays have come to a close. Completed are the processes of Atonement, Reconciliation and a Turning Back to what is important with my fellow humankind. Thursday I will take off on my next trip, this time a four- day trip to trinidad + tobago film festival. You’ll hear more from me then.
Until then, Le Shana Tova! A Sweet New Year! May you be inscribed in the Book of Life. Forgive me if my rambling has bored you, though if you got this far, it is a compliment for which I thank you!
- 9/27/2012
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The Raindance Film Festival recently announced its 20th festival programme lineup which includes an unprecedented 105 features, 138 shorts and 64 UK Premieres, 13 International Premieres, 5 European Premieres, 19 World Premieres and 24 Directorial Debuts from 38 countries, proof of another exceptional year of internationally acclaimed films, special live events, exclusive Q&As and masterclasses. The festival will take place from 26th September to 7thOctober at its home of the Apollo Cinema Piccadilly Circus SW1Y 4Lr.T
Opening the festival on Wednesday 26th September is the International Premiere of Here Comes The Devil – a powerful fantasy horror from Mexico. Shot in Tijuana, a married couple lose their children while on a family trip near some caves in Tijuana. The kids eventually reappear without explanation, but it becomes clear that they are not who they used to be and that something terrifying has changed them. The Opening Night afterparty will feature band The Real Tuesday Weld which The Sunday Times calls: “beautiful…...
Opening the festival on Wednesday 26th September is the International Premiere of Here Comes The Devil – a powerful fantasy horror from Mexico. Shot in Tijuana, a married couple lose their children while on a family trip near some caves in Tijuana. The kids eventually reappear without explanation, but it becomes clear that they are not who they used to be and that something terrifying has changed them. The Opening Night afterparty will feature band The Real Tuesday Weld which The Sunday Times calls: “beautiful…...
- 9/4/2012
- by John
- SoundOnSight
Wolf Creek director Greg McLean has received development support from Screen Australia for a new film set in Vietnam.
McLean’s project Black Echoes is among 13 projects to have been selected in the latest round of funding from the national screen agency.
Set in in the Vietnamese countryside, the film is about a group of tourists who go on an adventure into Viet Cong tunnels more claustrophic and scary than the famous Cu Chi tunnels.
Other projects to receive funding include The Outrageous Barry Rush, directed by Red Dog’s Kriv Stenders, written by Andy Cox and produced by Alan Harris, The Dressmaker by written and directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse and produced by Sue Maslin and the sequel to last year’s online hit, The Tunnel, called The Tunnel: Dead End by Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey.
Single-project Development: Feature Development
Addition
Genre Romantic Comedy
Producers Bruna Papandrea, Cristina Pozzan...
McLean’s project Black Echoes is among 13 projects to have been selected in the latest round of funding from the national screen agency.
Set in in the Vietnamese countryside, the film is about a group of tourists who go on an adventure into Viet Cong tunnels more claustrophic and scary than the famous Cu Chi tunnels.
Other projects to receive funding include The Outrageous Barry Rush, directed by Red Dog’s Kriv Stenders, written by Andy Cox and produced by Alan Harris, The Dressmaker by written and directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse and produced by Sue Maslin and the sequel to last year’s online hit, The Tunnel, called The Tunnel: Dead End by Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey.
Single-project Development: Feature Development
Addition
Genre Romantic Comedy
Producers Bruna Papandrea, Cristina Pozzan...
- 3/2/2012
- by Colin Delaney
- Encore Magazine
A sequel to last year.s successful low-budget horror film The Tunnel is currently in the works.
The sequel . titled The Tunnel: Dead End . received development funding from Screen Australia earlier this month and will pick up the story years down the track. No shoot date has been set for the horror flick.
It.s a sequel creators Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey weren.t planning on. .Initially, we weren.t anticipating doing another Tunnel film but the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the original . as well as our fans clamouring for another on an almost daily basis . made us go back and give it a second thought,. Tedeschi and Harvey, of Distracted Media, said in a joint statement.
.We weren't going to go ahead unless we could find a story we were 100 per cent behind, which we now have, and are thrilled to have the support of Screen Australia.
The sequel . titled The Tunnel: Dead End . received development funding from Screen Australia earlier this month and will pick up the story years down the track. No shoot date has been set for the horror flick.
It.s a sequel creators Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey weren.t planning on. .Initially, we weren.t anticipating doing another Tunnel film but the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the original . as well as our fans clamouring for another on an almost daily basis . made us go back and give it a second thought,. Tedeschi and Harvey, of Distracted Media, said in a joint statement.
.We weren't going to go ahead unless we could find a story we were 100 per cent behind, which we now have, and are thrilled to have the support of Screen Australia.
- 2/29/2012
- by Sam Dallas
- IF.com.au
Screen Australia today announced a round of development funding for eight feature films.
Included in the funding is Bruce Beresford’s Banjo & Matilda, as well as films by directors Adam Elliot, Nadia Tess, Eddie Martin and Richard Lowenstein, and investment in writers Alice Addison, Mark Herman and Glenda Hambly.
