As the Toronto International Film Festival came to a close yesterday with the announcements of its awards, there continued to be business announcements of new distribution deals that will bring many Toronto highlights into North American cinemas later this year.PALM PICTURES PICKS UP MEXICAN FILMIndie distributor Palm Pictures announced the pick up of North American rights to Cronicas,a Mexico-Ecuador co-production which debuted earlier this year in the Cannes Film Festival'sUn Certain Regard se...
TORONTO BIZ BUZZ 1SONY PICTURES CLASSICS HAS A RECORD TORONTOThe first few days of the Toronto International Film Festival has seen a spurt of buying for US distributor Sony Pictures Classics. The company already has a record six films screening in Toronto, including Festival opener Being Julia (directed by Istvan Szabo), Pedro Almodovar’s Bad Education, Zhang Jimou’s House of Flying Daggers, John Duigan’s Head In The Clouds, and Al Pacino-starrer The Merchant of Venice, has announced som...
Mike Leigh's "Vera Drake" won the coveted "Leone d’Oro" - Golden Lion - at the 61st Venice International Film Festival, presided over by John Boorman, jury president. The awards were announced at the closing ceremony September 11. Imelda Staunton who plays Vera Drake, a midwife in the 1950's prosecuted for "helping young girls and women in trouble" won the Coppa Volpi, best actress award. There is an irony in the award of the Golden Lion to Mike Leigh's "Vera Drake". Tod Solondz "Palindro...
Other screenings on day 8 and 9 include Horizon selection Izo by Takashi Miike. An assassin for the anti-Shogun Lord Hampeida is crucified in 1865 and comes back to revenge his murder. But what has he learned? The film is an endictment on war and displays a basic hatred of women for giving life. Briefly featuring Beat Takeshi (Takeshi Kitano) as prime minister, the film reminds Venice fest goers of what cinema is about with multilayered tableau, entries to new worlds, imagery that confronts. ...
This is the first time in Mike Leigh's nine feature films that he has used the name of a character in the title. There is a reason for this. Most of his other films had various characters revolving around a central theme. Here, everything revolves around one protagonist, Vera Drake, a cheerful cleaning lady, who helps everybody she can. She is a loving wife and mother. However, sornething else she does out of the goodness of her heart, though unknown to her family, is help young girls get aborti...
The 48th London Film Festival has selected Mike Leigh’s VERA DRAKE as its Opening Night Gala, and David O. Russell’s I HEART HUCKABEES as Closing Night Gala.The Opening Night Gala, on Wednesday 20th October, will be the UK Premiere of Mike Leigh’s VERA DRAKE starring Imelda Staunton and Phil Davis, it will be released in the United Kingdom by Momentum Pictures early in the New Year.The Closing Night Gala, on Thursday 4th November, will showcase the International Premiere of I HEART HUCKABE...
CINEMA16 TAKES MOODYSSON, GODARD, KIESLOWSKI, VON TRIER, LECONTE, TYKWER, MULLAN, MORETTI SHORTS OUT ACROSS EUROPE – IT’S A “FILM FESTIVAL IN THE COMFORT OF YOUR OWN HOME”.Following the success of the CINEMA16: BRITISH SHORT FILMS DVD, featuring Chris Nolan, Ridley Scott, Mike Leigh, Stephen Daldry, Lynne Ramsay, Peter Greenway and others, Cinema16 is now set to release a selection of the best classic and award winning European shorts in June.CINEMA16: EUROPEAN SHORT FILMS offers the opp...
The second time was twice as nice - it's raining prizes at the conclusion of the Berlinale Talent Campus"This is one of the most important initiatives for the future of the Berlinale" - commented Director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, Cold Mountain) about the second Berlinale Talent Campus. Yesterday the Campus concluded with a large Farewell Party at which two prizes were awarded: The Argentinian Martin Romanella won the Talent Movie of the Week with his film Funeral Etiquette. The w...
520 film talents from 84 countries join the Berlinale for the first time An explosive, creative mixture: 520 film talents from 84 countries were able to qualify for the Berlinale Talent Campus 2004 with the samples of their work (films, scripts and sound) they submitted. They will now meet internationally acclaimed professional filmmakers, for example Eleanor Bergstein, Anthony Minghella, Walter Murch, Nicolas Philibert, Zbigniew Preisner, Alan Parker and Wim Wenders.Compared to last year the to...
An explosive, creative mixture: 520 film talents from 84 countries were able to qualify for the Berlinale Talent Campus 2004 with the samples of their work (films, scripts and sound) they submitted. They will now meet internationally acclaimed professional filmmakers, for example Eleanor Bergstein, Anthony Minghella, Walter Murch, Nicolas Philibert, Zbigniew Preisner, Alan Parker and Wim Wenders.Compared to last year the total number of countries represented has increased by 23, including, for t...
