Saudi Arabia nixes Jeddah festival

Move is blow for burgeoning film industry

Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning film industry has been dealt a blow with the last-minute cancellation of the fourth Jeddah Film Festival.

The fest, which launched in 2006, was due to open with Yemeni helmer Faisal Al-Tafi’s “The Losing Bet” — the first of 71 features — on Saturday. Instead, organizers received notification from authorities in Jeddah on Friday night that the event would not be going ahead.

The government of Saudi Arabia refused to comment.

It appears, however, the move was evidence of a victory for hardliners in the conservative kingdom who have become increasingly worried about the gradual relaxing of cinema laws in the country.

Cinemas were banned by clerics in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s. Since then there have been attempts to lift the clampdown.

In October 2005, the first public screenings in more than 20 years took place when cartoons unspooled in a hotel in Riyadh, the capital city, to a specially invited audience of women and children to celebrate the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

In July 2006, the privately financed Jeddah fest — which at the time avoided the term “film” in any of its publicity — was held in front of a specially invited audience.

This year’s edition boasted some of its highest-profile sponsors ever, with Saudi media mavens Prince Waleed bin Talal’s Rotana Films and Sheik Waleed al-Ibrahim’s MBC Group publicly supporting the fest.

Both Waleeds have found themselves the targets of venomous attacks by members of Saudi Arabia’s hardline establishment.

Prince Waleed’s own brother, Khaled, publicly denounced him in June for spreading vice in Saudi Arabia through his attempts to have cinemas reopened there.

In December last year, Prince Waleed opened “Menahi,” a Saudi pic financed and produced by Rotana, in the cities of Jeddah and Dammam, allowing mixed members of the public to buy tickets for the first time in three decades.

However, when the prince opened the pic in Riyadh in February, hardline authorities condemned members of the public attempting to buy tickets.

Ali Jaafar

Harry Potter: $100 million mark in 24h!

Warner Bros.’ “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” won the opening day Quidditch match at the worldwide box office, jumping the $100 million mark in its first 24 hours.

Pic cumed a potent $58.2 million domestically and $45.9 million internationally for a total tally of $104 million — the best start ever for the franchise.

No other studio dared open a big title this weekend, although a handful of specialty pics open at the domestic B.O. in a counterprogramming maneuver.

Titles include Fox Searchlight’s offbeat comedy “500 Days of Summer,” starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. Directed by Marc Webb, pic preemed at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and will go out in 27 theaters.

Boaz Yakin’s drama “Death in Love” is likewise skedded to open in limited markets. Distributed by Screen Media Films, the film stars Jacqueline Bisset, Josh Lucas, Lukas Haas and Adam Brody.

Michael Jackson Memorial service attracts massive TV audiences

BERLIN — Michael Jackson’s memorial service in Los Angeles captivated TV auds around Europe on Tuesday as millions tuned in at home and at public viewing events in major cities.

In Germany, some 20 million viewers followed the memorial on a number of channels, although the biggest winners were two small news outlets that devoted much of the day’s programming to Jackson’s death and legacy.

ProSiebenSat.1’s N24 scored the highest ratings in its history with its all-day reports and extended primetime coverage.

The live broadcasts beginning at 7 p.m. local time drew the biggest auds, with 3.84 million tuning in to pubcaster ARD, giving it a 15.6% share, and fellow pubcaster ZDF’s special report “Farewell to the King of Pop” attracting 3.31 million (12%).

But it was ProSiebenSat.1 and RTL’s respective news channels, N24 and N-TV, that saw the biggest above-average rating jumps, with N24 achieving an all-day share of 5.1% — its highest daily average ever. N24 was close behind with 4.9%. Both channels usually have a share of just over 1%. N-TV’s four-hour primetime coverage beginning at 6 p.m. attracted 1.31 million viewers and a 5.2% share, while N24 drew 1.29 million with its live broadcast, achieving a 4.8% share for its special report.

In Berlin, some 6,000 fans attended a free public viewing of the service at the city’s new O2 Arena, while in Cologne, Frankfurt and other cities, crowds amassed in multiplexes, bars and city squares to watch the event.

In the U.K., more than 6 million viewers watched the service. BBC2, which cleared its early evening schedule for the tribute, averaged 4 million viewers and a 19% share between 6-8.45 p.m., peaking at 5.2 million for the final 15 minutes, according to overnight figures.