Banjo & Matilda is the dramatisation of Banjo Paterson’s Waltzing Matilda. Set in 1895, a young city poet and journalist travels to a remote sheep station to track down a political agitator. When the clashes between union shearers and landowners turn to violence, a man is found dead in a billabong. Was it suicide or murder? The film will be produced by Bill Leimbach (Beneath Hill 60, Bait 3D) and written by David Roach.
Adam Elliot (Mary & Max) will write and direct Ernee, an animated adventure romance, produced by Peter Kaufmann and executive produced by Brian Rosen and Bryce Menzies.
Two musical biopics were also funded.
Included in the funding is Bruce Beresford’s Banjo & Matilda, as well as films by directors Adam Elliot, Nadia Tess, Eddie Martin and Richard Lowenstein, and investment in writers Alice Addison, Mark Herman and Glenda Hambly.
Banjo & Matilda is the dramatisation of Banjo Paterson’s Waltzing Matilda. Set in 1895, a young city poet and journalist travels to a remote sheep station to track down a political agitator. When the clashes between union shearers and landowners turn to violence, a man is found dead in a billabong. Was it suicide or murder? The film will be produced by Bill Leimbach (Beneath Hill 60, Bait 3D) and written by David Roach.
Adam Elliot (Mary & Max) will write and direct Ernee, an animated adventure romance, produced by Peter Kaufmann and executive produced by Brian Rosen and Bryce Menzies.
Two musical biopics were also funded.
- 7/26/2011
- by Colin Delaney
- Encore Magazine
With the publication of the 2010 Black List another compilation of the year's best unproduced screenplays has arrived. This is the fifth year that The Black List has been in existence, and its purpose is to shine a spotlight on what 290 film executives think are some of the best creative executions of ideas worthy for the big screen.
To be nominated and included on The Black List a screenplay can't have been released in 2010. As well, the minimum number of votes that a screenplay needed to have to warrant inclusion on the list is five. Several of the projects listed on Tbl are in development and will be released in the next twelve months. Others might have heat but take years to reach theaters, and there are also many that will never be greenlighted.
In the words of the creators of The Black List, don't take this assembly of screenplays to...
To be nominated and included on The Black List a screenplay can't have been released in 2010. As well, the minimum number of votes that a screenplay needed to have to warrant inclusion on the list is five. Several of the projects listed on Tbl are in development and will be released in the next twelve months. Others might have heat but take years to reach theaters, and there are also many that will never be greenlighted.
In the words of the creators of The Black List, don't take this assembly of screenplays to...
- 12/15/2010
- by Patrick Sauriol
- Corona's Coming Attractions
Back in 2004, a list was compiled of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood of that year. This came to be known as The Black List. It was all started by a young executive at Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company Appian Way, who polled 90+ peers to send him their 10 favorite, new, unproduced screenplays to read over the holidays. It has since become a tradition at the end of every year, in December, to release this list, which is voted on by a group of individuals in the entertainment industry from producer assistants, talent agency individuals, and many people involved with film development all the way up to VP's.
The 2010 Black List is here, and thanks to Deadline we have the list of best unproduced screenplays. Most of the scripts we've heard of, many of them are in production, some have already wrapped filming, they just wont be released until next year.
The 2010 Black List is here, and thanks to Deadline we have the list of best unproduced screenplays. Most of the scripts we've heard of, many of them are in production, some have already wrapped filming, they just wont be released until next year.
- 12/13/2010
- by Venkman
- GeekTyrant
The Black List has been released. The annual list is compiled with a poll of 300 (up from last year's 250) development executives and high-level assistants, and contains a ranking of the hot screenplays making the rounds in Hollywoodland, which were written in, or are somehow uniquely associated with, 2010 and will not be released in theaters during this calendar year. Basically, the black list contains the hottest projects in Hollywood that you haven't heard of yet. Note: The headline is a slightly inaccurate, because a lot of these screenplays have already been acquired (six of the top ten listed), a bunch are in production now, and some have even finished production. One of this year's top ten screenplays, J.C. Chandor's Margin Call, about the last 24 hours at now-defunct investment bank Lehman Brothers is already in the can and set to premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival with Chandor at the helm...
- 12/13/2010
- by Peter Sciretta
- Slash Film
Frank Leonard is the most popular man in Hollywood today. This fine December day marks the release of the 6th annual Black List, a ranked collection of the top un-produced screenplays in the town, compiled by Leonard. Last year the top script was The Muppet Man from Christopher Weekes about “the life and times of the late Jim Henson.” Coming in second was Aaron Sorkin‘s The Social Network script, which is a current frontrunner to sweep the Oscars. The year before was The Beaver, now starring Mel Gibson and set for a release in 2011.
The top one this year, College Republicans, has Shia Labeouf and Paul Dano attached. As for the rest of the list, I’ll be seeing Margin Call (pictured above) at Sundance 2011 and Safe House goes into production next year. We also reported on Oldboy director Park Chan-wook‘s English language debut with Carey Mulligan attached,...
