Film Program Cannes 5th Anniversary 2006

French films rule Cannes' Fortnight
Twelve of the 22 pics are Gallic productions
PARIS — The Cannes Film Festival's 40th Directors' Fortnight, announced Friday in Paris, boasts a huge Gallic presence, both in terms of directors and productions.
Twelve of the 22 films are either French pics or co-productions.
There is also a good showing from Spain and Latin America, with five films, but the U.S. pic count is way down to just the one, "The Pleasure of Being Robbed,” which closes the section, compared with five last year.
Directors' Fortnight opens with “Four Nights With Anna,” the return to filmmaking of celebrated Polish auteur Jerzy Skolimowski.
Apart from Skolimowski, there are few high-profile directors. Like the Official Selection and Critics' Week, the section focuses on rising talent, with a particular emphasis on European filmmaking.
The section bows May 15, one day after the main festival, and runs through May 25.
Patrick Frater, Ali Jaafar and Nick Vivarelli contributed to this report.

DIRECTORS' FORTNIGHT
“Four Nights With Anna,” France-Poland, Jerzy Skolimowski (opener)
"The Pleasure of Being Robbed,” U.S., Josh Safdie (closer)
“Acne,” Uruguay-Spain-Argentina-Mexico, Federico Veiroj
"Aquele querido mes de agosto," Portugal-France, Miguel Gomes
“Boogie,” Romania, Radu Muntean
“Les Bureaux de Dieu,” France, Claire Simon
“El Cant dels ocells,” Spain, Albert Serra
"De la guerre," France, Bertrand Bonello
"Le Dernier Maquis," France-Algeria, Rabah Ameur-Zaimeche
"Eldorado," Belgium-France, Bouli Lanners
"Eleve libre," Belgium-France, Joachim Lafosse
"Liverpool," Argentina-France-Netherlands-Spain-Germany, Lisandro Alonso
"Monsieur Morimoto," France, Nicola Sornaga
“Knitting,” China, Yin Lichuan
"Now Showing," Philippines-France, Raya Martin
“Il Resto della notte,” Italy, Francesco Munzi
"Salamandra," Argentina-France-Germany, Pablo Aguero
"Shultes," Russia, Bakur Bakuradze
"Blind Loves," Slovakia, Juraj Lehotsky
"Lonely Tune of Tehran," Iran, Saman Salour
“Tony Manero,” Chile-Brazil, Pablo Larrain
"Le Voyage aux Pyrenees," France, Jean-Marie Larrieu, Arnaud Larrieu

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Financing giant moves into Europe
Continental Entertainment opens Paris office

PARIS — In a sign that pastures may be greener for film financing companies in Europe than the U.S., New York and L.A.-based financing and investment company Continental Entertainment Capital has launched a European operation, CEC Europe.
Yann Le Quellec, a former co-founder of Wild Bunch subsid EWB Finance, has been tapped to head up CEC Europe as its managing director. He will report to CEC prexy-CEO Benjamin Waisbren.
Since its launch in April 2007, CEC, a Citi Group affiliate, has already made an impact, committing over $400 million in films financing.
Deals include finance for The Weinstein Co. and big single films such as Frank Miller's upcoming "The Spirit" and U.S.-Korean co-production, "The Laundry Warrior."
But CEC also made waves last September, inking a reported $150 million deal with France’s Wild Bunch, creating a joint co-production and acquisition entity, Continental Films. At the same time, CEC also took minority equity in Wild Bunch.
Le Quellec helped negotiate the deal for Wild Bunch.
CEC Europe is able to provide debt financing, corporate investment, or joint dedicated fund investment, Le Quellec told Daily Variety.

Debt finance could be either senior debt (that is, first position, so provided at lower rates) or mezzanine (less well-positioned, so slightly costlier).
Financing may either be backed by Citi or syndicated out to other financial institutions, Le Quellec added.
CEC Europe is interested “in production and distribution companies, both Europe’s mini-majors and smaller independent companies,” said Le Quellec.
“We want to focus on companies with strong management, strong strategic vision and an ability to deliver on that vision,” he added.
CEC Europe’s creation comes after comments made to Variety at the Berlin Film Festival by Waisbren that CEC was “looking at Europe as an opportunity.”
In the U.S., indie films have difficulty reaching the market, he said.
Europe, by contrast, carries lower P&A costs, audiences have different priorities and TV deals are richer, Waisbren added.
“Europe also has soft money,” Le Quellec said.
“The essential thing, however, is that there’s an alignment of interests, that when it works for a producer it works for us,” he concluded.
CEC will also invest in TV and other media companies, Le Quellec said.

Cannes Short Film Corner

Stacey Parks, founder of Film Specific and author of The Insider's Guide to Independent Film Distribution will be featured on a panel at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival's Short Film Corner, dedicated to MARKETING and PROMOTION strategies, tools, and how optimize one's journey in a festival or a market.

The panel will occur on Thursday May 22nd at 4.00pm at the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner.
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Cannes unveils line-up, with both Soderbergh Che films competing

Cannes organisers announce 20 films selected for 2008 competition, including new films from Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the Dardenne brothers, Arnaud Desplechin, Steven Soderbergh, Clint Eastwood, Atom Egoyan, Charlie Kaufman, Lucretia Martel, Walter Salles, Wim Wenders, Paulo Sorrentino, and Jia Zhangke. Out of competition selections include Vicky Cristina Barcelona by Woody Allen, Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull and animated Kung-Fu Panda. No opening or closing films have been announced yet.
Cannes unveils Competition lineup

This year's Festival de Cannes Competition lineup features regular visitors and familiar faces as organizers announced the event lineup Wednesday in Paris.

Regulars including Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne with "Le Silence de Lorna," Arnaud Desplechin with "Un Conte de Noel," Clint Eastwood with "The Changeling," Walter Salles with "Linha de Passe," Wim Wenders with "The Palermo Shooting" and Steven Soderbergh with "Che" will all be taking the trip to the Riviera in May.

And filmmaker Charlie Kaufman will present "Synechdoche, New York," for the filmmaker's first exposure to a Competition slot.

Philippe Garrel with "Les Frontieres de L'Aube" starring his son Louis will also feel the Competition heat.

Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" will show Out of Competition and organizers also confirmed the presence of "Indiana Jones And The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull" in an Out of Competition slot although it will not open the event.

And Dreamworks' "Kung Fu Panda" will premiere in an Out of Competition slot also.

The opening and closing films were not announced at the news conference. The rest of the selection "will be completed in the coming days," Fremaux said.

Natalie Portman, Alfonso Cuaron and Rachid Bouchareb will be among the big names making up Sean Penn's feature film jury.

IN COMPETITION

UC MAYMUN
Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey

LE SILENCE DE LORNA
Director: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Belgium

UN CONTE DE NOEL
Director: Arnaud Desplechin, France

CHANGELING
Director: Clint Eastwood, U.S.

ADORATION
Director: Atom Egoyan, Canada

WALTZ WITH BASHIR
Director: Ari Folman, Israel

LA FRONTIERE DE L'AUBE
Director: Philippe Garrel, France

GOMORRA
Director: Matteo Garrone, Italy

24 CITY
Director: Jia Zhangke, China

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
Director: Charlie Kaufman, U.S.

MY MAGIC
Director: Eric Khoo, Singapore

LA MUJER SIN CABEZA
Director: Lucrecia Martel, Argentina

SERBIS
Director: Brillante Mendoza, Philippines

DELTA
Director: Kornel Mundruczo, Hungary

LINHA DE PASSE
Director: Walter Salles, Daniela Thomas, Brazil

CHE
Director: Steven Soderbergh, U.S.

IL DIVO
Paolo Sorrentino, Italy

LEONERA
Director: Pablo Trapero, Argentina

THE PALERMO SHOOTING
Director: Wim Wenders, Germany
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N.Y. rolls out red carpet for Tribeca

David Mamet's 'Redbelt' is one of several mainstream pics unspooling at the Tribeca Film Festival.
The seventh annual Tribeca Film Fest opens on a light note Wednesday night with the world preem of Universal's Tina Fey-Amy Poehler laffer "Baby Mama" at midtown's Ziegfeld, with an after-party at the Museum of Modern Art.

In keeping with Tribeca's eclectic tradition, however, films set to unspool will include a significant number of international pics, political documentaries and fare from tyro filmmakers.

Selections for this year's fest, which runs through May 4, were trimmed by 25% from last year. Gripes about sprawling venues and high ticket fees have been addressed with two centralized hubs and lower prices.

"We want to keep a pulse on what's happening in the rest of the world," said Tribeca artistic director Peter Scarlet of the fest's picks. "You can get a better sense of how people live in other parts of the world through films, more than reading the newspaper. You feel people's souls."

Mainstream centerpieces are David Mamet's samurai warrior "Redbelt" and family-style actioner "Speed Racer." Additional outreach efforts to target the indie uninitiated are the outdoor screenings (the making of Michael Jackson's "Thriller," plus the video), an ESPN mini-fest of competish films and a traditionally well-attended downtown street fair that has brought several hundred thousand people to the Tribeca hood.

Fest is known for harvesting a reputable crop of docs. Buzzed-about screenings include Errol Morris' "Standard Operating Procedure," Madonna-produced Malawi AIDS orphans doc "I Am Because We Are," Gini Reticker's inspirational Liberian civil war doc "Pray the Devil Back to Hell," Kief Davidson's Ugandan-child-soldier-to-world-champion-boxer tale "Kassim the Dream" and Beastie Boy Adam Yauch's streetball doc "Gunnin' for That #1 Spot."

One sales agent echoed an oft-expressed sentiment that while Tribeca is not much of a market, "It's a great barometer of popular taste; it tells you what films people like."

Fest co-exec director Paola Freccero emphasized the underlying mission at this point of bringing like artists together to network.

"I hope our film festival is not only measured by how many films sell but (by) the connections made," said Freccero. To that end, the fest partners with its nonprofit arm, the Tribeca Film Institute, to sponsor the Tribeca All Access program.

In its fifth year, TAA has selected 37 filmmakers from traditionally marginalized communities to participate in mentoring, networking and pitch meetings with creative execs from shingles ranging from Zeitgeist to Miramax. Three films in this year's fest are from prior TAA alums. One success story is a 2005 alum: Helmer Benson Lee's breakdancing doc "Planet B-Boy" opened in Gotham in March with the highest per-screen average for an indie film nationwide in its first sesh.
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Roger Ebert Celebrates 10 Years of Overlooked Movies

by Jennifer M. Wood | Published April 22, 2008
He may be the world’s best-known film critic, but the movies that Roger Ebert is most interested in celebrating at his annual Ebertfest are far from household titles. In fact, “overlooked” is the adjective Ebert himself would use to describe these films, which make up the program of the five-day fest, which kicks off on April 23rd at the Virginia Theatre in Champaign, Illinois.

Just days before Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet opened the fest’s 10th annual event, MM caught up with Ebert to discuss what inspired him to create the fest and this year’s lineup of underrated features.

Jennifer Wood (MM): In addition to exposing audiences to some great movies, Ebertfest seems to shine a light on the very serious fact that movies today are not given a chance to find their legs in theaters. Was the changing world of film distribution a factor in the creation of Ebertfest? Considering the number of sold-out screenings, it seems obvious that audiences are hungry for more than what they can find at the local cineplex.

