Category: International

MUMBAI: The Boulder International Film Festival has awarded director Oliver Stone with the a “Master of Cinema” award. The award was presented on Sunday, the concluding night of the festival.

Having been nominated for 31 Academy Awards, Stone has won three Oscars: best adapted screenplay for Midnight Express and best director for Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July.

It was only yesterday that 32-year-old James Franco took home the Vanguard Award for his role of Aron Ralston, the climber in Danny Boyle‘s 127 Hours.

MUMBAI: Paramount‘s Insurge Pictures will release an updated director‘s fan cut of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never for a one-week exclusive run beginning 25 February.

However, the film will play only in 3D screens in the US and Canada replacing the original version. Along with, there will be 40 minutes of new footage.

The updated version runs 115 minutes, instead of the original running time of 105 minutes.

Some of the new footage includes more of Bieber‘s friends and hometown life, as well as new songs and special footage shot of the film‘s premiere at theaters across the country.

The original Never Say Never will continue playing in 2D runs. The cost of a 35mm print makes sending the director‘s cut to those theaters financially unworkable. Digital prints, however, are a fraction of the cost.

Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore said the studio is “trying to take advantage of options from digital technology that didn‘t exist before and give fans even more of what they loved from the first version.”

MUMBAI: Bagging three top awards including the coveted Golden Bear, Iranian film Nader and Simin, a Separation, directed by Asghar Farhadi, emerged as the most successful film At the 61st Berlin International Film Festival.

The seven-member international jury, which included actor-director-producer Aamir Khan, also honoured the leading male and female lead of the film by awarding them the Silver Bears for the best actor and the best actress.

“I never thought that I will get this prize,” Farhadi said after receiving the Golden Bear from the jury president Isabella Rossellini and festival director Dieter Kosslick.

Farhadi had received the Silver Bear for the best director for his portrayal of the Iranian society in his last feature film ‘About Elly‘ at the festival two years ago.

Nader and Simin, a Separation is based on a middle-class couple‘s divorce on the grounds that the wife Simin wants to move abroad to find a better future for their 11-year-old daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi), but her husband refuses because he wants to look after his sick father.

The Iranian competition entry was widely expected to win one of the main awards of the Berlinale, but its capture of three top positions surprised many festival participants.

Aamir Khan presented the Silver Bear for the best director that was shared by Peyman Moadi, Shahab Hosseini and Sareh Bayat.

MUMBAI: Korean film Paranmanjang (Night Fishing) won the Golden Bear Award for best short film at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival. This news has been evoking a lot of interest since brothers Park Chan-wook and Chan-kyong shot the entire 30-minute film on an iPhone.

One the nine Korean films that featured in the festival, Night Fishing was funded by roughly around $136k by South Korea‘s exclusive iPhone carrier, wireless company KT.

The plot of the experimental film, that took 10 days to record using the iPhone 4 and a crew of 80 people, centers around a fisherman who catches a female shaman in the middle of the night and transcends his current and previous lives. The film is a fantasy that uses recording techniques and effects that leave viewers in total disbelief that it was shot on the iPhone. The work is also the first movie to be recorded with a smartphone and win an award at an international film festival.

25 short films were competing for the award. Another Korean director, Yang Hyo-joo received second place honors in the same competition with her Silver Bear Award winning short film The Unbroken.

The jury explained its decision to award Night Fishing the Golden Bear, “The film we chose is nothing but a small miracle. Throughout the multi-layered original story of a simple man who is forced to confront his life and death through his shape-shifting, we experienced transformation, judgment and deep forgiveness.”

MUMBAI: Hackney Lullabies, a 10-minute Japanese documentary about migrant women raising children in the East London suburb of Hackney, is this year‘s proud winner of the Berlin Today Award, a prize given to the best of five short films selected by the Berlinale Talent Campus.

Lullabies develops this initial idea into a compassionate, intimate account of the difficulties mothers face raising children in a new country. “She has her roots here, which I don‘t,” one of the mothers says about her daughter, encapsulating the complexity of the situation. The women, all residents of Hackney who have moved there from various parts of the world, are shown to be sensitive to these difficulties even as they appreciate the opportunities their children will have in their new home.