The top one this year, College Republicans, has Shia Labeouf and Paul Dano attached. As for the rest of the list, I’ll be seeing Margin Call (pictured above) at Sundance 2011 and Safe House goes into production next year. We also reported on Oldboy director Park Chan-wook‘s English language debut with Carey Mulligan attached,...
- 12/13/2010
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Working Title is that rarest of beasts – a properly successful British film company
Producers: Pride & Prejudice, United 93, Love Actually; co-chairmen of Working Title
There is never a shortage of voices calling time on the British film industry (and the climate has been doomier than ever since the axing of the Film Council). But amid the gloom is Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner's Working Title, that rarest of beasts – a properly successful British film company. The most successful, in fact, making confident movies that do Hollywood-style business.
Working Title is the unifying factor of some of the best-loved British films of the past two decades: Four Weddings, Billy Elliot, Bridget Jones, Atonement. Stephen Frears has called Fellner, 50, and Bevan, 52, the most powerful people in British film. Ever. Peter Morgan described them as "fantastic navigators of the system". Bevan started Working Title in 1984 with Sarah Radclyffe (who later left the...
Producers: Pride & Prejudice, United 93, Love Actually; co-chairmen of Working Title
There is never a shortage of voices calling time on the British film industry (and the climate has been doomier than ever since the axing of the Film Council). But amid the gloom is Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner's Working Title, that rarest of beasts – a properly successful British film company. The most successful, in fact, making confident movies that do Hollywood-style business.
Working Title is the unifying factor of some of the best-loved British films of the past two decades: Four Weddings, Billy Elliot, Bridget Jones, Atonement. Stephen Frears has called Fellner, 50, and Bevan, 52, the most powerful people in British film. Ever. Peter Morgan described them as "fantastic navigators of the system". Bevan started Working Title in 1984 with Sarah Radclyffe (who later left the...
- 9/24/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
Fern Champion on Cameron DiazWe were working at New Line, casting 1994's "The Mask." The story that everybody knows now is that Anna Nicole Smith was the first choice because the men at New Line thought she was stunning. Didn't say she could walk and talk, but she was stunning. We needed someone to talk. The good news is Anna Nicole opted to do "Naked Gun 33 1/3." Oh, too bad. So Fern's back to the drawing board. I'm at my wit's end, because we had gone through all the top models and all the top actors, and nobody was pleasing New Line co-ceo Bob Shaye, executive producer Mike De Luca, and director and executive producer Chuck Russell.I called my girlfriend at the talent agency upstairs at the New Line building, and I said, "Is there anybody we haven't seen?" She said, "I have to tell you something: There's one gal; she hasn't done any acting.
- 7/7/2010
- backstage.com
London -- A who's who of British movie producers have signed a letter dispatched to a national newspaper here to make a plea to the Government to break their "suffocating cycle of reliance on subsidy."
The letter, fired off to The Daily Telegraph and signed by producers including Kevin Loader, Andrea Calderwood and Sarah Radclyffe, complains that "public funding, from the U.K. Film Council, BBC Films and Film4" is given recoupment priority before the producers get a cut.
"These bodies insist on recouping the majority of their investment before allowing any returns to the producers -- leaving the producers with no funding for their next projects, and creating a suffocating cycle of reliance on subsidy," the signatories, which also include Andrew Eaton and Rebecca O'Brien, claim.
Given that most British films are ultimately unprofitable, to get movies off the ground here public subsidy is a must in most cases.
The letter, fired off to The Daily Telegraph and signed by producers including Kevin Loader, Andrea Calderwood and Sarah Radclyffe, complains that "public funding, from the U.K. Film Council, BBC Films and Film4" is given recoupment priority before the producers get a cut.
"These bodies insist on recouping the majority of their investment before allowing any returns to the producers -- leaving the producers with no funding for their next projects, and creating a suffocating cycle of reliance on subsidy," the signatories, which also include Andrew Eaton and Rebecca O'Brien, claim.
Given that most British films are ultimately unprofitable, to get movies off the ground here public subsidy is a must in most cases.
- 6/21/2010
- by By Stuart Kemp
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
London -- Mike Newell, who's tackled fantasy before with "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," has signed on to direct Brilliant Films' adaptation of the children's classic "Box of Delights," based on the 1935 novel by John Masefield.
Brilliant, which announced the project Monday, is funding the development of the project through their own fund and the project is the latest fruit of Brilliant's relationship with U.K. talent agency Independent.
Sarah Radclyffe, Courtney Pledger, and Esther Douglas are attached to produce "Delights" while Brilliant Films president Joe Abrams and Rory Gilmartin will executive produce alongside Newell. Frank Cottrell Boyce ("24 Hour Party People") is adapting the screenplay.
The fantasy adventure, originally published in 1935 and first adapted for U.K. radio 50 years ago, was made into a BBC television series in the 1980s. The story sees 12-year-old Kay caught up in a magical world when he finds himself in possession of a time-travelling device,...