BBC2’s coverage was the most watched program on any U.K. web between 8-8.45 p.m.

Some 1.2 million watched the event on Five between 6.30-9 p.m. for a 5% share, peaking at 1.4 million for the 15 minutes from 8 p.m.

Sky News achieved some of its highest viewing figures since the U.S.- led invasion of Iraq began in March 2003. Its average audience was 897,000, peaking at 1.16 million in the quarter hour from 8.15 p.m.

In Italy, the memorial scored a stellar 15.7% audience share on Mediaset’s youth-oriented Italia 1 channel, accounting for some 15 million viewers.

Studio commentators during the ceremony included Franco Tunisian entrepreneur Tarak Ben Ammar, Jackson’s former manager, who lashed out against his doctors and against those who, as he put it, “smeared” Jackson with accusations of pedophilia.

Spanish channel Cuatro scored an 11.7% share and 1.1 million viewers with its special show “Michael Jackson: homenaje al rey del pop.”

The coverage boosted Cuatro’s share by five points above its average in that timeslot and gave the Sogecable web its best audience figures for a non-sports programming result since it launched in 2005.

With a 13% share and 1.3 million, Antena 3 TV’s magazine “Tal cual lo contamos” improved its results but more modestly than Cuatro.

Pubcaster RTVE’s La 1 offered a special edition of its daily magazine “Gente” dedicated to Jackson. Averaging 12.5% and 1.1 million, “Gente” underperformed compared with its regular 14% share.

In France, the memorial aired live on TF1, France 2 and M6, nabbing a total of 51.2% of audience share.

TF1 led the ratings with 26.8%, followed by France 2 with 15.4% and M6 with 9.6%.

Tony Manero: Disco-Era Travolta worshiped in chile!

 

The grotesque spectacle of a 52-year-old thug with a graying pompadour, stripped to his briefs in front of a mirror gracelessly imitating John Travolta’s dance moves from “Saturday Night Fever,” haunts Pablo Larraín’s film “Tony Manero”like a nightmare apparition.

During his repeated visits to the nearly empty theater showing the film in Santiago, Chile, this obsessed fan, Raúl Peralta (Alfredo Castro), a petty criminal who lives on the outskirts of the city, mouths the dialogue spoken by Mr. Travolta’s character, Tony Manero, as though memorizing catechism.

When he visits the theater one afternoon and discovers that “Saturday Night Fever” has been replaced by“Grease,” he goes berserk. Nothing is allowed to stand in the way of his indulging a tawdry fantasy that gives him his only sense of identity.

 “Tony Manero” is set in Santiago in 1978, four years intoAugusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship. As Raúl scuttles around the city like a rodent, ducking behind doorways at any sign of trouble, scenes of undercover policemen beating up and arresting suspected opponents of the dictatorship play out on the movie’s fringes without comment or elaboration. The handheld, sometimes out-of-focus camera, which trails him, often from behind, lends the action a queasy verisimilitude.

 For Raúl incidents of street violence are opportunities for robbery. From the window of his apartment he notices an old woman with groceries being mugged and runs downstairs to chase the crooks away. Escorting her to her home, he spies her color television set and promptly bludgeons her to death, pausing long enough to feed the cat and eat lunch from the same can. He pawns the television to buy chipped glass bricks for an illuminated dance floor like the one in “Saturday Night Fever.”

 More than an indelible portrait of a sociopath with the soul of a zombie, “Tony Manero” is an extremely dark meditation on borrowed cultural identity. Poker faced, emotionally cauterized and sexually impotent (the scenes of Raúl’s trying and failing with women are unremittingly ugly), he symbolizes this Chilean director’s vision of a Latin American country mired in passivity and despair. For the illiterate Raúl, Tony Manero’s night of glory on a New York dance floor is the only dream in sight.

 Each week the tacky television contest in which he plans to impersonate Tony, strutting his dance moves in a white suit and black shirt, is devoted to a different star. In the movie’s opening scene he arrives a week early at the studio to find himself standing in line with a bunch of Chuck Norris look-alikes.