Director Kyoko Miyake moved from Japan to the UK years ago, and was inspired both by her own experience as a migrant and the making of her previous film, Mrs. Burnes Sunday Roast.
 

MUMBAI: Louis Leterrier, who directed Clash of the Titans has been assigned to direct Now You See Me produced by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci ubder the banner of Paper Products.

See Me, per Summit, pits a crack FBI squad in a game of cat and mouse against a super-team of the world‘s greatest illusionists, who pull off a series of bank heists during their performances, showering the profits on their audiences while staying one step ahead of the law.

The film has script written by Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt.

The 3D conversion of Leterrier‘s Clash of the Titans didn’t do well and went on to gross over $493 million worldwide.

MUMBAI: Martin Scorsese has decided to team up again with Leonard DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street, based on a true story of a disgraced financier.

The project will detail Jordan Belfort‘s fast-dealing, drug-and-sex-drenched ‘90s-era tear through the halls of Wall Street that led him to jail for offences related to stock market manipulation.

His memoir, that was originally set up at Warner Bros. with Ridley Scott attached to direct, was adapted by writer Terry Winter. The producers, Alexandra Milchan, Scorsese and DiCaprio will announce financing and production details at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Earlier, DiCaprio has worked on four films with Scorsese in films like Gangs of New York, Shutter Island among others.

MUMBAI: Richard Kelly, known for films like Donnie Darko and The Box will soon begin shooting his next film Corpus Christi, a thriller set in the Coastal Bend.

But it is not clear whether Darko Entertainment will shoot film in Corpus Christi is not known. The film is in the pre-production stage right. The production house has teamed up with Eli Roth (director of Hostel) to produce the film that is the story about a mentally unstable Iraq War veteran and a strange friendship he has with his boss who owns a supermarket chain as well has a political ambition.

The casting is nearing completion and lead roles are expected to be announced next month. The shooting will begin on location in July. However, officials of the Corpus Christi Chamber of Commerce said that though they are excited at the prospect of it shooting here, they knew nothing more than that.

Several films have been shot at Corpus Christi including The Legend of Billie Jean, Selena, Pearl Harbor and The Open Road.

MUMBAI: In a poll to find Hollywood`s most desirable wife, Natalie Portman has come out winners, while Charlie Sheen of Two and A Half Men has been named the least desired husband.

The Black Swan actress has beaten the likes of Megan Fox, pop singer Cheryl Cole and Kate Middleton to be crowned the most desirable celebrity wife in a poll by My OK! Wedding magazine.

Sheen, 45, who recently checked into rehab following his hospitalisation has been voted the least popular fantasy husband with scandal-plagued Mel Gibson in second slot.

Songstress Amy Winehouse was voted the least desirable ‘Wife‘ while Lindsay Lohan and singer Britney Spears trailed in the second and third slot.

On the other hand, Britain`s Prince Harry was voted the most desirable husband who edged out his brother William and Twilight star Robert Pattinson. “We were stunned by the results. The least attractive celeb brides and grooms were the party monsters. And now that Harry has cleaned up his act and proven himself to the world with his work in Afghanistan, he has topped the poll beating all the expected candidates like Robert Pattinson and even his brother William,” a spokesperson of the magazine said.
 

MUMBAI: Despite Tangled‘s continued reign on the top slot, Black Swan just missed the bus from taking the top spot in the overseas market by $131,664.

Black Swan, playing in 29 territories, boosted the mainstream art house wonder over the $150 million mark in global revenue with $16.7 million in weekend receipts.

The Franco-Belgian comedy Nothing to Declare has taken the third spot earning an impressive $13.95 million.

Running in six more territories than last week, The King‘s Speech held steady to the fourth place with $13.2 million. Other Oscar contenders that continued to make their mark in the Top 20 were True Grit in the ninth place and The Fighter in the 19th place.