Brilliant, which announced the project Monday, is funding the development of the project through their own fund and the project is the latest fruit of Brilliant's relationship with U.K. talent agency Independent.
Sarah Radclyffe, Courtney Pledger, and Esther Douglas are attached to produce "Delights" while Brilliant Films president Joe Abrams and Rory Gilmartin will executive produce alongside Newell. Frank Cottrell Boyce ("24 Hour Party People") is adapting the screenplay.
The fantasy adventure, originally published in 1935 and first adapted for U.K. radio 50 years ago, was made into a BBC television series in the 1980s. The story sees 12-year-old Kay caught up in a magical world when he finds himself in possession of a time-travelling device,...
- 4/6/2009
- by By Mimi Turner
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Mike Newell will direct The Box of Delights , based on John Masefield's classic 1930s children's novel about a boy entrusted with a magic box that allows him to travel through time, reports Variety . Frank Cottrell Boyce ( Millions ) is adapting the story. Sarah Radclyffe, Courtney Pledger and Esther Douglas are attached to produce with Brilliant Films' Joe Abrams and Rory Gilmartin receiving executive producer credits alongside Newell. Newell is completing post-production on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and previously directed Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire .
- 4/6/2009
- Comingsoon.net
- Female war correspondents are a tough batch, and who knows tough better than "X-Files" agent Dana Scully, aka Gillian Anderson? Caroline Moorehead's 2004 biography "Gellhorn: A Twentieth-Century Life" was acquired by Anderson's company, Fiddlehead Productions, and will be adapted for the screen by British screenwriter Sharman Macdonald. Anderson will star as war journalist Martha Gellhorn and will follow her life as Ernest Hemingway's third wife and prolific career as one of the great 20th century journalists. One of the first of her kind, Gellhorn traveled to Europe to cover the Spanish Civil War and went on to report from the Italian Front, the Vietnam War and the U.S. invasion at Panama. A trailblazer for her time, she would fit in swell in modern-day America; she married twice but had countless lovers and was extremely left wing, panning Fascists, Ronald Reagan and all Germans. She would probably be
- 7/1/2008
- IONCINEMA.com
LONDON -- John Maybury's The Edge of Love will open this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Maybury's biopic of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas should give the Scottish capital set event some glitz and glamour with a cast which includes Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Matthew Rhys and Cillian Murphy.
Organizers said Knightley, Miller, Rhys and Maybury are expected to attend the gala event June 18.
This year's Edinburgh film shindig is the first time it will unfold in June having previously always occupied an August slot. The festival runs June 18-29.
Maybury's romantic love triangle film is produced by Rebekah Gilbertson and Sarah Radclyffe, co-produced by Huw Penallt Jones and Bill Godfrey and executive produced by David Berstein, Linda James, Hannah Leader, Joe Oppenheimer, Tim Smith and David M. Thompson.
"It's a film that I personally adore, and opening with it is the perfect expression of our commitment to intelligent, impassioned, exciting new filmmaking," festival artistic director Hannah McGill said.
Maybury's biopic of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas should give the Scottish capital set event some glitz and glamour with a cast which includes Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Matthew Rhys and Cillian Murphy.
Organizers said Knightley, Miller, Rhys and Maybury are expected to attend the gala event June 18.
This year's Edinburgh film shindig is the first time it will unfold in June having previously always occupied an August slot. The festival runs June 18-29.
Maybury's romantic love triangle film is produced by Rebekah Gilbertson and Sarah Radclyffe, co-produced by Huw Penallt Jones and Bill Godfrey and executive produced by David Berstein, Linda James, Hannah Leader, Joe Oppenheimer, Tim Smith and David M. Thompson.
"It's a film that I personally adore, and opening with it is the perfect expression of our commitment to intelligent, impassioned, exciting new filmmaking," festival artistic director Hannah McGill said.
- 4/10/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Palm Springs International Film Festival
PALM SPRINGS -- Four curmudgeonly residents of a retirement home learn lessons in kindness in this by-the-numbers audience-pleaser. Because the actors playing the quarrelsome quartet are Vanessa Redgrave, Imelda Staunton, Brenda Fricker and Joss Ackland, stateside distribution is a strong possibility for "How About You".
The narrative trajectory is apparent within the opening minutes of the Irish feature, but director Anthony Byrne orchestrates the predictable proceedings with a minimum of fuss. Bearing shades of "Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont" but less delicacy, the comic drama could find a welcoming reception from older audiences seeking unchallenging fare.
The title refers to the Burton Lane/Ralph Freed standard "(I Like New York in Spring) How About You?" -- a fave of former chorus girl Georgia (Redgrave), a Brit with a predilection for turbans and martinis. She's one of the surly core group at Woodlane retirement home, an antique-bedecked mansion by a gurgling river. They don't like one another, but the collective antagonisms of Georgia, a misanthropic former judge (Ackland) and two frumpy, seemingly pathologically linked sisters (Fricker and Staunton), drive away staff and residents alike, threatening the business of young widow Kate (Orla Brady).