Roger Ebert (RE): As a critic I saw one great film after another that I wanted to drag people to, so they could share the experience. This festival seemed an inspired solution.

MM: From a moviegoing standpoint, do you think we’ll ever see another Bonnie and Clyde—a movie that is given a second life based on great reviews (yours included) and word of mouth alone? Or does advertising play too much of a role in today’s world to let that be the case?

RE: Ads open movies. Love makes them live. Greatness makes them immortal.

MM: Was there one particular film that really served as the impetus for Ebertfest? What’s the one film that is truly deserving as the gold standard of “overlooked” movies?

RE: Gates of Heaven by Errol Morris, a documentary about pet cemeteries. Who’s gonna think they want to see that?

MM: What’s great about your event is that it’s really about your personal tastes—there’s no agenda to program X number of blockbusters, X number of documentaries, etc. But in the 10 years you’ve been putting on the fest—and the 40-plus years you’ve been writing about film—do you think there is an obvious bias toward any one type of film?

RE: Quirky individual explosions of the need to make a film.

MM: In terms of variety, this year’s lineup succeeds yet again—from Ang Lee’s Hulk to Tarsem Singh’s The Cell, you’ve got your big-budget would-be blockbusters in there as well as some of this year’s festival favorites, like The Real Dirt on Farmer John and Canvas. But if you were forced to show only one film—and it had to be a film that came out in the past 12 months—what would you show and why?

RE: No parent has a favorite child.

Ebertfest runs April 23 - 27, 2008. Visit www.ebertfest.com for more information.
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Going Green on the Set

by Hester Schell | Published April 18, 2008

If not us, who? If not now, when?

The pile of garbage bags grows as we’re about to wrap out on another Bay Area “low-budget feature for festivals.” Somewhere a P.A. waits for instructions on where to take it. I have to admit, I did ask for it: “I’ll do the recycling.” I sift through garbage removing water bottles and soda cans. I post signs: “This is Garbage,” and “This is Recycling.” It takes seven days to break a habit. This two-week feature gives me hope.

Most of us do it at home anyway: Separating out bottles, cans, plastic and cardboard. Yeah, we’re busy making a movie and we’re on the run. With nine cast members and 15 to 20 crew coming and going, that’s a lot of cases of soda cans and water bottles. No more excuses. Here are a few simple things production managers can do to reduce their carbon footprint on a movie set:

BYOWB: Bring your own water bottles and refill them from five-gallon portables, or better yet, use the tap. If it’s vitamin water you want, add instant vitamin powder. There’s an added benefit to this eco-friendly practice: Cash savings. If you just can’t switch to BYOWB then put a permanent marker next to the water bottles and have everyone put their names on the bottles they’ve opened so they can finish them.

ELIMINATE STYROFOAM: Just don’t buy it. Get it off the set—period. Instruct craft services and catering to purchase biodegradable and high-content, post-consumer recycled paper products. Apart from keeping this obnoxious and toxic material out of the landfill, your coffee flavor won’t be spoiled by melting styrene (which, by the way, is a known carcinogen). Or, add a crate of ceramic mugs to the craft list and have a P.A. take the cups home and run them through the dishwasher. Take it a step further by asking staff to bring a coffee mug. It’s not that hard to put a coffee mug in your backpack. By the way, if you’re going to shoot up in Portland, Oregon, anytime soon, you’ll have to do all this—it’s the law. There’s no Styrofoam in Multnomah County, by voter approval quite awhile ago. Just for fun, do an Internet search for “banned Styrofoam,” and you’ll find a host of communities getting rid of it.

PRINT BACK TO BACK:Just do it, whenever possible, and use soy-based inks. And make it high-percentage, post-consumer, recycled paper. Use those one-sided drafts your friends marked up to print the shot logs, call sheets, strip boards and contact sheets whenever possible.

POWER DOWN: Turn the power off at meal breaks whenever possible.

EAT LOWER ON THE FOOD CHAIN:Go veggie whenever possible.

WORK WITH ECO-FRIENDLY COMPANIES: Utilize businesses and suppliers that support energy savings, and hotels, that support sustainable laundry practices.

CHANGE A BULB: Replace incandescent bulbs with high-efficiency ones wherever you can.

CARPOOL: Carpool, carpool, carpool to the location, location, location.

RECHARGE YOURSELF: Two simple words: Rechargeable batteries. Get rid of the disposables. They’re not—and they’re toxic.

RECYCLE OLD BATTERIES: Put a bag or a box next to the bottle and can bin and make a sign for battery recycling.

GO DIGITAL: Many of us have already made the jump to HD, bypassing all those nasty polluting, chemicals from traditional moviemaking from the last century.

Sure, it’s asking a lot, but we really can make a difference with every choice we make, so be part of the solution. Someone is going to be inconvenienced by it and complain, but these are the kinds of changes necessary if we’re going to save the planet.

And by all means, add to this list. Start with cardboard, battery, bottle and can recycling and see where else you can go with it. It’s a start. Reducing our carbon footprint can easily translate into our working environment.

For more information on ordering and pricing out biodegradable food service products, visit:

www.ecoproducts.com
www.mrtakeoutbags.com
www.container-recyling.org
www.treecycle.com

Hester Schell is a staff writer at Bay Area Casting News, and worked on the feature Truth, shot in Half Moon Bay, California in February 2008. She can be reached at info@bayareacasting.com.

Sean Penn toLead Cannes Festival Jury

American actor and director Sean Penn will head the awards jury at the Cannes Film Festival this year, organizers announced Thursday.

The festival's 61st edition is scheduled for May 14-25.

Penn said in a statement "that a new generation of filmmaking may have begun," citing "increasingly thoughtful, provocative, moving, and imaginative films by talented filmmakers" in what appeared to be "a rejuvenation of cinema building worldwide."

"The Cannes Film Festival has long been the epicenter in the discovery of those new waves of filmmakers from all over the world. I very much look forward to participating in this year's festival as president of the jury," Penn said.

British director Stephen Frears, known for "The Queen," "High Fidelity" and "Dirty Pretty Things," led the jury last year that awarded the top prize to Romanian director Cristian Mungiu for "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," a harrowing portrait of an illegal abortion in Communist-era Romania.

Penn won a best actor Oscar for "Mystic River" for his role as an ex-hoodlum who reverts to his criminal ways to exact revenge for his daughter's death.

He directed "Into The Wild," considered a front-runner for major awards this year, about a young idealist whose journey to Alaska ends in tragedy. He also starred as a death row inmate in "Dead Man Walking."

Deal close on New York State tax credit

NEW YORK -- The specter of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer's prostitution scandal and the affairs of his replacement David Paterson still hover over final negotiations for a New York State film and TV tax incentive bill -- and they're making things go more smoothly.

A compromise on the bill that would raise the state tax credit from 10% to 30% of the below-the-line costs to producers could be reached as early as Friday.

"I think the people of the state of New York have been embarrassed, and they're looking for government that works for them," said Democratic state Sen. Martin Golden, who is spearheading the Senate's version of the bill. "We have to put all the tabloids and innuendoes aside and start to pass budgets and policies that work for the state of New York and give confidence back to the people that we're in control and have a good government."

One source said several legislators on both sides of the aisle want to blame delays on the newly demonized Spitzer so that they can play the good guys in the run-up to the official budget vote Tuesday.

With NBC Universal, Steiner Studios, Silvercup Studios and other parties lobbying them furiously, the Republican-led Senate and the Democratic-led Assembly have favored hefty increases to the current 10% state tax credit on below-the-line production costs. But the devil is in the details.

Spitzer's January proposal was to change it to 15% of all production costs (including above-the-line costs for actors, producers and directors) and an incremental rise in the benefit cap from $60 million to $75 million by 2011.

The Senate initially agreed with Spitzer's 15% but wanted no caps. The Assembly agreed with the Spitzer caps but wanted 30% purely below the line. And although anything can change at the last minute, a final compromise is close to being reached.

Golden and a source involved with the wheeling and dealing say that barring any last minute acts of God, there likely will be the 30% below-the-line credit the Assembly favored. But the cap likely will be raised from the proposed $75 million to at least $100 million by 2011.

The Assembly now is being pressured to extend the credits to 2013, but they want the legislation to have an expiration date so they can return to evaluate the bill and the process. Even though the Senate wants no expiration date, there will likely be a 2012 or 2013 end.

Another outstanding issue is a cap on the credit. Golden maintains that he wants none, but some in the Senate are looking to put a $150 million annual cap in place by 2013. The Assembly is pushing for a figure closer to $100 million, and the final result likely will be between the two figures.

There is plenty of momentum for a compromise among New York's film and TV community, regardless of the political jockeying.

Steiner Studios chairman Doug Steiner put the bipartisan efforts on the bill in perspective.

"I think Sen. Golden may make a Republican out of me yet," he said.

Courts Cannot Overturn Decisions on Awarding Oscars

USA_ The Academy Awards are not subject to judicial review, the Court of Appeal for this district ruled yesterday.

Affirming Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Edward A. Ferns’ decision in favor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Div. Five held that the common law right of fair procedure does not apply to decisions made by private organizations regarding the criteria for giving awards.

The plaintiff, Bob Yari, was one of six people who received screen credit as producers of the movie Crash, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2006. In the past, the academy presented the Best Picture award to all of the individuals designated as producers in the film, but in 2005, the criteria were changed.

Under the academy’s new rules, only three or fewer individuals with screen credit as a producer, “who have performed the major portion of the producer function,” could be nominees for the Best Picture award, and the Producers Guild of America’s Branch Executive Committee would designate the nominees.

If a film was nominated with more than three credited producers, the guild would send an application and eligibility form to the credited producers to describe their respective responsibilities for the film. Yari’s application was unsuccessful, and he filed suit.

Yari alleged that the guild and academy were powerful, quasi-public institutions which controlled the movie producing industry, and that their arbitrary decision making process violated their own rules, and denied him the credit he deserved.

Deprived of Benefits

He claimed that he was deprived of the “recognition, prestige, financial and professional benefits attained by only the most successful motion picture producers. He further contended that his reputation was damaged because the guild’s and academy’s decision implied that he was merely a financier of the film who did not participate in the creative aspects of producing the movie.

Yari requested an injunction to prohibit the guild and academy from making any future credit determinations and requiring that they change their criteria, as well as monetary damages.

Ferns sustained a demurrer to Yari’s complaint, but the Court of Appeal sided with the trial judge.

The common law right of fair procedure was developed in the Marinship-Pinsker-Ezekial-Potvin line of cases, Justice Orville A. Armstrong explained. The cases hold that “the right to practice a lawful trade or profession is sufficiently ‘fundamental’ to require substantial protection against arbitrary administrative interference, either by government … or by a private entity.”

Exclusion of Individuals

The Marinship-Pinsker cases all involved situations where an individual was excluded or expelled from membership in gatekeeper organizations, such as labor unions or professional associations. Thus, Armstrong explained, “the right applies only to private decisions which can effectively deprive an individual of the ability to practice a trade or profession.”

