Category: International

MUMBAI: Universal Pictures has appointed NBC Universal veteran Jessica Schell as executive vice president (business development and strategic planning).

Schell will work on projects across all business units of NBC Universal. Shewill report to Universal vice-chairman and COO Rick Finkelstein.

“With so many exciting changes in our business, we need the kind of expertise that Jessica has to offer,” Finkelstein said.

“She‘s an accomplished executive with a keen understanding of our business challenges and opportunities, and we‘re thrilled to have her,” he added.

Schell previously served as NBC Uni‘s senior vice-president digital media strategy and business development.
 

MUMBAI: After Mira Nair bagged the Golden Lion for Monsoon Wedding at the Venice Film Festival in 2001, Sofia Coppola has bagged the same for her film Somewhere this year. Golden Lion is presented as a best film award.

In 2003, Coppola became only the third woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for directing Lost in Translation that starred Bill Murray. Her other films include The Virgin Suicide and Marie Antoinette. 

Spain‘s Alex de la Iglesia picked up the Silver Lion for Best Director for A Sad Trumpet Ballad. The film also nabbed the best screenplay award.

Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski‘s political thriller Essential Killing received the Special Jury Prize.

MUMBAI: Pixar‘s Toy Story 3 is expected to cross the $1 billion mark, that will make Disney the first company to field two $1 billion blockbusters in the same year.

Earlier this year, Disney‘s Alice In Wonderland also crossed the mark and currently stands in the fifth place in the all-time worldwide rankings with $1.024 billion. 

Disney‘s Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man‘s Chest ranks fourth with $1.066 billion.

On the North American domestic box-office all-time chart, Toy Story 3 ranks ninth with $404.6 million. Latin America contributed $138 million. The film also happens to be the most successful UK release in Disney history, currently standing as the fourth biggest title with $102.4 million in box-office receipts to date.

In Japan, Toy Story 3 has taken in $111.2 million and spent five consecutive weeks as the No. 1 film.

With Toy Story 3 making its way into the select circle of $1 billion grossing films, three of the seven entries in that exclusive club were made in 3D.

Fox‘s Avatar tops the list with a gross of $2.74 billion.

MUMBAI: Easily recognisable character actor in TV, films and theater, Harold Gould died of prostate cancer on 11 September. He was 86.

Gould, best known for playing Marty Morgenstern, father of the title character in the 1970s sitcom Rhoda, is also remembered playing the con man Kid Twist in the The Sting.

Gould was equally comfortable in comedy and drama. Starting in the early ‘60s, he appeared in episodes of such TV classics as The Twilight Zone, The Untouchables, Perry Mason, Mr. Ed, Get Smart, The Fugitive, Hogan‘s Heroes, I Dream of Jeannie, Columbo, The Love Boat and Gunsmoke.

His final screen role was in an episode of the final season of Nip/Tuck that aired in February last.

His film career included memorable turns in Woody Allen‘s Love and Death that featured Gould in a riotous pistol duel with a hapless Allen in Russia and Mel Brooks‘ Silent Movie.
 

MUMBAI: French director Claude Chabrol, one of the founders of the New Wave movement, expired on Sunday. He was 80.

During his more than half-century-long career, Chabrol made more than 70 films and TV productions. His first movie, 1958‘s Le Beau Serge‘ won him considerable critical acclaim and was widely considered a sort of manifesto for the New Wave, that reinvented the codes of filmmaking and revolutionised cinema starting in the late 1950s.

Chabrol‘s films focused on the French bourgeoisie, lifting the facade of respectability to reveal the hypocrisy, violence and loathing simmering just below the surface. Often suspenseful, his work drew comparisons with that of Alfred Hitchcock.

Calling him a great producer, director and screenwriter, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in a statement, ” ‘With the death of Claude Chabrol, French cinema has lost one of its maestros.‘‘

Chabrol worked at a fast clip, churning out about a film every year. He wrote some original scripts, but also adapted classics of French literature, including Madame Bovary‘ (1991) and stories of Guy de Maupassant for cinema as well as for television.
 

MUMBAI: For the sequel of his much-acclaimed Avatar, James Cameron has decided to set the follow-up to his hit blockbuster beneath the waves and he has commissioned engineers to build a special vessel to travel 10,972 meters to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific.