Kate's younger, free-spirited sister, Ellie (Hayley Atwell), shows up in need of a job to finance her next trip round the world -- and just in time to form a bond with wheelchair-bound Alice (Joan O'Hara), a quietly rebellious soul who knows that she's about to die. (O'Hara herself died not long after shooting wrapped.) When a family-crisis plot contrivance calls away Kate, Ellie must oversee Christmas week with the terrible four, the only residents who don't leave to spend the holidays with friends or family.
The inevitable bonding unfolds through the inevitable series of blowups and ostensibly hilarious mischief. Atwell ("Cassandra's Dream") holds her own with her formidable co-stars, who can do only so much with Jean Pasley's thin, repetitive script. While it's good to see Redgrave in a sizable role, it would have been better to see her and her colleagues in roles of more substance. She and Ackland bring a certain gravitas to their screen time, while Fricker, as bossy pill Heather, and especially Staunton, as scared-of-her-own-shadow Hazel, are required to play in a more comic key.
"How About You" is not without its moments of insight, but its emotional arc is a straight line from A to B, a path made all the more obvious by the heart-tugging score. Filmed at Mount Usher Gardens in Ashford, County Wicklow, and in Northern Island, the film looks good on a $9 million budget.
HOW ABOUT YOU
Ferndale Films in association with Bankside Films, Head Gear Films and Sarah Radclyffe Prods.
Credits:
Director: Anthony Byrne
Writer: Jean Pasley
Based on the short story by: Maeve Binchy
Producers: Noel Pearson, Sarah Radclyffe
Director of photography: Des Whelan
Music: Niall Byrne
Production designer: Tom McCullagh
Costume designer: Hazel Webb-Crozier
Editor: Emma E. Hilcox
Cast:
Georgia: Vanessa Redgrave
Hazel: Imelda Staunton
Heather: Brenda Fricker
Ellie: Hayley Atwell
Dan: Joss Ackland
Kate: Orla Brady
Alice: Joan O'Hara
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
PALM SPRINGS -- Four curmudgeonly residents of a retirement home learn lessons in kindness in this by-the-numbers audience-pleaser. Because the actors playing the quarrelsome quartet are Vanessa Redgrave, Imelda Staunton, Brenda Fricker and Joss Ackland, stateside distribution is a strong possibility for "How About You".
The narrative trajectory is apparent within the opening minutes of the Irish feature, but director Anthony Byrne orchestrates the predictable proceedings with a minimum of fuss. Bearing shades of "Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont" but less delicacy, the comic drama could find a welcoming reception from older audiences seeking unchallenging fare.
The title refers to the Burton Lane/Ralph Freed standard "(I Like New York in Spring) How About You?" -- a fave of former chorus girl Georgia (Redgrave), a Brit with a predilection for turbans and martinis. She's one of the surly core group at Woodlane retirement home, an antique-bedecked mansion by a gurgling river. They don't like one another, but the collective antagonisms of Georgia, a misanthropic former judge (Ackland) and two frumpy, seemingly pathologically linked sisters (Fricker and Staunton), drive away staff and residents alike, threatening the business of young widow Kate (Orla Brady).
Kate's younger, free-spirited sister, Ellie (Hayley Atwell), shows up in need of a job to finance her next trip round the world -- and just in time to form a bond with wheelchair-bound Alice (Joan O'Hara), a quietly rebellious soul who knows that she's about to die. (O'Hara herself died not long after shooting wrapped.) When a family-crisis plot contrivance calls away Kate, Ellie must oversee Christmas week with the terrible four, the only residents who don't leave to spend the holidays with friends or family.
The inevitable bonding unfolds through the inevitable series of blowups and ostensibly hilarious mischief. Atwell ("Cassandra's Dream") holds her own with her formidable co-stars, who can do only so much with Jean Pasley's thin, repetitive script. While it's good to see Redgrave in a sizable role, it would have been better to see her and her colleagues in roles of more substance. She and Ackland bring a certain gravitas to their screen time, while Fricker, as bossy pill Heather, and especially Staunton, as scared-of-her-own-shadow Hazel, are required to play in a more comic key.
"How About You" is not without its moments of insight, but its emotional arc is a straight line from A to B, a path made all the more obvious by the heart-tugging score. Filmed at Mount Usher Gardens in Ashford, County Wicklow, and in Northern Island, the film looks good on a $9 million budget.
HOW ABOUT YOU
Ferndale Films in association with Bankside Films, Head Gear Films and Sarah Radclyffe Prods.
Credits:
Director: Anthony Byrne
Writer: Jean Pasley
Based on the short story by: Maeve Binchy
Producers: Noel Pearson, Sarah Radclyffe
Director of photography: Des Whelan
Music: Niall Byrne
Production designer: Tom McCullagh
Costume designer: Hazel Webb-Crozier
Editor: Emma E. Hilcox
Cast:
Georgia: Vanessa Redgrave
Hazel: Imelda Staunton
Heather: Brenda Fricker
Ellie: Hayley Atwell
Dan: Joss Ackland
Kate: Orla Brady
Alice: Joan O'Hara
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Cillian Murphy and Matthew Rhys have signed on to star opposite Keira Knightley and Lindsay Lohan in The Best Time of Our Lives for Capitol Films. John Maybury is on board to direct.