The court noted that the guild is not a labor union. Although Yari’s complaint alleged that the guild holds a “virtual monopoly in the specialized field of motion picture producing” and regulates “the profession of motion picture producing,” and made similar allegations against the academy, Yari’s assertions “focus on defendants’ appearance of power, rather than their actual power,” Armstrong reasoned.

When read as a whole, Armstrong continued, the complaint evidenced that Yari produced Crash, received screen credit for the film, the film was financially and critically successful, and Yari continues to produce films. “The complaint thus alleged that defendants did not control Yari’s right to practice the trade or profession of movie producing,” Armstrong reasoned, “and that their negative response to his application for Best Picture producer credit did not significantly impair his ability to work.

The court also rejected Yari’s claim that the defendants were quasi-public agencies. “It is surely true that, as Yari argues, the public is interested in the motion picture industry.” Armstrong wrote, but this interest by the public “does not mean that industry-related organizations like defendants operate in the public interest.”

The justices also held that the guild and agency owed no fiduciary duty to Yari, and that his application did not create a contract, or a promise on which reliance was reasonable.

“All defendants did was decide whether Yari met their criteria for receiving one of their awards,” Armstrong concluded. “There is no judicial review of that decision, even if the winner will benefit from receiving the award, and the losing nominees will suffer by comparison…. To rule otherwise would be to rule that defendants’ awards are subject to judicial review.”

George R. Hedges of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, who represented the guild and academy said of that his clients are “thrilled” with the appellate court’s decision. “It’s very important to have this validation of the integrity of the process,” he added.

Yari “acted as a checkbook producer” with no creative involvement in the film, Hedges said. “Bruce Davis, executive director of the academy, had it right when he said that Bob Yari reminded him of a little boy who is going to hold his breath until you give him what he wants.”

Roger R. Crane, Thaddeus J. Stauber and Matthew Zandi of Nixon Peabody represented Yari. Zandi referred a request for comment to Crane, who could not be reached.

Presiding Justice Paul Turner and Justice Sandy R. Kriegler joined Armstrong in his opinion.

Richard Widmark, 93; roles spanned from tough guys to generals

Richard Widmark, who created a villain in his first movie role who was so repellent and frightening that the actor became a star overnight, died Monday at his home in Roxbury, Conn. He was 93.

His death was announced Wednesday morning by his wife, Susan Blanchard. She said that Widmark had fractured a vertebra in recent months and that his conditioned had worsened.

As Tommy Udo, a giggling, psychopathic killer in the 1947 gangster film "Kiss of Death," Widmark tied up an old woman in a wheelchair (played by Mildred Dunnock) with a cord ripped from a lamp and shoved her down a flight of stairs to her death.

"The sadism of that character, the fearful laugh, the skull showing through drawn skin, and the surely conscious evocation of a concentration-camp degenerate established Widmark as the most frightening person on the screen," the critic David Thomson wrote in "The Biographical Dictionary of Film."

The performance won Widmark his sole Academy Award nomination, for best supporting actor.

Tommy Udo made the 32-year-old Widmark, who had been an established radio actor, an instant movie star, and he spent the next seven years playing a variety of flawed heroes and relentlessly anti-social mobsters in 20th Century Fox's juiciest melodramas.

His mobsters were drenched in evil. Even his heroes, including the doctor who fights bubonic plague in Elia Kazan's "Panic in the Streets" (1950), the daredevil pilot flying into the eye of a storm in "Slattery's Hurricane" (1949) and the pickpocket who refuses to be a traitor in Samuel Fuller's "Pickup on South Street" (1953) were nerve-strained and feral.

"Movie audiences fasten on to one aspect of the actor, and then they decide what they want you to be," Widmark once said. "They think you're playing yourself. The truth is that the only person who can ever really play himself is a baby."

In reality, the screen's most vicious psychopath was a mild-mannered former teacher who had married his college sweetheart, the actress Jean Hazelwood, and who told a reporter 48 years later that he had never been unfaithful and had never even flirted with women because, he said, "I happen to like my wife a lot."

He was originally turned down for the role of Tommy Udo by the movie's director, Henry Hathaway, who told Widmark that he was too clean-cut and intellectual. It was Darryl Zanuck, the Fox studio head, who, after watching Widmark's screen test, insisted that he be given the part.

Among the 65 movies he made over the next five decades were "The Cobweb" (1955), in which he played the head of a psychiatric clinic where the staff seemed more emotionally troubled than the patients; "Saint Joan" (1957), as the Dauphin to Joan Seberg's Joan of Arc; John Wayne's "The Alamo" (1960), as Jim Bowie, the inventor of the Bowie knife; "Judgment at Nuremberg" (1961), as an American army colonel prosecuting German war criminals; and John Ford's revisionist western "Cheyenne Autumn" (1963), as an army captain who risks his career to help the Indians.

The genesis of "Cheyenne Autumn" was research Widmark had done at Yale into the suffering of the Cheyenne. He showed his work to John Ford and, two years later, Ford sent Widmark a finished screenplay.

Widmark created the role of Detective Sgt. Daniel Madigan in Don Siegel's 1968 film "Madigan." It proved so popular that later played the loner Madigan on an NBC television series during the 1972-73 season.

As his blonde hair turned grey, Widmark moved up in rank, playing generals in the nuclear thriller "Twilight's Last Gleaming" (1977) and "The Swarm" (1978), in which he waged war on bees. He was the evil head of a hospital in "Coma" (1978) and a U.S. senator in "True Colors" (1991).

He was forever fighting producers' efforts to stereotype him. Indeed, he became so adept at all types of roles that he consistently lent credibility to inferior movies and became an audience favorite over a career that spanned more than half a century.

"I suppose I wanted to act in order to have a place in the sun," he once told a reporter. "I'd always lived in small towns, and acting meant having some kind of identity."

Richard Widmark (he had no middle name) was born on Dec. 26, 1914, in Sunrise, Minn., and grew up throughout the Midwest. His father, Carl Widmark, was a traveling salesman who took his wife, Mae Ethel, and two sons from Minnesota to Sioux Falls, S.D.; Henry, Ill.; Chillicothe, Mo.; and Princeton, Ill., where Widmark graduated from high school as senior class president.

Movie crazy, he was afraid to admit his interest in the "sissy" job of acting. On a full scholarship at Lake Forest College in Illinois, he played end on the football team, took third place in a state oratory contest, starred in plays and was, once again, senior class president.

Graduating in 1936, he spent two years as an instructor in the Lake Forest drama department, directing and acting in two dozen plays. Then he headed to New York City in 1938, where one of his classmates was producing 15-minute radio soap operas and cast Widmark in a variety of roles.

"Getting launched was easy for me — too easy, perhaps," he said of his success playing "young, neurotic guys" on "Big Sister," "Life Can Be Beautiful," "Joyce Jordan, M.D.," "Stella Dallas," "Front Page Farrell," "Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories" and "Inner Sanctum."

At the beginning of World War II, Widmark tried to enlist in the army but was turned down three times because of a perforated eardrum. So he turned, in 1943, to Broadway. In his first stage role, he played an Army lieutenant in F. Hugh Herbert's "Kiss and Tell," directed by George Abbott. Appearing in the controversial play "Trio," which was closed by the license commissioner after 67 performances because it touched on lesbianism, he received glowing reviews as a college student who fights to free the girl he loves from the domination of an older woman.

After a successful, 10-year career as a radio actor, he tried the movies with "Kiss of Death," which was being filmed in New York. Older than most new recruits, he was, to his surprise, summoned to Hollywood after the movie was released. "I'm probably the only actor who gave up a swimming pool to go out to Hollywood," Widmark told The New Yorker in 1961.

He had never expected 20th Century Fox to pick up the option on the contract he was forced to sign to get the role of Tommy Udo. During the seven years of his Fox contract, he starred in 20 movies, including "Yellow Sky" (1948), as the blackguard who menaces Gregory Peck; "Down to the Sea in Ships" (1949), as a valiant whaler; Jules Dassin's "Night and the City" (1950), as a small- time hustler who dreams of becoming a wrestling promoter; and "Don't Bother to Knock" (1952), in which the tables were turned and he was the prey of a psychopathic Marilyn Monroe.

A passionate liberal Democrat, Widmark played a bigot who baits a black doctor in Joseph Mankiewicz's "No Way Out" (1950). He was so embarrassed by the character that after every scene he apologized to the young actor he was required to torment, Sidney Poitier. In 1990, when Widmark was given the D.W. Griffith Career Achievement Award by the National Board of Review, it was Poitier who presented it to him.

Within two years after his Fox contract ended, Widmark had formed a production company and produced "Time Limit" (1957), a serious dissection of possible treason by an American prisoner of war that The New York Times called "sobering, important and exciting." Directed by the actor Karl Malden, "Time Limit" starred Widmark as an army colonel who is investigating a major (Richard Basehart) who is suspected of having broken under pressure during the Korean War and aided the enemy.

Widmark produced two more films: "The Secret Ways" (1961) in which he went behind the Iron Curtain to bring out an anti-Communist leader; and "The Bedford Incident" (1964), another Cold War drama, in which he played an ultraconservative naval captain trailing a Russian submarine and putting the world in danger of a nuclear catastrophe.

Widmark told The Guardian in 1995 that he had not become a producer to make money but to have greater artistic control. "I could choose the director and my fellow actors," he said. "I could carry out projects which I liked but the studios didn't want."

He added: "The businessmen who run Hollywood today have no self-respect. What interests them is not movies but the bottom line. Look at 'Dumb and Dumber,' which turns idiocy into something positive, or 'Forrest Gump,' a hymn to stupidity. 'Intellectual' has become a dirty word."

He also vowed he would never appear on a talk show on television, saying, "When I see people destroying their privacy — what they think, what they feel — by beaming it out to millions of viewers, I think it cheapens them as individuals."

In 1970, he won an Emmy nomination for his first television role, as the president of the United States in a mini-series based on Fletcher Knebel's novel "Vanished." By the 1980s, television movies had transformed the jittery psychopath of his early days into a wise and stalwart lawman. He played a Texas Ranger opposite Willie Nelson's train robber in "Once Upon a Texas Train," a small-town police chief in "Blackout" and, most memorably, a bayou country sheriff faced with a group of aged black men who have confessed to a murder in "A Gathering of Old Men."

"The older you get, the less you know about acting," he told one reporter, "but the more you know about what makes the really great actors." The actor he most admired was Spencer Tracy, because, he said, Tracy's acting had a reality and honesty that seemed effortless.

Widmark, who hated the limelight, spent his Hollywood years living quietly on a large farm in Connecticut and an 80-acre horse ranch in Hidden Valley, north of Los Angeles. Asked once if he had been "astute" with his money, he answered, "No, just tight."

He sold the ranch in 1997 after the death of Hazelwood, his wife of 55 years. "I don't care how well known an actor is," Widmark insisted. "He can lead a normal life if he wants to."

Besides his wife, Blanchard, Widmark is survived by his daughter, Anne Heath Widmark, of Santa Fe, N.M., who had once been married to the Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax.

Well into his later years, the non-violent, gun-hating Widmark, who described himself as "gentle," was accosted by strangers who expected him to be a tough guy. There is even a story that Joey Gallo, the New York mobster, was so taken by Widmark's performance in "Kiss of Death" that he copied the actor's natty posture, sadistic smirk and tittering laugh.