 Raúl is polishing his act in a run-down cantina where he leads a weekly revue in homage to his hero. His fellow performers not only buy his fantasy, they also look up to him. Wilma (Elsa Poblete), a Pinochet supporter who runs the cantina, and Cony (Amparo Noguera) and Pauli (Paola Lattus), a mother and teenage daughter who perform in the show, are all rivals for his affection. Goyo (Héctor Morales), the fourth member of the troupe, is a young man with polished dance moves who rents his own white suit intending to compete in the television contest; he is also secretly distributing anti-Pinochet literature.

 Unmentioned in a movie that touches glancingly on politics is the C.I.A.’s role in the 1973 coup that deposed Salvador Allende and installed Pinochet as president. “Tony Manero” implies that Raúl’s worship of a Hollywood movie is an indirect form of consorting with the oppressor.

 Although Mr. Larraín, who wrote the screenplay with Mr. Castro and Mateo Iribarren, was only 2 years old at the time the movie is set, he makes no bones about his disgust with Chile, both then and now. In his director’s statement, he writes, “With this story, I intended to take a harsh look at a society that is incapable of coming face to face with its recent past; a society whose hands are covered in blood but that tries to look stylish and trendy, dancing under flashy lights while ignoring others’ suffering; a country that turns its back on itself, in exchange for the dream of progress.”

stephen Holen

Paramount lays off its Top Execs

A restructuring at Paramount Pictures has led to the exits of head of physical production Georgia Kacandes, senior vice president of production Ben Cosgrove, executive vice president of production Dan Levine, head of casting Gail Levin, Paramount Vantage topper Guy Stodel, senior vice president of visual effects Kim Locasio, and Aimee Shieh, head of Paramount’s New York literary office.

The bad news was delivered early Tuesday, and move came shortly after the exits of John Lesher and president of production Brad Weston, and the appointment of Adam Goodman to president of Paramount’s film group.

Goodman sent out a memo to employees that discussed the number of layoffs but not the specific casualties. Goodman, who attributed the move to a need for “streamlining the leadership of the production organization,” wrote in the memo that 31 people were cut from the production workforce. The timing of the layoffs coincided with the end of Par’s fiscal quarter, sources said. The cuts were accomplished with a “mix of job eliminations, layoffs and reorganizations in creative, casting and physical production, as well as the Paramount Vantage label,” Goodman wrote in the memo.

Paris Cinéma Edition 2009

KEY AND SCREENING EVENTS

Bruno Podalydes’ “Bancs publics,” an ensemble film starring a bevy of well-known Gallic thesps, including Mathieu Amalric, will open the fest. Event closes with Ang Lee’s “Taking Woodstock,” which bowed at this year’s Cannes fest. …

Iconic Italian thesp Claudia Cardinale gets a 15-film retrospective and presents a restored copy of Mauro Bolognini’s “La Viaccia” at a special screening. …

Jean-Pierre Leaud, one of Gaul’s most versatile thesps, who rose to fame during the Nouvelle Vague period, is toasted with a 30-film retro and a screening of “La Maman et la putain,” directed by Jean Eustache, while Malaysian director Tsai Ming-liang presents “What Time Is It There?” a film celebrating the Nouvelle Vague featuring Leaud. Tsai also gets a retrospective of his features. …

A key producer of contemporary Spanish cinema, Lluis Minarro, will present Christophe Farnarier’s “Un Reve“; seven of the producer’s older films will also unspool. …

One of Japan’s rare femme directors, Naomi Kawase, will present “Hotaru” and Thailand-set “Nanayo.” …

Turkish helmer Nuri Bilge Ceylan also gets toasted with screenings of some of his most acclaimed films, including “Three Monkeys” and “Les Climats,” which he will be on hand to present. … Two panels discuss co-producing with Korea and Turkey, while another seminar focuses on the impact of VOD on independant distributors. …

Europa Distribution gathers key European distribs to debate release strategies, talk about collective-acquisitions work and discuss digital entertainment. 

Farrah fawcett dies at 62

 

 

  Farrah Fawcett, the Texas-born actress and sex symbol who shot to fame as one of “Charlie’s Angels” and later earned acclaim in serious roles including telepic “The Burning Bed,” died at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., of cancer at the age of 62.

Fawcett was diagnosed with anal cancer in September 2006 and traveled to Germany in 2007 for alternative treatments. An NBC documentary about her cancer battle that aired in May, “Farrah’s Story,” caused controversy over the final editing of the piece.