Penned by Sharman Macdonald, the film chronicles the relationships between Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (Rhys), his wife Caitlin (Lohan), his childhood friend Vera Phillips (Knightley) and her eventual husband William Killick (Murphy).
Capitol is financing and handling worldwide sales. Rebekah Gilbertson and Sarah Radclyffe are producing.
Murphy's credits include Ken Loach's Palme d'Or winner The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Batman Begins, Red Eye and Breakfast on Pluto. He also leads the ensemble cast of Fox Searchlight's upcoming Sunshine, directed by Danny Boyle.
He is repped by UTA and attorney David Weber.
Rhys co-stars as Kevin Walker on ABC's Brother & Sisters. A graduate of London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, his credits also include Julie Taymor's adaptation of Titus, starring Anthony Hopkins, and David Leland's upcoming Virgin Territory.
He is represented by Management 360.
Penned by Sharman Macdonald, the film chronicles the relationships between Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (Rhys), his wife Caitlin (Lohan), his childhood friend Vera Phillips (Knightley) and her eventual husband William Killick (Murphy).
Capitol is financing and handling worldwide sales. Rebekah Gilbertson and Sarah Radclyffe are producing.
Murphy's credits include Ken Loach's Palme d'Or winner The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Batman Begins, Red Eye and Breakfast on Pluto. He also leads the ensemble cast of Fox Searchlight's upcoming Sunshine, directed by Danny Boyle.
He is repped by UTA and attorney David Weber.
Rhys co-stars as Kevin Walker on ABC's Brother & Sisters. A graduate of London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, his credits also include Julie Taymor's adaptation of Titus, starring Anthony Hopkins, and David Leland's upcoming Virgin Territory.
He is represented by Management 360.
- 3/30/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
LONDON -- A screen treatment of popular children's fantasy novelist Alan Gibbons' Legendeer trilogy received £98,050 ($171,000) in backing from the U.K. Film Council's Development Fund on Monday, one of six projects to receive backing. Writer Paul Hoffman and producers Sarah Radclyffe and Courtney Pledger at Jigsaw Films have received the funding for an adaptation of Gibbons' stories about a London teen who takes on the forces of darkness. The government-backed Film Council's latest round of funding totals £459,975 ($803,587). The current three-year cycle of funding totaling £15 million ends in March, when a new three-year Development Fund cycle begins with £12 million ($21 million) to disburse.
- 12/16/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Hollywood star Winona Ryder is being treated in a London, England, hospital for a mystery bug and her worried parents of the ailing beauty have flown in from America to be at her side. The 29-year-old, who first felt ill while attending the Planet Of The Apes premiere, was rushed to the hospital while filming Lily And The Secret Planting. Her producer Sarah Radclyffe says, "We are hopeful she will be back on the set within a few days. What matters most is that Winona gets well."...
- 8/21/2001
- WENN
PARK CITY, UTAH--Actors often take up the director's mantel, but few show any particular visual or storytelling skills. Such is not the case with Tim Roth, whose "The War Zone" was greeted with admiration and applause during its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. A wrenching story about family incest, this film may prove daunting for casual viewers, but its hard-forged eloquence should guarantee favorable reaction as an art house release.
The gruesome subject matter -- a father continually violates his teenage daughter during and after his wife's pregnancy -- is also emblemized by the cruel, natural setting of the story line.
The denuded and barren hills of Devon, just outside London, are a forbidding site, especially in the late fall when life has been sapped to a dull gray. It's a depressing landscape and an overall depressing situation for a hard-knocked family of four forced to more from the city to start anew amid the hardscrabble times of this rural burg.
Still, there is great expectation when mum (Tilda Swinton) gives birth to a girl, but even this blessed event is marred by a serious car accident on the way to the hospital. All family members, though bloodied and more than a bit unnerved, are ultimately OK, but the baby, it seems, suffers from some inner malady.
And things are even worse below the surface: Weary Ray (Ray Winstone) has brutally begun a cruel sexual relationship with 18-year-old Jessie (Lara Belmont), his vulnerable and troubled daughter. It's been going on a while and clearly is not something that is soon going to stop.
Inevitably, 15-year-old Tom (Freddie Cunliffe) stumbles upon his father and sister's rutting, and it decimates his kinship with his sister and severs fully his respect for his father. It's through Tom's ruptured viewpoint that screenwriter Alexander Stuart tells this tale.
There are no easy answers, no pat psychological explanations or causal justification in this painful story. Told with flinty precision and stark shadowings, "War Zone" is a searing look at the dark underbelly of what appears to be a bland societal situation.