"It's a bit rough," Widmark once said, "priding oneself that one isn't too bad an actor and then finding one's only remembered for a giggle."

5th ANNUAL AUSTIN FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES CALL FOR SCREENPLAY/TELEPLAY ENTRIES!

The 15th Annual Austin Film Festival, October 16-23, 2008 is now accepting entries for the Screenplay Competition. Categories include Drama and Comedy, each with a cash prize of $5000. You may also choose to have your script considered for the Latitude and Sci-Fi Awards, each with a cash prize of $2500. The Teleplay Competition includes both Drama and Sitcom categories and is open to any spec script for any currently airing network or cable television program.

Please contact Alex McPhail at alex@austinfilmfestival.com with any questions, or see entry form & rules at http://www.austinfilmfestival.com/new/screenplay.

May 15 – Screenplay Deadline
June 1 – Late Screenplay Deadline / Teleplay Deadline

Semifinalist and finalist scripts are judged by production company representatives which have included representatives from The Donners’ Company, Village Roadshow Pictures, Saturn Films, Whitelight Entertainment, Fortis Films, Liveplanet, Protozoa Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies, Focus Features, Fox Broadcasting, and WB.

"The month after the contest was filled with agency meetings. It's terribly exciting to be on the receiving end of the phrase 'would you like some Evian' for the first time, and even more exciting to report that we've signed with the William Morris Agency." - Drama Teleplay Winners Matthew Federman and Stephen Scaia (The West Wing: The Second Law of Thermodynamics)

CALL FOR FILM ENTRIES ALSO OPEN! See http://www.austinfilmfestival.com/new/film for more information.

Feb 16, 2008:
Berlinale 2008: Crystal Bears
and Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk Awards in Generation Kplus
The members of the Kinderjury Generation Kplus
Justus Paul Bauch
Jana Marie Bussmann
Jesper Ole Ebbert
Tita-Antonia Hagen
Carl-Ludwig Hausl
Ntozake Iglesias
Max Kressner
Lisa Frederike Lassen
Joelle Marianek
Lino Steinwärder
Nina-Liliht Völsch

give the following awards:

The Crystal Bear for the Best Feature Film goes to
Buda Az Sharm Foru Rikht by Hana Makmalbaf (Iran/France)

This film is exciting and provocative and at the same time it is very shocking. It is about a little girl who is struggling to be allowed to go to school. We were moved by the poignant way the film depicts how a country dominated by violence affects the everyday life of children. The film showed us the senselessness of just sending soldiers to a troubled region. More necessary are people who can convince children that violence is not the solution.

The Crystal Bear for the Best Short Film goes to
Nana by Warwick Thornton (Australia)

A little girl is talking about her special relationship with her dear old nana. She is always cooking for her granddaughter and looking after the old people in the village. But there’s another side to her as well. The film is funny and full of humour.

The Special Mention for a Feature Film goes to
Titanics ti liv by Grethe Bøe (Norway)

Great actors combined with an excitement and mystery were the ingredients which convinced us in this film. The story was also accompanied by wonderful music.

The Special Mention for a Short Film goes to
New Boy by Steph Green (Ireland)

The plot is easy to follow even though there is not much dialogue. The portrayal of the characters’ feelings touched us and swept us along and the reminder of Joseph’s earlier homeland gave us a realistic insight into his former life as well as his feelings. In the end we learned that having prejudices just isn’t worth it.

The members of the International Jury Generation Kplus

Yasmin Ahmad
Anna Justice
Omri Levy
Antonia Ringbom

give the following awards:

The Deutsche Kinderhilfswerk Grand Prix for the best feature film goes to
TOUS A L’OUEST! Une aventure de Lucky Luke by Olivier Jean-Marie (France)

A rollercoaster ride of laughs and adventures, delivered with great wit, genius, and humor. A film full of inventive visual gags combined with an intelligent use of music, mixing historical and modern life elements. A celebration of the joy of cinema.

The Deutsche Kinderhilfswerk Special Prize for the best short film goes to
Min morbror tyckte mycket om gult von Mats Olof Olsson (Sweden)

Lasting mererly 9 minutes this film leads us through a whole range of deep human emotions. An homage to all that is good in people, reminding us to be careful with the fragility surrounding us. A moving story told with simple masterly cinematic strokes.

The Special Mention is awarded to the film
Mutum by Sandra Kogut (Brazil/France)

A journey into a young boy’s life that leads you gently through a world infused with love as well as rejection, confusion and heartbreak. With a curious mix of dreamy, open-ended events, it paints a picture of remote Brazil with bursts of poetry and humanity.

The Special Mention is awarded to the film
POST! by Christian Asmussen and Matthias Bruhn (Germany)

A joyful film with inventive visual solutions, crazy anarchistic humor and a warm message about one man’s ability to make a whole community

Sundance Festival Winners:

The Grand Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to TROUBLE THE WATER, directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal. An aspiring rap artist and her streetwise husband, armed with a video camera, show what survival means when they are trapped in New Orleans by deadly floodwaters, and seize a chance for a new beginning.

The Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented to FROZEN RIVER, directed by Courtney Hunt, about a desperate trailer mom and a Mohawk Indian girl who team up to smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States from Canada.

The World Cinema Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to MAN ON WIRE/United Kingdom, directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles French artist Philippe Petit's daring dance on a wire suspended between New York's Twin Towers and his subsequent arrest for what would become known as “the artistic crime of the century.”

The World Cinema Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented to KING OF PING PONG (PING PONGKINGEN)/ Sweden, directed by Jens Jonsson. An ostracized and bullied teenager who excels only in ping pong descends into an acrimonious struggle with his younger, more popular brother when the truth about their family history and their father surfaces over the course of their spring break.

The Audience Awards are presented to both a dramatic and documentary film in four Competition categories as voted by Sundance Film Festival audiences. The 2008 Sundance Film Festival Audience Awards are presented by Volkswagen of America, Inc.

The Audience Award: Documentary was presented to FIELDS OF FUEL, directed by Josh Tickell. A look at America's addiction to oil, Tickell is a man with a plan and a Veggie Van, who is taking on big oil, big government, and big soy to find solutions in places few people have looked.

The Audience Award: Dramatic was presented to THE WACKNESS, directed by Jonathan Levine. During a sweltering New York summer, a troubled teenage drug dealer trades pot for therapy sessions with a drug-addled psychiatrist, and in the process falls for the doctor's daughter.

The World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary was presented to MAN ON WIRE/United Kingdom, directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles French artist Philippe Petit's daring dance on a wire suspended between New York's Twin Towers and subsequent arrest for what would become known as “the artistic crime of the century.”

The World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic was presented to CAPTAIN ABU RAED/Jordan, by director Amin Matalqa. The first feature film to come out of Jordan in 50 years, CAPTAIN ABU RAED tells the story of an aging airport janitor who is mistaken for an airline pilot by a group of poor neighborhood children and whose fantastical stories offer hope for a sad, sometimes unchangeable, reality.

The Directing Awards recognize excellence in directing for dramatic and documentary features.

The Directing Award: Documentary was presented to Nanette Burstein for her film AMERICAN TEEN, an irreverent cinema vérité which chronicles four seniors at an Indiana high school and yields a surprising snapshot of Midwestern life.

The Directing Award: Dramatic was presented to Lance Hammer for BALLAST, a riveting, lyrical portrait of an emotionally frayed family whose lives are torn asunder by a tragic act in a small Mississippi Delta town.

The World Cinema Directing Award: Documentary was presented to Nino Kirtadze, director of DURAKOVO: VILLAGE OF FOOLS (DURAKOVO: LE VILLAGE DES FOUS)/ France. The film portrays life in a castle outside Moscow, where Mikhail Morozov rules autonomously over young initiates, laying the groundwork for a rapidly growing right-wing movement.

The World Cinema Directing Award: Dramatic was presented to Anna Melikyan for MERMAID (RUSALKA)/ Russia. The fanciful tale of an introverted little girl who grows up believing she has the power to make wishes come true. She must reconcile this belief with reality when, as a young woman, she journeys to Moscow and grapples with love, modernity and materialism.

The Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for outstanding achievement in writing was presented to Alex Rivera and David Riker for their screenplay for SLEEP DEALER. Set in a near-future, militarized world marked by closed borders, virtual labor and a global digital network that joins minds and experiences, three strangers risk their lives to connect with each other and break the barriers of technology.

The World Cinema Screenwriting Award was presented to Samuel Benchetrit for his screenplay of I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A GANGSTER (J'AI TOUJOURS RÊVÉ D'ÊTRE UN GANGSTER)/ France. Told in four vignettes, this existential comedy relates the exploits of four aspiring criminals who hope to improve their lot, but find that they might not have what it takes for a life of crime.

The Documentary Editing Award was presented to Joe Bini for his work on the film ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED. The documentary examines the public scandal and private tragedy which led to legendary director Roman Polanski's sudden flight from the United States.

The World Cinema Documentary Editing Award was presented to Irena Dol for her work on THE ART STAR AND THE SUDANESE TWINS/New Zealand. The film profiles artist Vanessa Beecroft and how her obsession to adopt Sudanese twin orphans drives her marriage to a breaking point and fuels her controversial art.

The Excellence in Cinematography Awards honor exceptional cinematography in both dramatic and documentary categories. This year's recipients are:

The Excellence in Cinematography Award: Documentary was presented to Phillip Hunt and Steven Sebring for their work on the film PATTI SMITH: DREAM OF LIFE, an intimate portrait of the poet, painter, musician and singer that mirrors the essence of the artist herself.

The Excellence in Cinematography Award: Dramatic was presented to Lol Crawley for BALLAST. a riveting, lyrical portrait of an emotionally frayed family whose lives are torn asunder by a tragic act in a small Mississippi Delta town.

The World Cinema Cinematography Award: Documentary was presented to al Massad for his work on RECYCLE /Jordan. A Jordanian family man living in the hometown of Muslim leader Abu Musa Al Zarqawi struggles to support his family and define his identity in a tense political climate.

The World Cinema Cinematography Award: Dramatic was presented to Askild Vik Edvardsen for KING OF PING PONG (PING PONGKINGEN)/ Sweden. An ostracized and bullied teenager who excels only in ping pong descends into an acrimonious struggle with his younger, more popular brother when the truth about their family history and their father surfaces over the course of their spring break.

A World Cinema Special Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented to Ernesto Contreras, director of BLUE EYELIDS (PÁRPADOS AZULES)/ Mexico. When Marina wins a beach getaway trip for two, her desperate search for someone to take with her leads to a complicated relationship and the revelation that she might be better off on her own.

A Special Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to Lisa F. Jackson, director of GREATEST SILENCE: RAPE IN THE CONGO, for her piercing, intimate look into the struggle of the lives of rape survivors.

A Special Jury Prize: Dramatic, The Spirit of Independence was presented to director Chusy Haney-Jardine for ANYWHERE, USA, a wildly original look at American manners, prejudices, and family dynamics.

