Category: International

MUMBAI:Two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks will grace Singapore‘s first international film event, Screen Singapore, in June for the Asia Pacific premiere of his film, Larry Crowne.

The dramatic comedy co-written and directed by Hanks and Julia Roberts is about a everyday guy‘s personal re-invention after he loses his job during the recession. It will premiere at the week-long ScreenSingapore‘s closing night gala on 11 June. 

The event will open with a Chinese film and will also feature some Bollywood films.

“It will be easier for a film to be noticed. We‘re not a regular film festival, we don‘t have 50 or 60 films. We don‘t have lots of clutter, which makes a film festival,” said member of the Board of ScreenSingapore Dennis Davidson .

“We will be something different, it‘s a hybrid. It will be business-to-business, government-to-government. But the sexy bit is the red carpets! It‘s having big Bollywood stars, big Chinese stars, big Korean stars and big Hollywood stars on the red carpet,” he added.
 

MUMBAI:DOCUTAH has entered into a partnership with the SLC Film Center on the Utah Film Circuit for a monthly film screening event. Organizers of the Festival feel the need to provide a global connection to the community of St. George through documentary film.

“Documentary films play an important part in the way we communicate with one another” said Festival Director, Phil Tuckett. “They can make you laugh or cry and the potential is there to learn something about the world around us.” 

DOCUTAH is the Southern Utah International Film Festival presented by Dixie State College in St. George. This year the festival will run from 8 to 17 September.

“We are excited to open this year’s festival on Thursday September 8 with the biography of entertainer, Wayne Newton and a performance by the legend himself. The festival is filled with wonderful surprises including a culminating event at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah,” said Festival Executive Director, Christina Schultz.

The Utah Film Circuit will make a stop in St. George on 29 April.
 

MUMBAI:The organizers of the 64th edition of the Cannes Film Festival 2011 has decide to honour Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci by awarding him with a Honorary Palme d’or. The award will be handed over to him at the opening ceremony of the festival.

This award comes in recognition of Bertolucci’s work ranging from Prima della Revoluzione (1964) to Novecento (1976), from The Conformist (1970) to The Last Emperor (1987). 

“The quality of his work, which appears today in all its uniqueness and the extent of this work we perceive every day more vividly, the strength of his commitment to cinema and the ties that bind him to Cannes, make Bernaldo Bertollucci the first legitimate recipient.” said President Gilles Jacob and Thierry Fremaux General Delegate.

Similar awards were handed over to Woody Allen in 2002 and Clint Eastwood in 2009 on behalf of the Board of Directors of the Festival de Cannes.

MUMBAI: Michael Shannon has been cast as Superman’s nemesis in director Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel.

Shannon, who received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor for Revolutionary Road for his performance as a mentally-troubled man, has also been seen as a stern federal agent in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, Warners Bros. announced. 

“Zod is not only one of Superman‘s most formidable enemies, but one of the most significant because he has insights into Superman that others don‘t. Michael is a powerful actor who can project both the intelligence and the malice of the character, making him perfect for the role,” Snyder has been quoted as saying.

The developing cast of Man of Steel also includes Amy Adams as Lois Lane and Diane Lane and Kevin Costner as Martha and Jonathan Kent.

The film is being produced by Charles Roven, Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan and Deborah Snyder. The screenplay is being written by David S. Goyer based on a story by Goyer and Nolan.

MUMBAI:20th Century Fox’s Rio turned out to be the year’s first robust box-office hit over the weekend as the film opened in 11,612 screens in 72 markets and grossed an estimated $55 million.

“This is a fantastic start for a new franchise,” declared Fox International co-presidents Paul Hanneman and Tomas Jegeus. “With consistently stellar reviews and excellent world-of-mouth around the world…we are well established to take advantage of the school holidays, which begin in the coming weeks,” they added. 

Rio opened at No. 1 in nearly every market it played and scored particularly well in Brazil, where the weekend action came to $8.3 million from 1,013 locations, the market’s biggest animation opening weekend of all time.

The film’s Russian bow generated $10.4 million from 1,297 screens. Mexico provided $5.3 million from 1,624 sites, Germany registered $3.4 million from 920 venues while. The film is likely to open in France, Belgium and Italy US and Canada this week.

No. 2 on the weekend was Warner’s Sucker Punch that garnered $8.9 million from 4,550 screens in 50 markets, pushing the foreign gross total of the film to $32.7 million.

Third on the weekend was Sony’s Just Go With It, which delivered $7.9 million from 2,610 screens in 53 markets for a foreign gross total to date of $88.3 million. The comedy drew $1.7 million in its second Australia round at 310 sites and collected $5 million totally. The film is the biggest-grossing Sandler title to date in Brazil and Russia.

The weekend’s No. 4 title, Universal’s Hop grossed $5.9 million at 2,927 venues in 32 territories bringing its overseas total to $15.1 million while at No. 5 was Summit Entertainment’s Source Code that generated about $10.8 million so far on the foreign circuit thanks to a $3.2 million second weekend from some 20 overseas markets.
 

MUMBAI: The upcoming 54th San Francisco International Film Festival (SIFF) will honour Oliver Stone with the Founder‘s Directing Award (FDA) on 28 April at Film Society Awards Night.