The strength of "War Zone" is gathered from the edgy, never softened performances. As the loutish father, Winstone is a credible combination of sheer strength, kindliness and mendacity; it's a very human performance, and Winstone, to his credit, does not make the character cosmetically palatable. Cunliffe is terrific as the shattered son who confronts the heinous relationship, and Belmont is remarkable as the daughter who endures and, to an extent, encourages the coupling. She shows a woman confounded by crosscurrent of urges and insecurities. Swinton is well cast as the stolid wife and mother who has, essentially, been discarded by her husband.
Although it's not surprising that Roth has gathered marvelous performances from a talented cast, his visual powers are just as sure-footed. From the film's denuded, color-drenched look and thorny compositions, we feel the hardship and cutting-bone edge of the characters' lives. Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey has done a masterful job of framing and positioning his pictorial contribution. Similarly, Simon Boswell's sharp, assonant score clues us to the coldness and pain of this family "War Zone".
THE WAR ZONE
Credits: Producers: Sarah Radclyffe, Dixie Linder; Director: Tim Roth; Screenwriter: Alexander Stuart, based on his novel "The War Zone"; Executive producer: Eric Abraham; Director of photography: Seamus McGarvey; Production designer: Michael Carlin; Editor: Trevor Waite; Music: Simon Boswell; Costume designer: Mary Jane Reyner; Casting directors: Jina Jay, Sharon Howard-Field. Cast: Dad: Ray Winstone; Lucy: Kate Ashfield; Jessie: Lara Belmont; Tom: Freddie Cunliffe; Mum: Tilda Swinton. No MPAA rating. Color/stereo. Running time -- 98 minutes.
The gruesome subject matter -- a father continually violates his teenage daughter during and after his wife's pregnancy -- is also emblemized by the cruel, natural setting of the story line.
The denuded and barren hills of Devon, just outside London, are a forbidding site, especially in the late fall when life has been sapped to a dull gray. It's a depressing landscape and an overall depressing situation for a hard-knocked family of four forced to more from the city to start anew amid the hardscrabble times of this rural burg.
Still, there is great expectation when mum (Tilda Swinton) gives birth to a girl, but even this blessed event is marred by a serious car accident on the way to the hospital. All family members, though bloodied and more than a bit unnerved, are ultimately OK, but the baby, it seems, suffers from some inner malady.
And things are even worse below the surface: Weary Ray (Ray Winstone) has brutally begun a cruel sexual relationship with 18-year-old Jessie (Lara Belmont), his vulnerable and troubled daughter. It's been going on a while and clearly is not something that is soon going to stop.
Inevitably, 15-year-old Tom (Freddie Cunliffe) stumbles upon his father and sister's rutting, and it decimates his kinship with his sister and severs fully his respect for his father. It's through Tom's ruptured viewpoint that screenwriter Alexander Stuart tells this tale.
There are no easy answers, no pat psychological explanations or causal justification in this painful story. Told with flinty precision and stark shadowings, "War Zone" is a searing look at the dark underbelly of what appears to be a bland societal situation.
The strength of "War Zone" is gathered from the edgy, never softened performances. As the loutish father, Winstone is a credible combination of sheer strength, kindliness and mendacity; it's a very human performance, and Winstone, to his credit, does not make the character cosmetically palatable. Cunliffe is terrific as the shattered son who confronts the heinous relationship, and Belmont is remarkable as the daughter who endures and, to an extent, encourages the coupling. She shows a woman confounded by crosscurrent of urges and insecurities. Swinton is well cast as the stolid wife and mother who has, essentially, been discarded by her husband.
Although it's not surprising that Roth has gathered marvelous performances from a talented cast, his visual powers are just as sure-footed. From the film's denuded, color-drenched look and thorny compositions, we feel the hardship and cutting-bone edge of the characters' lives. Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey has done a masterful job of framing and positioning his pictorial contribution. Similarly, Simon Boswell's sharp, assonant score clues us to the coldness and pain of this family "War Zone".
THE WAR ZONE
Credits: Producers: Sarah Radclyffe, Dixie Linder; Director: Tim Roth; Screenwriter: Alexander Stuart, based on his novel "The War Zone"; Executive producer: Eric Abraham; Director of photography: Seamus McGarvey; Production designer: Michael Carlin; Editor: Trevor Waite; Music: Simon Boswell; Costume designer: Mary Jane Reyner; Casting directors: Jina Jay, Sharon Howard-Field. Cast: Dad: Ray Winstone; Lucy: Kate Ashfield; Jessie: Lara Belmont; Tom: Freddie Cunliffe; Mum: Tilda Swinton. No MPAA rating. Color/stereo. Running time -- 98 minutes.
Those expecting to hear Liam Neeson belt out a chorus of "One Day More" will likely be disappointed, but most others will find this no-singing, no-dancing version of "Les Miserables" to be a handsomely mounted, quite-faithfully adapted version of Victor Hugo's oft-told tale.
If anything, director Bille August ("Pelle the Conqueror", "Smilla's Sense of Snow") and screenwriter Rafael Yglesias ("Fearless") might have been a little too reverential. The painstakingly by-the-book approach can have a rigid, smothering effect on the already dense material.