A Special Jury Prize: Dramatic, Work by an Ensemble Cast was presented to the cast of CHOKE. An adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel, CHOKE is the sardonic story about mother and son relationship, fear of aging, sexual addiction, and the dark side of historical theme parks. Cast: Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly MacDonald, Brad Henke.

This year's Sundance jury was - Dramatic Competition: Marcia Gay Harden, Mary Harron, Diego Luna, Sandra Oh and Quentin Tarantino; Documentary Competition: Michelle Byrd, Heidi Ewing, Eugene Jarecki, Steven Okazaki and Annie Sundberg; World Dramatic Competition: Shunji Iwai (Japan), Lucrecia Martel (Argentina) and Jan Schütte (Germany); World Documentary Competition: Amir Bar-Lev (US), Leena Pasanen (Finland/Denmark) and Ilda Santiago (Brazil); American and International Shorts: Jon Bloom, Melonie Diaz and Jason Reitman; and The Alfred P. Sloan Prize: Alan Alda, Michael Polish, Evan Schwartz, Benedict Schwegler and John Underkoffler.

Two Slamdance deals also close: Anchor Bay buys Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer and new distributor Neoclassics took Crooked Lane.

SUNDANCE DEAL-MAKING SPEEDS UP MIDWAY THROUGH FESTIVAL
Focus pays $10m for Hamlet 2, Fox Searchlight takes Choke, Overture buys Henry Poole Is Here and Paramount Vantage closes in on American Teen, as the weekend buying freeze thaws.

PARAMOUNT VANTAGE SEALS WORLDWIDE RIGHTS TO AMERICAN TEEN
Deliberations finally conclude on Nanette Burtsein's acclaimed high school documentary; Vantage beats out Sony Pictures Classics and Fox Searchlight.

"Diddy" Combs makes personal history at Sundance

Sean "Diddy" Combs -- rapper, music producer, fashion designer, business mogul, Broadway star -- has had many career-defining moments. This week at the Sundance Film Festival, he had yet another.

"This a historical moment for me, my first starring role in a movie," Combs, 38, told Reuters. "Some of the audience is going to want to see did I do good or did I fall flat on my face?"

Combs was discussing his part in a new film adaptation of the 1959 play "A Raisin in the Sun," which has been remade several times for stage and screen -- most recently in a 2004 Broadway production starring Combs in the role of a young, struggling black American, Walter Lee Younger.

Now Combs is back in a made-for-television "Raisin" set to air on ABC on February 25 to an audience that may be unfamiliar with the story about U.S. race relations, inner city struggle, hopes, dreams and the strength of family bonds.

"Sometimes people come to a place and don't expect to get the message," Combs said. "This generation, they come for entertainment ... then they realize, 'oh man, this movie is really touching. It's making me really appreciate my family."'

Combs has acted before. He had a small but key role in the 2001 movie "Monster's Ball" and his Broadway run in "Raisin" earned him respectable reviews and won over audiences.

Yet Combs admitted to a case of nerves before his debut at Sundance, the top U.S. festival for independent film that has a history of launching TV movies like "Raisin" with a social conscience.

Last year, the AIDS-related HBO film "Life Support," starring Queen Latifah, opened here.

FAREWELL, BROADWAY

Combs said his stage experience helped train him for the film co-starring Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald, who also starred in the 2004 stage version and earned Broadway's top honors, Tony awards, for their work.

"Broadway truly prepared me. It made me really go for it," Combs said. "I was like, I came here to get with it and tell a story. I have a long way to go ... but I'm swimming, baby."

"Raisin" director Kenny Leon said Combs brings authenticity, discipline and a strong work ethic to the part of Walter Lee Younger, first made famous by Sidney Poitier in 1961.

"He's not going to be defeated," said Leon. "If you work hard, you'll find truth, and his search for truth pays off."

Walter Lee is a chauffeur living with his wife, young son, mother and sister in a Chicago tenement. "Raisin" takes place over a brief period of time as the mother (Rashad) receives a $10,000 insurance check following the death of her husband.

The money will change all their lives, but not before they face several wrenching dilemmas centering on Walter Lee's hopes for winning financial freedom and his mother's and wife's dream of living in their own home.

The story, first written by Lorraine Hansberry borrowing a line from a Langston Hughes poem -- "What becomes of a dream deferred?/ Does it dry up/Like a raisin in the sun?" -- has touched generations, and Combs and Leon said they are confident that a tale they consider timeless will find yet another audience.

"This not an old story, but a classic story," Leon said, "a story that withstands the test of time, a story of love and family and strength, hope and dreams."

Sundance, a Few Bright Spots
Not many breakout films, but documentaries shine

The mood of unsettled gloom that has hovered over this year's Sundance Film Festival finally came into focus Tuesday night, as news that actor Heath Ledger had died in mysterious circumstances in New York City made its way from person to person. One story going around was that Harvey Weinstein's BlackBerry lit up in the middle of a screening the mogul was attending, followed by the BlackBerries of everybody up and down his row - the jungle drums of Sundance. A few hard-hearted festival-goers tried cracking jokes, but they fell on frigid air. The actor was too widely admired; the loss too big to immediately process.
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Suddenly there was something tangible to be unhappy about, although a free-floating cynicism had already been hardening into This Year's Attitude. To be impassioned about a movie was to be suspect, at least in the festival's early going.

There have been bright spots, of course. Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden of "Half Nelson" fame returned, bringing the much-admired "Sugar," one of the few films to get applause from the jaded press corps. The film continues the couple's love affair with talented characters out of their element, and the setting - Dominican baseball players trying to make it in America - is novel and compelling. Algenis Perez Soto plays a young pitching sensation drafted into the US farm system and slowly losing his bearings; the film itself is an epic boy's life that says trenchant things about professional sports and their casualties

And then there was "Young@Heart," possibly the most rapturously received documentary here. British filmmaker Stephen Walker traveled to Northampton, Mass., to film the Young@Heart Chorus, a vocal choir whose average age is 80 and whose choice of material includes songs by the Clash, James Brown, Sonic Youth, and a lot of Talking Heads.

Watching two very old-timers give the Godfather of Soul's "I Feel Good" their all is a very special experience indeed, and the movie works like a charm at the cutesy-grandpa level. As "Young@Heart" progresses, though, and some of the choir members fall by the wayside, the real toughness and clarity of the subjects renders the film immensely moving. These geriatrics have no illusions about where they are and where they're going - soon - and their response is to find eerie new meaning in Coldplay's "Fix Me" and to bellow the Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go" against the dying of the light. It's a lesson not lost to anyone at Sundance 2008.

But there were few breakout audience favorites a la "Little Miss Sunshine" two years ago or "Once" last year - unless you count a handful of superb documentaries, which everyone knows are death at the box office right now. Consequently, there were no big-money acquisitions by fat-cat distributors in the first five days, and the deals that were done after that had a tentative, wishful-thinking feel. Only Focus Features' $10 million pickup of "Hamlet 2," a comedy about an eccentric high school teacher (Steve Coogan) staging a Shakespeare sequel, had the swagger of yore.Continued...

Even that foolproof Sundance genre - the whimsical indie dramedy - seemed to skip a beat. The Internet-infidelity saga "Downloading Nancy," starring Maria Bello and Jason Patric, was greeted with open hostility, one audience member calling it "offensive on a molecular level." "Pretty Bird," the first film written and directed by the young actor Paul Schneider ("Lars and the Real Girl"), certainly looks good on paper, with its hip cast and oddball story line about a deluded entrepreneur (Billy Crudup) and a rage-aholic aerospace engineer (Paul Giamatti) building a rocket belt.

Except that the movie doesn't hit one note that doesn't feel strident or forced. Realizing they've been dealt a set of mannerisms rather than actual characters, the stars mug endlessly and mirthlessly - even a reliable farceur like SNL's Kristen Wiig flails. This is the kind of maximum quirk that Sundance used to take to the bank and that here reaches a thundering dead end. In its own small, overbaked way, "Pretty Bird" feels like the death of indie cinema.

Depressed yet? All right, it wasn't that bad. Clark Gregg's "Choke," based on the Chuck Palahniuk novel, was a more digestible mix of bad behavior and anarchic comedy, about the misadventures of Victor (Sam Rockwell): sex addict, scam artist, colonial re-enactor, and momma's boy. Anjelica Huston plays momma, hospitalized with dementia, and Kelly McDonald plays a doctor with unusual notions of patient care. Everything to do with Victor's job at a historical theme park is hilarious, but the film loses focus and eventually its nerve, although entertainingly. You'll get a chance to decide for yourself: Fox Searchlight acquired the film for $5 million on Tuesday. Another audience-pleaser on a similar subject has been "Momma's Man," the latest from the playful art-house director Azazel Jacobs ("The GoodTimesKid")

By and large, though, the documentaries are capturing the excitement and daringness - the drama - that the fictional features have strained for. "American Teen," for one, has had festival audiences on their feet by the end credits, cheering the four Indiana high school students director Nanette Burstein follows through a single year.

The movie simultaneously upholds and explodes the eternal cliques of high school, showing us a queen bee, a star jock, an artsy girl (Hannah Bailey, a real life Juno refreshingly minus the genius dialogue), and a nonentity who are much more and occasionally less than even they think they are. By Wednesday, the film had been purchased by Paramount Vantage for $1 million - small potatoes by Sundance standards but wholly appropriate by those of lower altitudes.

Other documentaries winning audiences over included: "Anvil!: The Story of Anvil," about an obscure but long-lived Canadian heavy-metal band; "Trouble the Water," a Hurricane Katrina story, featuring astonishing disaster footage shot by one of the film's subjects, Kimberly Rivers (who arrived at the festival pregnant and by Monday had given birth to a son in a Salt Lake City hospital); and Morgan Spurlock's "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?"

"Where in the World" gives the "Supersize Me" director - a sort of younger, bouncier Michael Moore - a chance to travel to Mideast hot spots ostensibly seeking Osama so he can collect a reward and make the world a better place for his own unborn child. The film's real purpose is to interview average Muslims and show us they're just like us: a majority of non-fanatics who wish the fanatics would stand down and let everyone else live their lives. (Hey, sounds familiar.)

What Spurlock (and Moore) do could be called docu-vaudeville, and "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?" is very funny in places. It's necessary, too, for putting specific human faces on people we often think of as a mass. The director's pose of just-folks naiveté turns to shtick long before the end credits, though, and you may come out of the film wanting the long cool view of a policy analyst.
Even that foolproof Sundance genre - the whimsical indie dramedy - seemed to skip a beat. The Internet-infidelity saga "Downloading Nancy," starring Maria Bello and Jason Patric, was greeted with open hostility, one audience member calling it "offensive on a molecular level." "Pretty Bird," the first film written and directed by the young actor Paul Schneider ("Lars and the Real Girl"), certainly looks good on paper, with its hip cast and oddball story line about a deluded entrepreneur (Billy Crudup) and a rage-aholic aerospace engineer (Paul Giamatti) building a rocket belt.
more stories like this

Except that the movie doesn't hit one note that doesn't feel strident or forced. Realizing they've been dealt a set of mannerisms rather than actual characters, the stars mug endlessly and mirthlessly - even a reliable farceur like SNL's Kristen Wiig flails. This is the kind of maximum quirk that Sundance used to take to the bank and that here reaches a thundering dead end. In its own small, overbaked way, "Pretty Bird" feels like the death of indie cinema.