The tanned, blonde actress was one of the biggest celebrities of the 1970s, parlaying commercials and guest TV spots into a starring role in the popular detective drama “Charlie’s Angels” in 1976. Around the same time, a swimsuit poster featuring the beauty’s tousled mane, flirtatious smile and enviable figure — graphically outlined in a tight red swimsuit — sold a still-unrivaled 12 million copies. She’ ll remain the sexiest, the most  charismatic and warmest of  ”charlie’s angels” in people’s mind.

Sony grabbs “The prophet”

“The prophet”

Sony pictures Classics has grabbed multi-territorial rights to “The prophet” by French director  Jaques Audiard’s .

The French-Arabic language thriller was  a hit in Cannes and  has received critical acclaimed as well as the the “Grand Prix du Jury”. SPC snapped the rights for North-american, Latin american and Australian rights. Audiard had already received 3 césars (the french Awards and a Bafta for his “The beat that my heart skipped” featuring Romain Duris who gave an amazing performance  in this movie.

by F.poller

Robert Pattinson as Dali in Paul Morrisson’s new movie

 

Madrid in 1922 is a city wavering on the edge of change as traditional values are challenged by the dangerous new influences of jazz, Freud and the avant-garde. Salvador Dalí arrives at university at the age of 18 years old, determined to become a great artist. His bizarre blend of shyness and rampant exhibitionism attracts the attention of two of the university’s social elite — Federico García Lorca and Luis Buñuel.

Salvador is absorbed into their decadent group and for a time he, Luis and Federico become a formidable trio, the most ultra-modern group in Madrid.

Cannes Festival 2009: The Winners

Francois Durand/Getty Images

 

Cannes Film Festival:  the top actors at the Cannes Film Festival. Charlotte Gainsbourg was named best actress for her role in “Antichrist,” and Christopher Waltz was recognized for his work in “Inglourious Basterds.” Michael Haneke’s “the White Ribbon won the 2009 Palme d’Or.

 

Director Michael Haneke’s work saw off competition from past winners including Britain’s Ken Loach and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.

Fellow Austrian Christoph Waltz won best actor for playing an SS officer in Tarantino’s World War II epic.

Charlotte Gainsbourg was named best actress for her role in Lars Von Trier’s controversial film Antichrist.

The Danish film-maker’s work did not go down well due to its brutal and frank scenes of domestic violence. 

Gainsbourg, the 37-year-old daughter of French musician Serge, said she wanted to share her honour with Von Trier, calling the making of the movie “the most intense, the most painful, and most exciting experience of my life”.

The prize for best director was awarded to Brilliante Mendoza of the Philippines for his dark film Kinatay.

British film-maker Andrea Arnold jointly won the jury prize for her film Fish Tank, the second time she has won the Cannes honour.

South Korean director Park Chan-Wook shared the prize with Arnold for Thirst, about a priest-turned-vampire.

Haneke’s film, shot in black and white, studies the chilling, malicious atmosphere gripping a German village on the eve of World War I.

Other award winners included Portugal’s Joao Salaviza for best short film and Chinese writer Feng Mai for best screenplay.

The award ceremony brings the Cannes Film Festival to a close, which has attracted film-making talent from Hollywood and around the world.

One of the biggest media draws was the red carpet appearance of Brad Pitt – star of Inglourious Basterds – along with his actress wife Angelina Jolie.

• Palme d’Or: The White Ribbon directed by Michael Haneke
• Grand Prix: A Prophet by Jacques Audiard
• Special Jury Prize: Alan Resnais director of Wild Grass
• Prix du Jury (Jury Prize): Fish Tank directed by Andrea Arnold & Thirst directed by Park Chan-Wook
• Best Director: Kinatay by Brillante Mendoza
• Best Screenplay: Spring Fever by Lou Ye
• Best Actor: Christopher Waltz for Inglourious Basterds
• Best Actress: Charlotte Gainsbourgh for Antichrist
• Camera d’Or: Samson and Delilah directed by Warwick Thorton
• Camera d’Or (Special Mention): Ajami
• Short Film Palme d’Or: Arena directed by Joao Salaviza

Un Certain Regard

• Prize of Un Certain Regard: Dogtooth directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
• Jury Prize: Police, Adjective, directed by Corneliu Porumboiu
• Special Prize: No One Knows About Persian Cats directed by Bahman Ghobadi & Father of my children directed by Mia Hansen-Love