While strong performances from Neeson as the eternally hunted Valjean and "Shine"'s Geoffrey Rush as his obsessed hunter, Javert, significantly offset the picture's frustratingly linear approach to storytelling, this "Les Miz" will be a hard sell to audiences overly familiar with the subject matter.
Not to be confused with the recent nonmusical, loosely adapted Claude Lelouch French version, the August edition manages to cover all the main points in slightly more than two hours -- which, given the heft of the source material, is a significant accomplishment.
August has always had a strong handle on humanity, not to mention an eye for great faces. Here, Neeson's vigorous aura of goodness is put to highly effective use as the nobly reformed but conscience-ridden Valjean. He's a great fit.
Rush's sad-dog countenance, meanwhile, makes him a natural for Javert, the police inspector whose impossibly dogged, myopic pursuit of Valjean makes one want to scream, "Get a hobby!"
The scenes in which the two face off lend the film a rich potency. As for the other performances, while Uma Thurman has the requisite waiflike eyes and delicate build to at least look the part of poverty-stricken Fantine, the makeup department goes a little overboard (as in unintentionally funny) in trying to make her appear increasingly pitiful.
Certainly the picture's look cannot be faulted. With Prague, Czech Republic, impressively doubling for early 19th century France, the production values are sumptuously evocative.
Still, one is left feeling that something is missing. While Basil Poledouris' gentle orchestrations occasionally seem to quote the Broadway musical version, this umpteenth rendition of "Les Miserables" needed a less slavish, more inspired treatment to truly sing.
LES MISERABLES
Sony Pictures Releasing
Columbia Pictures
Mandalay Entertainment presents
A Sarah Radclyffe production
A James Gorman production
A film by Bille August
Director: Bille August
Screenwriter: Rafael Yglesias
Based on the novel "Les Miserables" by:
Victor Hugo
Producers: Sarah Radclyffe, James Gorman
Director of photography: Jorgen Persson
Production designer: Anna Asp
Editor: Janus Billeskov-Jansen
Costume designer: Gabriella Pescucci
Music: Basil Poledouris
Casting: Leonora Davis
Color/stereo
Cast:
Valjean: Liam Neeson
Javert: Geoffrey Rush
Fantine: Uma Thurman
Cosette: Claire Danes
Marius: Hans Matheson
Running time -- 129 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
If anything, director Bille August ("Pelle the Conqueror", "Smilla's Sense of Snow") and screenwriter Rafael Yglesias ("Fearless") might have been a little too reverential. The painstakingly by-the-book approach can have a rigid, smothering effect on the already dense material.
While strong performances from Neeson as the eternally hunted Valjean and "Shine"'s Geoffrey Rush as his obsessed hunter, Javert, significantly offset the picture's frustratingly linear approach to storytelling, this "Les Miz" will be a hard sell to audiences overly familiar with the subject matter.
Not to be confused with the recent nonmusical, loosely adapted Claude Lelouch French version, the August edition manages to cover all the main points in slightly more than two hours -- which, given the heft of the source material, is a significant accomplishment.
August has always had a strong handle on humanity, not to mention an eye for great faces. Here, Neeson's vigorous aura of goodness is put to highly effective use as the nobly reformed but conscience-ridden Valjean. He's a great fit.
Rush's sad-dog countenance, meanwhile, makes him a natural for Javert, the police inspector whose impossibly dogged, myopic pursuit of Valjean makes one want to scream, "Get a hobby!"
The scenes in which the two face off lend the film a rich potency. As for the other performances, while Uma Thurman has the requisite waiflike eyes and delicate build to at least look the part of poverty-stricken Fantine, the makeup department goes a little overboard (as in unintentionally funny) in trying to make her appear increasingly pitiful.
Certainly the picture's look cannot be faulted. With Prague, Czech Republic, impressively doubling for early 19th century France, the production values are sumptuously evocative.
Still, one is left feeling that something is missing. While Basil Poledouris' gentle orchestrations occasionally seem to quote the Broadway musical version, this umpteenth rendition of "Les Miserables" needed a less slavish, more inspired treatment to truly sing.
LES MISERABLES
Sony Pictures Releasing
Columbia Pictures
Mandalay Entertainment presents
A Sarah Radclyffe production
A James Gorman production
A film by Bille August
Director: Bille August
Screenwriter: Rafael Yglesias
Based on the novel "Les Miserables" by:
Victor Hugo
Producers: Sarah Radclyffe, James Gorman
Director of photography: Jorgen Persson
Production designer: Anna Asp
Editor: Janus Billeskov-Jansen
Costume designer: Gabriella Pescucci
Music: Basil Poledouris
Casting: Leonora Davis
Color/stereo
Cast:
Valjean: Liam Neeson
Javert: Geoffrey Rush
Fantine: Uma Thurman
Cosette: Claire Danes
Marius: Hans Matheson
Running time -- 129 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 4/24/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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