Depressed yet? All right, it wasn't that bad. Clark Gregg's "Choke," based on the Chuck Palahniuk novel, was a more digestible mix of bad behavior and anarchic comedy, about the misadventures of Victor (Sam Rockwell): sex addict, scam artist, colonial re-enactor, and momma's boy. Anjelica Huston plays momma, hospitalized with dementia, and Kelly McDonald plays a doctor with unusual notions of patient care. Everything to do with Victor's job at a historical theme park is hilarious, but the film loses focus and eventually its nerve, although entertainingly. You'll get a chance to decide for yourself: Fox Searchlight acquired the film for $5 million on Tuesday. Another audience-pleaser on a similar subject has been "Momma's Man," the latest from the playful art-house director Azazel Jacobs ("The GoodTimesKid")

By and large, though, the documentaries are capturing the excitement and daringness - the drama - that the fictional features have strained for. "American Teen," for one, has had festival audiences on their feet by the end credits, cheering the four Indiana high school students director Nanette Burstein follows through a single year.

The movie simultaneously upholds and explodes the eternal cliques of high school, showing us a queen bee, a star jock, an artsy girl (Hannah Bailey, a real life Juno refreshingly minus the genius dialogue), and a nonentity who are much more and occasionally less than even they think they are. By Wednesday, the film had been purchased by Paramount Vantage for $1 million - small potatoes by Sundance standards but wholly appropriate by those of lower altitudes.

Other documentaries winning audiences over included: "Anvil!: The Story of Anvil," about an obscure but long-lived Canadian heavy-metal band; "Trouble the Water," a Hurricane Katrina story, featuring astonishing disaster footage shot by one of the film's subjects, Kimberly Rivers (who arrived at the festival pregnant and by Monday had given birth to a son in a Salt Lake City hospital); and Morgan Spurlock's "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?"

"Where in the World" gives the "Supersize Me" director - a sort of younger, bouncier Michael Moore - a chance to travel to Mideast hot spots ostensibly seeking Osama so he can collect a reward and make the world a better place for his own unborn child. The film's real purpose is to interview average Muslims and show us they're just like us: a majority of non-fanatics who wish the fanatics would stand down and let everyone else live their lives. (Hey, sounds familiar.)

What Spurlock (and Moore) do could be called docu-vaudeville, and "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?" is very funny in places. It's necessary, too, for putting specific human faces on people we often think of as a mass. The director's pose of just-folks naiveté turns to shtick long before the end credits, though, and you may come out of the film wanting the long cool view of a policy analyst.

Oscar noms announced as strike shadow hovers

'Atonement,' 'Juno,' 'Michael Clayton,' 'No Country' and 'Blood' are the best picture nominees.

"Atonement," "Juno," "Michael Clayton," "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" were nominated this morning for the Academy Award for best picture of 2007.

The gripping oil epic "There Will Be Blood" and the gritty contemporary Western, "No Country for Old Men" scored eight nominations apiece for the 80th annual Academy Awards. "Michael Clayton" and "Atonement" followed with seven nominations each.

George Clooney earned his first best actor nomination for "Michael Clayton," a legal thriller in which he plays a "fixer" for a high-powered New York law firm. Tom Wilkinson was nominated for supporting actor for his performance as a mentally troubled attorney in the film, while Tilda Swinton earned a best supporting actress nomination as an ambitious litigator. The film's writer-director, Tony Gilroy, was nominated in both categories; "Michael Clayton" marks his feature film directorial debut.

It was a big day for brothers Joel and Ethan Coen and their "No Country for Old Men." The eight nominations for their film included four for the sibling filmmakers -- best film, best director, best adapted screenplay and best editing. (The Coens, who also produced the film, edit under the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes.)

Javier Bardem also earned a nomination for his electrifying turn as a coldblooded assassin in the film. The film is nominated as well in the cinematography, sound mixing and sound editing categories.

The dual directing nomination for the Coens marks the first time a sibling team has been nominated in the category.

"Atonement," which won the Golden Globe for best dramatic film last week, and is nominated for 14 British Academy of Film and Television awards -- the U.K. equivalent of the Oscars -- was shut out for best director, actor and actress. But 13-year-old Saoirse Ronan earned a best supporting actress nomination as a calculating young girl while Christopher Hampton was nominated for adapted screenplay.

"There Will Be Blood" also earned nominations for Daniel Day-Lewis for best actor, as well as best director and adapted screenplay for Paul Thomas Anderson.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the strong showing for "Juno," the coming-of-age comedy about a pregnant teen. In addition to best picture, the box-office hit earned best actress nominations for this award season's darling, 20-year-old Ellen Page, and it earned nods for best original screenplay for onetime stripper Diablo Cody and best director for Jason Reitman.

Notably missing from the list of directors was Sean Penn for his drama "Into the Wild." That film recently earned nods for Penn from the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America.

The only acting nod for "Into the Wild," which is dominating the Screen Actors Guild award nominations, was for 82-year-old veteran Hal Holbrook, for best supporting actor for his performance as a lonely widower.

Joining Clooney and Day-Lewis in the best actor category are Johnny Depp as the vengeful barber in "Sweeney Todd," Tommy Lee Jones as a grieving father in "In the Valley of Elah" and Viggo Mortensen as a mysterious Russian mobster in "Eastern Promises."

Vying for best actress with Page are Cate Blanchett for "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," Julie Christie as a woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease in "Away From Her," Marion Cotillard as singer Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose" and Laura Linney as a middle-aged woman coping with an aging father in "The Savages."

Blanchett is one of only a handful of performers who have been nominated twice for Oscars for playing the same character. Nine years ago, Blanchett received her first best actress nomination for portraying the British monarch in "Elizabeth." Blanchett also earned a supporting actress nomination this year for playing a male singer in the quirky Bob Dylan biopic "I'm Not There."

"Teen" frenzy at Sundance

With buyers exercising caution at Sundance, a documentary about the trials of being a teenager offered the most suspenseful dealmaking plotline.

Nanette Burstein's "American Teen" revolves around Indiana high school seniors. A cheerleader, hipster, jock and band geek are all featured in a film one insider dubbed "a smarter 'Laguna Beach."'

In the wake of the blockbuster success of Fox Searchlight's "Juno," a fictional account of a resolute and colorful teenager, buyers were showing keen interest in "Teen."

Fox Searchlight, in fact, made an early play for the film Saturday, but then dropped out at the $1 million-$2 million mark. By Monday, Sony Pictures Classics was said to have the inside track, though Paramount Vantage was in the running.

Elsewhere -- save for some smaller buys like PBS' pickup of the slave-trade documentary "Traces of the Trade: Stories From the Deep North" for its "POV" series -- buyers and sellers seemed to be locked in a standoff.

A quartet of prestige films that debuted Sunday attracted interest but no immediate top-level bids.

They included the dark literary drama "Incendiary," starring Ewan McGregor; Rawson Marshall Thurber's "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," based on the early novel by Michael Chabon; the Elle Fanning and Felicity Huffman family drama "Phoebe in Wonderland"; and Paul Schneider's quirky tale of hucksters and science "Pretty Bird."

Attention shifted to Andrew Fleming's "Hamlet 2," set for a Monday night screening, in hopes that it might jump-start the sales action. The film stars Steve Coogan as a high school drama teacher who attempts to stage a musical sequel to Shakespeare's play.
Two of the weekend's high-profile debuts appear to have been temporarily left by the wayside.

While a handful of buyers eyed "The Wackness," they were waiting for the price to drop on the coming-of-age stoner comedy. There also were predictions that Barry Levinson's Hollywood satire "What Just Happened?" would end up with a deal thanks to its all-star cast, but the chances for the most expensive film of the festival to make a record sale were dwindling.

The slow market is being attributed to high price tags and an array of films that present marketing challenges.

One other factor included renewed hopes of a resolution to the Hollywood writers strike, on the heels of the Directors Guild of America's new labor contract with the studios. The longer the strike continues, the bigger the gaps the studios need to fill in their programming slates.

While they are holding on to their wallets, a number of distributors were using the festival to launch films they are readying for release.

Fox Searchlight debuted Stephen Walker's documentary "Young at Heart," which follows a senior-citizen choir that sings rock covers, by screening it in several Utah cities and also bringing members of the chorus to Sundance.

Miramax launched "Smart People," "Sideways" producer Michael London's academia comedy-drama, following up with a glitzy dinner Sunday.

On Monday night, the Weinstein Co. took the wraps off "Where in the World Is Osama?" documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock's one-man quest to track down the terrorist leader.

More Sundance: futures market 'boldly cautious'

It was supposed to be a trifecta. After the hopped-up bidding wars of the last two years (“Little Miss Sunshine,” hit; “Grace Is Gone,” miss) this year’s Sundance Film Festival, conducted in the midst of a writers’ strike, was supposed to keep the action hot. Seller’s market. Buy, buy, buy. Anything will get bought, or so went the mantra in the trades, just for safety’s sake, in case the strike isn’t settled soon and studios and distributors need extra product (i.e., films) for ’09 release.

But what has transpired over the long weekend here in Park City recalls that oxymoron from “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” the advice given by Mr. Twimble, veteran of the mailroom, to J. Pierpont Finch. “Bold caution,” he says. That’ll see you through.

You sense bold caution and an equally oxymoronic excess of restraint both on screen and off, at least when it comes to the dramatic features in and out of competition here at Sundance.

To be sure, the ’08 Sundance’s most engaging commercial-minded item thus far, “Sunshine Cleaning” starring Amy Adams of “Enchanted” and Emily Blunt of “The Devil Wears Prada,” will likely have found the right suitor with a checkbook by the time you read this. In its New Mexico setting (Alan Arkin again plays an eccentric family patriarch) and mixture of tartness and sweetness, director Christine Jeffs’s story of a pair of working-class sisters and their fledgling crime scene clean-up service should find a distributor and a release sometime later this year. Does it feel like another “Little Miss Sunshine”? More, I suspect, like a success on the solid, mid-range order of “Waitress,” a genial charmer from last year’s festival.

Here’s a quick dash through 10 of the films I’ve seen so far:

“Ballast,” written and directed by Lance Hammer. This is the standout feature, a beautiful little poem set in rural Mississippi, where one man’s suicide causes a profound ripple effect in the lives of his twin brother, his ex-lover and her at-risk 12-year-old son. The plain-spoken, unadorned filmmaking style (no musical score, much intimate hand-held camerawork) recalls the work of the Dardenne brothers, makers of “L’Enfant.” But the setting, the economic straits and the faces are purely American.

“Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.” This is the best documentary I’ve seen so far. Just Picked up by HBO for U.S. and the Weinstein Company for foreign distribution, director Marina Zenovich’s superb film offers a mature, multi-dimensionally troubling portrait of a film director, a sex scandal involving a minor, and the nature and alluring toxicity of publicity itself.

“Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains.” Gonzalo Arijon’s moving account of the 1972 Andes mountain crash, which became known alarmingly quickly worldwide as “the cannibalism story,” transcends sensationalism. The film is playing in the Sundance World Cinema Documentary Competition.