“We are thrilled to honor Oliver Stone at this year‘s Festival,” said San Francisco Film Society‘s executive director Graham Leggat. “He is in the midst of a remarkable career built on the confidence that complex ideas can be molded into popular cinema.”

The Film Society‘s highly regarded Youth Education program will be the beneficiary of the fundraiser honouring Stone.

The soon-to-be-announced recipient of the Peter J. Owens Award for excellence in acting and Frank Pierson, recipient of the Kanbar Award for excellence in screenwriting will also be honoured at the star-studded event.

Stone will also be on hand at the event for An Evening with Oliver Stone, for which he‘ll take part in an onstage interview.

Earlier recipients include Walter Salles, Francis Ford Coppola, Mike Leigh, Spike Lee, Werner Herzog, Taylor Hackford, Robert Altman, Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Abbas Kiarostami, Arturo Ripstein, Im Kwon-Taek, Francesco Rosi, Arthur Penn, Stanley Donen, Manoel de Oliveira, Ousmane Semb?ne, Satyajit Ray, Marcel Carné, Jirí Menzel, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Robert Bresson, Michael Powell and Akira Kurosawa.
 

MUMBAI: The 64th Festival de Cannes has appointed South Korean filmmaker and scriptwriter Bong Joon-ho to preside over its Caméra d‘or jury. The Caméra d‘or is awarded to the best first film presented in the Official Selection during Critics‘ Week or Directors‘ fortnight.

Joon-ho achieved critical acclaim for his feature films Barking Dog (2000) and Memories of Murder (2004). His film The Host was screened in 2006 at the Directors‘ Fortnight at Cannes. He was invited to Cannes as part of the Official Selection with Tokyo! (2008), a trilogy on which he worked with Leos Carax and Michel Gondry. In 2009, he presented Mother at Un Certain Regard section of the festival.

Other film lumineries who have earlier presided over the Caméra d‘or jury are Bruno Dumont, Abbas Kiarostami, Pavel Lounguine, Roschdy Zem and Gael Garcia Bernal.

The Cannes Film Festival will run from 11 to 22 May.

MUMBAI:Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, director of 28 Weeks Later has been tapped to direct Relativity‘s remake of The Crow.

Crow is based on a gritty black-and-white indie comic by artist James O‘Barr. Miramax made the film adaptation, which gained cult status partially due to star Brandon Lee‘s on-set accidental death. The film was followed by three sequels and a TV series. 

The story follows a rock musician who is murdered while trying to save his fiancee from thugs. He is resurrected by supernatural forces and seeks revenge.

The reboot of the title has been in the works since 2007.

Relativity‘s Tooley will serve as executive producer while Jose Ibanez, Pressman Film Corp.‘s Jon Katz and Apaches‘ Jesus de la Vega will serve as co-producers.

The film is being produced by Edward R. Pressman, Jeff Most, Relativity‘s CEO Ryan Kavanaugh and Apaches Entertainment‘s Enrique Lopez Lavigne and Belen Atienza.
 

MUMBAI:he eye patch that John Wayne wore in the 1969 film True Grit is set to go under the hammer. The sale would take place in Los Angeles in October said Heritage Auctions. Other personal items, including Wayne’s Golden Globe that he won for playing Marshal Rooster Cogburn in the same film will also go under the hammer.

Wyane‘s cowboy boots, hats, driving licence, passport and various movie scripts with Wayne‘s handwriting have also been handed over to be auctioned. The items are expected to fetch anything between 60 pounds (100 dollars) and 30,000 pounds (50,000 dollars). 

“All these are items that could either stay stored somewhere, or be let loose to the people,” the BBC quoted the actor‘s son Ethan Wayne has been quoted as saying. All proceeds from the sale will go to John Wayne Enterprises that supports and funds the John Wayne Cancer Foundation.

Wayne made more than 170 films, mainly Westerns. He died in 1979 of stomach cancer when he was 72.

MUMBAI: The Los Angeles based Holy Wood Acting Studio opened on 25 March to unearth talented actors with the “emotional and spiritual maturity” to endure the challenges in their careers.

“The opening of Holy Wood Acting Studio represents a new era for the entertainment industry, an era where actors will not only thrill audiences with amazing performances, but also inspire them through moral, intellectual, and spiritual integrity,” the Studio said in a statement.

Participants at the event helped create an inspiring and exciting atmosphere they hope will set the tone for many years of actor training and personal development, the Studio said.

Holy Wood Studio is unique in its incorporation of the late Pope‘s approach to spirituality.

The studio‘s operational director Max Espinosa opened the event, explaining the aim of the studio is to prepare students to be both successful actors and complete human beings.

He noted the “Four Pillars” of the study program: Acting, Personal Growth and Development, Leadership, and Health and Fitness. These are combined with Pope John Paul II‘s Theology of the Body to produce actors who are masters of the craft and masters of themselves.

Holy Wood acting studies will open its three-month summer programme on 12 June. Another of its programs begins on Sept. 8 and lasts for a whole academic year.

The programs aim to provide flexible options for acting students looking to maximize their personal and professional development.
The studio‘s base of operations, Culver City in West Los Angeles County, bills itself as “the Heart of Screenland.” It is also the home of Sony Pictures Studios.