“The Merry Gentleman.” Michael Keaton’s feature film directorial debut, in which he plays a taciturn hit man who falls in with a battered woman played by Kelly Macdonald, is a Chicago project from screenwriter Ron Lazzaretti (originally scheduled to direct). When Sundance festival director Geoffrey Gilmore refers in program notes to a movie’s “quiet, sometimes-even-meditative quality,” you know you’re in for something without a lot of kinetic zap. It’s fun to see all the Chicago location work, but the film never really gets beyond its simple musings on guardian angels and lost souls.

"The Great Buck Howard.” John Malkovich plays an Amazing Kreskin-like mentalist on the career skids; Colin Hanks plays a law school dropout who becomes his road manager. Very mild stuff.
“The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.” Adapted from Michael Chabon’s novel, this rather callow coming-of-age tale struggles to find a tone and a rhythm for the story of one young man’s sexual awakening. Good cast, though, featuring Jon Foster, Peter Sarsgaard (in the “Sophie’s Choice” Nathan role), Sienna Miller and Nick Nolte.

“In Bruges.” Like serial killers, hit men hit our screens all out of proportion to their actual numbers in real life, but writer-director Martin McDonagh’s droll dialogue is catnip to Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, who play Irish assassins hiding out in Belgium on orders from Mr. Big, played by a weaselly Ralph Fiennes.

Many here at Sundance kvelled over “The Wackness,” starring Josh Peck as a 1990s-era drug dealing teen. It gave me a pretty bad “Running with Scissors” flashback. “Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson” is a disappointing, surface-y love letter to the journalist and self-styled outlaw celebrity. But the dramatic feature “Frozen River,” from writer-director Courtney Hunt, is a stealthy accomplishment. Like “Ballast,” it concerns America’s working class teetering on the edge of financial disaster. Melissa Leo plays an upstate New York single mother who gets embroiled in smuggling undocumented workers over the Canadian border, through Native American territory. It’s overplotted, but the atmosphere is fresh.

More Sundance: Woos world’s budding filmmakers

Actor Nadim Sawallha (with pilot cap) and children are shown in a scene in this undated publicity handout from the film 'Captain Abu Raed' by Jordanian director Amin Matalqa. When Matalqa made his first feature film in his native Jordan, he got some local attention, but when his 'Captain Abu Raed' earned a spot at the Sundance Film Festival, the director saw his ticket into U.S. movie theaters. (Paper and Pen Films/Handout/Reuters)

PARK CITY, Utah (Reuters) -
When Amin Matalqa made his
first feature film in his native Jordan, he got some local
attention, but when his “Captain Abu Raed” earned a spot at the
Sundance Film Festival, the director saw his ticket into U.S.
movie theaters.

Matalqa's first feature, about an airport janitor who fuels
a group of kids' dreams for a better life by pretending to be a
pilot, is one of the 16 films in Sundance's World Cinema
competition for dramatic films chosen from more than 1,600
submissions.

“There are only a few places where you can go and make that
bridge to the next level, and Sundance is definitely one of
them,” Matalqa, 31, told Reuters. “Everyone is there.”

Sundance is the premiere U.S. independent film festival for
up-and-coming filmmakers working outside Hollywood's studios.
Four years ago, event organizers launched a competition for
foreign filmmakers to give the festival a greater global scope
and spotlight world cinema for U.S. audiences.

“Sundance has been a place for showcasing new American
independent film, but one of the things we are proudest of has
been our focus on international film,” said Festival director
Geoffrey Gilmore at this week's opening.

One of the recent success stories of this outward reach is
low-budget Irish music film “Once,” which competed here last
year, won an audience award, and has raked in nearly $10
million at U.S. box offices, or almost twice its overseas haul.

At the 2008 festival, which runs from January 17-27 in the
western U.S. ski resort of Park City, films from 35 countries
will play, both in and out of competition.

“We are attracting really exciting films to this
competition,” said senior programmer Caroline Libresco. “Each
film stands on its own and reflects a director who we think the
American film industry will be delighted to be introduced to.”

CROSSING BORDERS

This year, Sundance audiences will see a rare feature from
Panama, “The Wind and the Water,” which looks at an indigenous
population and how youth cope with encroaching development.

Middle East countries earned the spotlight with a large
contingent of films and two competition entries depicting
events from the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war.

Israel's “Strangers” tells of an impossible love between an
Israeli kibbutznik and a Palestinian in Europe, and Lebanon's
“Under the Bombs” traces a woman's journey as she searches for
a missing sister and son.

Far more peaceful is “Megane,” a minimalist and quiet
Japanese film of women seeking balance on a beautiful beach.

Typically Sundance organizers distance themselves from the
market aspects of a film festival, but for the first time this
year, the festival has organized a meeting between foreign
filmmakers and 25 U.S. film distributors to help open North
American theater doors for world cinema.

Buyers may pick up a film or remake rights, or find a
director to work with in the future.

“We are not pretending to be the Berlin Film Festival or
Cannes,” said Libresco, noting two of the top global events
where industry executives gather to buy and sell movie rights.

“What can we can offer these filmmakers is a rapt American
industry audience,” she said.

For Matalqa, the exposure has already worked. “As soon as
it was announced we were in Sundance, we got inquiries from
everyone and their brothers, all the major players,” he said.

Sundance Watch: Day Two

The screenings started.

Several films are already in play, including Marina Zenovich's Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, while interest is somewhat muted in actor-turned-director Marianna Palka's small relationship comedy Good Dick, starring Josh Ritter, son of John, and Robert Redford sprig Amy Redford's The Guitar, which I quite enjoyed, starring Saffron Burrows as a woman who is diagnosed with terminal throat cancer, loses her job and her boyfriend all on the same day. She completely abandons her life. (I don't like the title.) "It's Into the Wild for girls," quipped one critic who did not like it at all. Redford, who is a veteran actress, was given Amos Poe's script, which is based on a true story, but decided she wanted to direct rather than star. After she finished filming in NY, where she is based, she did a cameo in Christine Jeff's Sunshine Cleaning.

Jeffs is the hot director at this fest after the packed screening Friday night. Every distrib was there in full force: Harvey Weinstein and Miramax's Daniel Battsek (they talked before the screening) and Lionsgate's Tom Ortenberg and Warner Independent and Paramount Vantage and Picturehouse and Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn and Magnolia and Overture and Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures Classics. This is the movie that will have folks lining up outside the Cinetic Deer Valley condo. It'll go to one of the studio subsids, but probably not for huge dollars.

Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are two unhappy sisters in Albuquerque who become crime-scene clean-up artists. Alan Arkin is the Dad. There's a strong family relationship drama, comedy, and Jeffs is a terrific directorial stylist. The movie is well-acted and gorgeous. It's the best thing I've seen so far. Big Beach, the company that backed Little Miss Sunshine, funded the Sunshine Cleaning, which was produced by Glenn Willamson. He met Marc Turtletaub when he was at Focus Features and they were still developing LMS.

Jonathan Levine's The Wackness played pretty well this afternoon at the Racquet Club, with laughs throughout. The black comedy about a lonely post-high-school grad drug dealer (slimmed down Nickelodeon vet Josh Peck), his drug-addled shrink (Kingsley) and the shrink's step-daughter (Juno's Olivia Thirlby) is up for grabs, and should sell. But it's not a critics' picture. It runs the risk of being a tweener--a fest crowd pleaser that turns out to be hard to market. Think Garden State but not nearly as good.

Mary Kate Olsen turned up at the Racquet Club Q & A Friday afternoon for The Wackness, in which she makes out with Ben Kingsley in a phone booth. "I was a little nervous," she admitted, "but he was so sweet and kind and made me feel comfortable so it was fun. He pulled off the hairpiece he was wearing."

At least Olsen is legitimately making the rounds at Sundance with a movie. Not so Paris Hilton, who is jetting in for the Regent Entertainment party at the Bon Appetit Supper Club at The River Horse Cafe Sunday. Sundance sponsor Regent and Merrill Lynch backed The Hottie and the Nottie, which features Hilton's first theatrical starring role, which is definitely not playing here, nor would it ever be--although the director Tom Putnam had a short at Sundance 2005. (The trailer on the internet is disgusting. I won't even post it.) According to Purple Pictures producer Hadeel Reda, they gave Hilton executive producer credit: "She's coming to Sundance to pay tribute to Regent. She's savvy when it comes to promoting herself. This is a great opportunity for her and her brand to embrace how people see her." Even the Queer Lounge is promoting Hilton's attendance at their annual Sunday Queer Brunch.

When I was picking up my press badge at the Marriott, Jason Reitman, who is on the shorts jury and loves looking at shorts, raved about the film Timecrimes, which is in Midnight Madness, saying he had always liked writer-director Nacho Vigalondo's shorts. Magnolia bought the film out of a sci-fi fest. Here's news that UA has bought the remake rights for Steve Zaillian to write.

I ran into Quentin Tarantino after The Wackness, which is the first film he saw on his jury rounds. He's not able to talk about the jury films, but he's going to other things like George Romero's Diary of the Dead. Yet another hand-held movie! And there's one at Slamdance, Fix, which looks promising. Anyway, Tarantino said he loves being on juries so much that after Cannes he went home and screened fifteen movies he's never seen before and made notes on them. He's happy as a clam.

Experience Shorts: 2008 Sundance Film Festival Online

The Sundance Film Festival website has launched new features so film lovers from anywhere in the world can experience the Festival. The Festival website will offer video content from the ground including, interviews with filmmakers, podcasts of panels, and stories from the Sundance Film Festival Daily Insider. Beginning on January 18 one new short film will stream online for 24 hours, free of charge at the Festival website throughout the ten-day Festival. Also, an exclusive selection of the '08 Festival shorts will be available for purchase and download on three platforms: Apple's iTunes Movie Store, Microsoft's Xbox LIVE, and Netflix.com.

more-- Sundance shorts

Microsoft and Sundance Institute Award HDi Grant to Bring Leading Interactive Capabilities to Independent Films

Grant gives 2007 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize Winner 'Manda Bala' resources to develop interactivity using Microsoft HDi and publish to HD DVD and other digital delivery scenarios.
January 20, 2008: 09:00 PM EST

FirstCall/ -- Today at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Microsoft Corp., together with Sundance Institute presented the Microsoft HDi Grant to director Jason Kohn and producer Jared Goldman for their 2007 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize-winning documentary "Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)." Worth an estimated $100,000, the grant provides Kohn and Goldman with resources to author "Manda Bala" in pristine high definition and develop immersive interactive experiences using Microsoft's industry-leading HDi technology. HDi technology enables filmmakers to complement their work with features such as picture-in-picture director's commentary and character biographies that enhance the home viewing experience. The grant also includes support for production of the finished product on HD DVD along with other digital delivery scenarios.

"We put several years into making 'Manda Bala,' and this grant lets us explore the digital canvas of HD DVD and HDi and express the work we've done in entirely new ways," Kohn said. "Considering all the extra footage we have to work with and the award-winning capabilities of HDi on HD DVD, Jared and I are excited to get started."

HDi is Microsoft's implementation of the advanced interactive layer in the HD DVD format. The technology has provided the foundation for HD DVD's leadership in interactivity by taking advantage of mandatory features in every HD DVD player (for example, a secondary video decoder, persistent storage and an Internet connection) to enable in-movie experiences such as picture-in-picture director's commentary, and Web-enabled features that allow fans to discuss the movie during playback and enable a director or producer to provide new content downloads in the future. Based on Web standards, HDi easily and efficiently extends the benefits of Web connectivity to the movie-watching experience and can be applied to both optical and digitally distributed scenarios.

"We've always believed that the creative community behind filmmaking would best define how HDi should be used, and this grant is meant to put the technology in the hands of the people who will explore its full potential," said Jordi Ribas, general manager of the HD DVD Group at Microsoft. "Sundance Institute has long been an important part of Microsoft's history with digital media technologies, and we look forward to continuing to work together to advance the spirit of independent film."

Microsoft Continues Support of Independent Films

The HDi Grant further extends Microsoft's support of independent films, which also includes the 1,000 HD DVD Indies Project announced earlier this year with Amazon.com Inc.'s CreateSpace. Due to its heritage in DVD, as well as the inherent authoring and disc replication efficiencies over other optical formats, HD DVD can scale to support the independent film community in a cost-effective way. The 1,000 HD DVD Indies Project was designed to provide independent filmmakers with free access to HD DVD authoring and on-demand replication. A number of Sundance films are already taking part in this program, including the acclaimed comedy from David Wain, "The Ten" (City Lights Home Entertainment); "Manda Bala" (City Lights Home Entertainment); "We Are the Strange;" and the Sundance Channel original series "Big Ideas for a Small Planet."

In addition, on Jan. 18, 2008, Microsoft began offering digital rentals of Sundance Film Festival short films on Xbox 360 for 160 Microsoft Points, which can be purchased at retail or online. The Video Store on Xbox LIVE is the leading provider of high-definition on-demand content, with the most hours of high-definition content available, offering movies for video on demand and TV shows and music videos for electronic sell-through. More information about content being offered on Xbox LIVE Marketplace is available at http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/marketplace/moviestv.

More information about Microsoft's support of independent film and how HDi is transforming the way movies are made and experienced is available at the Microsoft House at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival (301 Main St. in Park City). More information about Microsoft HDi and HD DVD can also be found at http://www.thisishddvd.com.

List of Golden Globe Award Winners

Complete list of winners of the 65th annual Golden Globes announced Sunday at a news conference held by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in Beverly Hills, Calif.:

MOTION PICTURES:

_Picture, Drama: "Atonement."

_Actress, Drama: Julie Christie, "Away From Her."

_Actor, Drama: Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood."

_Picture, Musical or Comedy: "Sweeney Todd."

_Actress, Musical or Comedy: Marion Cotillard, "La Vie En Rose."

_Actor, Musical or Comedy: Johnny Depp, "Sweeney Todd."

_Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, "I'm Not There."

_Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men."

_Director: Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."

_Screenplay: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, "No Country for Old Men."

_Foreign Language: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," France and U.S.

_Animated Film: "Ratatouille."

_Original Score: Dario Marianelli, "Atonement."

_Original Song: "Guaranteed" from "Into the Wild."

TELEVISION:

_Series, Drama: "Mad Men," AMC.

_Actress, Drama: Glenn Close, "Damages."

_Actor, Drama: Jon Hamm, "Mad Men."

_Series, Musical or Comedy: "Extras," HBO.

_Actress, Musical or Comedy: Tina Fey, "30 Rock"

_Actor, Musical or Comedy: David Duchovny, "Californication."

_Miniseries or Movie: "Longford," HBO.

_Actress, Miniseries or Movie: Queen Latifah, "Life Support."

_Actor, Miniseries or Movie: Jim Broadbent, "Longford."

_Supporting Actress, Series, Miniseries or Movie: Samantha Morton, "Longford."

_Supporting Actor, Series, Miniseries or Movie: Jeremy Piven, "Entourage."

Berlinale Competition 2008 Complete: Eight More Films

The Competition programme of the 58th Berlin International Film Festival is complete. In addition to the 18 titles already announced (press releases: Dec. 10, 2007, Jan. 9 and 15, 2008), the final eight Competition titles have been confirmed. The selection now includes the following production countries: Belgium, Germany, Finland, France, Great Britain, Italy, Austria, Poland, Israel, Canada, USA, Brazil, Mexico, Iran, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the People’s Republic of China, as well as Hong Kong, China.

The Competition programme is presenting 18 world premieres.

Ballast USA – International Premiere
by Lance Hammer (Berlinale Talent Campus 2004)
with Micheal J. Smith, Jim Myron Ross, Tarra Riggs

Bam gua Nat (Night and Day) Republic of Korea – World Premiere
by Hong Sangsoo (Woman on the Beach, Panorama 2007)
with Kim Youngho, Park Eunhye, Hwang Soojung

Closing Film:
Be Kind Rewind USA – International Premiere (Out of competition)
by Michel Gondry (The Science of Sleep, Competition 2006)
with Jack Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover, Mia Farrow, Melonie Diaz

Fireflies in the Garden USA – World Premiere (Out of competition)
by Dennis Lee
with Julia Roberts, Ryan Reynolds, Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson

Il y a longtemps que je t’aime (I’ve Loved You So Long) France/Germany – World Premiere
by Philippe Claudel
with Kristin Scott Thomas, Elsa Zylberstein, Serge Hazanavicius, Laurent Grevill

Musta Jaä (Black Ice) Finland/Germany - International Premiere
by Petri Kotwica
with Outi Mäenpää, Ria Kataja, Martti Suosala, Ville Virtanen

The Other Boleyn Girl USA/Great Britain – World Premiere (Out of competition)
by Justin Chadwick
with Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana

Avaze Gonjeshk-ha (The Song of Sparrows) Iran – World Premiere
by Majid Majidi (The Colour of Paradise, Kinderfilmfest/14plus 2000)
with Reza Najie, Maryam Akbari, Kamran Dehghan, Hossein Aghazi

Berlinale Special 2008
The Berlinale Special is a part of the Festival’s official programme and presents recent works by contemporary filmmakers whose films the Berlinale would like to honour.

This blend of remembrance, information and experiment will screen at two main venues: the Filmpalast on Kurfürstendamm and the International on the Karl-Marx-Allee.

This year’s Berlinale Special will present twelve films, including Gegenschuss – Aufbruch der Filmemacher (Reverse Angle – Rebellion of the Filmmakers), which is showing at the Zoopalast as the highlight of a special Berlinale series (see press release: Dec. 17, 2007). Several more films screening for special tributes will complete the programme. Information on these works will be announced soon.

Films in the Berlinale Special:

1000 Journals USA – International Premiere
Documentary by Andrea Kreuzhage (Bookies, Ave María, SLC Punk!)
A documentation of an art project in which 1000 blank journals find their way into the world.

Auge in Auge - eine deutsche Filmgeschichte (Eye to Eye – all about German Film…) Germany – World Premiere
Documentary by Hans Helmut Prinzler, Michael Althen
An expedition into 100 years of German film history: well-known film personalities present their favourite films.

CSNY Déjà vu USA – International Premiere
Documentary by Bernard Shakey a.k.a. Neil Young
A documentation showing Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young on their Freedom of Speech Tour in 2006.

El pollo, el pez y el cangrejo real (The Chicken, The Fish And The King Crab) Spain – World Premiere
Documentary by José Luis López Linares
22 top chefs train all year long in order to qualify to compete for the Bocuse d’Or.

Himlens hjärta (Heaven's Heart) Sweden/Denmark – World Premiere
Feature film by Simon Staho
with Mikael Persbrandt, Lena Endre, Jakob Eklund, Maria Lundquist
Intimate psychological drama with two couples that become involved in discussing adultery at dinner one night.

Nerakhoon (Betrayal) USA – European Premiere
Documentary feature by Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath
Shine a Light cinematographer Ellen Kuras presents her long-term portrait of a refugee from Laos who migrates with his family to New York.

Om Shanti Om India/UK – German Premiere
Feature film by Farah Khan (Main Hoon Na)
with Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Shreyas Talpade
Almost all of India’s screen celebrities appear in this melodramatic love story. The film features Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan who will attend the premiere in Berlin as well as give a lecture at the Berlinale Talent Campus.

Plus tard tu comprendras France/Germany – World Premiere
Feature film by Amos Gitai (News from Home/News from House, Forum 2006)
with Jeanne Moreau, Dominique Blanc, Hippolite Girardot
A fictionalization of Jérôme Clément’s autobiography of the same name.

Steal a Pencil for Me USA – European Premiere
Documentary by Michèle Ohayon (Cowboy del Amor, Colors Straight Up)
with Jean-Pierre Gillian, Jack Polak, Ina Soep
The story of a couple’s unusual love that began during the Holocaust years.

Trip to Asia. Die Suche nach dem Einklang (Trip to Asia. The Quest for Harmony) Germany – World Premiere
Documentary by Thomas Grube (Rhythm Is It! Berlinale Special 2004)
with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
A look at the electrifying inner workings of one of the world’s most famous orchestras: the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle, whom the director accompanied on a concert tour through Asia.

Wine and Cupcakes USA – German Premiere
Short film by Bruce Weber, with Angela McCluskey, Paul Cantelon
Documentary about the Scottish singer Angela McCluskey and her husband, composer Paul Cantelon.

SUNDANCE INSTITUTE News January 2008

Experience the 2008 Sundance Film Festival Online

The Sundance Film Festival website has launched new features so film lovers from anywhere in the world can experience the Festival. The Festival website will offer video content from the ground including, interviews with filmmakers, podcasts of panels, and stories from the Sundance Film Festival Daily Insider. Beginning on January 18 one new short film will stream online for 24 hours, free of charge at the Festival website throughout the ten-day Festival. Also, an exclusive selection of the '08 Festival shorts will be available for purchase and download on three platforms: Apple's iTunes Movie Store, Microsoft's Xbox LIVE, and Netflix.com.

Experience the Festival Online at http://www.sundance.org/festival

Sundance Institute Announces January Screenwriters Lab Projects

Sundance Institute has selected thirteen projects for the annual Screenwriters Lab, to be held January 11-16, 2008 at the Sundance Resort in Utah, which offers independent screenwriters the opportunity to work on their scripts with the support of established writers. The projects selected for development at this Lab join an impressive group of films supported by the Institute’s Feature Film Program, including Dror Shaul’s Sweet Mud (pictured left), winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. This year's projects diversely portray issues from class and race in Brazil to a mother's experience after a tour of duty in Iraq.

Read More at http://www.sundance.org/email/Newsletter/2008-01-07/pdf/screenwriterslab.pdf

Now Playing: Film and Plays in Theatres Now

Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind is the first film screening at the 2008 Sundance Festival that will be opening nationwide later this month. Ian Iqbal Rashid's How She Move (pictured left) will be opening this January along with many other 2007 Festival films which continue to play in theatres. Also, continuing to run on Broadway is the Sundance-supported play Spring Awakening by Duncan Sheik and Steven Slater. Other Sundance-supported plays opening this month include David Adjmi’s The Evildoers which opens at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven and Tanya Barfield’s Blue Door which opens in a co-pro