The two-seater submersible will be fitted with a heating system and 3D cameras to capture pictures of the depths for the film expected to release in 2014. Cameron, who has long had a passion for diving, is hoping to begin preparing for his mission later this year.

If he is successful, Cameron‘s team will be only the second to ever visit the Mariana Trench. In 1960, it took a scientist and a navy lieutenant five hours to descend to the floor, where they spent just 20 minutes before coming out of the ocean.

MUMBAI: Fox Searchlight Pictures has acquired the US theatrical rights of Terrence Malick‘s The Tree of Life from River Road Entertainment.

The film, which tells the story of a Midwestern family in the 1950s chronicling the journey of the eldest son, Jack (played as an adult by Sean Penn) from childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile his complicated relationship with his father, played by Pitt. 

The outcome of Life starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain had been hanging for quite some time when River Road head Bill Pohlad had closed the distributorship issue in the wake of Bob Berney‘s resignation in May. The film is produced by Pohlad, Sarah Green, Pitt, Dede Gardner and Grant Hill.

At one time, the film had been rumored as a possible Cannes debutant but it wasn‘t completed in time for that festival.

Searchlight will now release the film in 2011.

MUMBAI: Score: A Hockey Musical, opened the Toronto Film Festival on Thursday.

The festival, seen as a starting point in the race for the Oscars, raised the ire of the local arts community last year when it ditched its tradition of showcasing a Canadian film on opening night and chose British evolutionist drama Creation.

This year the pendulum has swung back with equal force with a hokey musical about Canada‘s favourite sport Hockey on skates as the festival‘s gala opening show. The inclusion of Score has also sparked a debate over giving low-brow subject matter such plum placement.

The audience, some wearing hockey jerseys, clearly enjoyed the campy film as they hooted and hollered through key scenes.

Directed by Toronto-born filmmaker Michael McGowan, Score stars Olivia Newton-John. Walter Gretzky, father of hockey‘s Great One, Wayne Gretzky and former hockey player Theo Fleury make interesting cameos.

McGowan previously screened two other critically acclaimed films at the Toronto fest, Saint Ralph and One Week.
 

MUMBAI: The 35th Toronto International Film Festival, the ten-day event gets going today.
During this period, several dozen movies of which many boasting marquee names in unexpected roles — will be screened.

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart will combat death of a child in John Cameron Mitchell‘s Rabbit Hole. The Conspirator – directed by Robert Redford will present James McAvoy as a reluctant attorney defending a woman (Robin Wright) accused of involvement in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. On the other hand Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black makes his directorial debut with What‘s Wrong About Virginia that has Jennifer Connelly portraying a mentally-ill mother.
 

Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregor will share the screen as father and son in Mike Mills‘ Beginners — the surprise being that Plummer‘s character, rather late in life, comes out in the open. Then there is Will Ferrell, in Dan Rush‘s Everything Must Go playing a man who resorts to staging a yard sale as his life falls apart around him.

Fox Searchlight will be showing off a fall lineup that includes Darren Aronofsky‘s Black Swan, Danny Boyle‘s survival story 127 Hours and the Hilary Swank starrer Conviction directed by Tony Goldwyn.

Focus will be showing off the psycho-ward comedy It‘s Kind of a Funny Story directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck that stars Emma Roberts and Zach Galifianakis.

Buyers expect Focus and Searchlight to be very selective about any purchases. SPC, though, is likely to be a much more active buyer, along with IFC Films and Magnolia Pictures, all of which left Cannes with multiple films.

The Weinstein Co., that entered into a restructuring agreement with its lenders during the summer, will bemaking an impact with Tom Hooper‘s The King‘s Speech which has been getting rave reviews for Colin Firth‘s performance as King George VI.

Sellers are waiting to watch whether Relativity Media, that acquired several assets from Overture in July and tapped Peter Adee as president of marketing and distribution, will emerge as a serious buyer at this year‘s fest.

MUMBAI: The 15th edition of the Pusan International Film Festival, that is scheduled to open on 7 October, will have dignitaries like Oliver Stone and Juliette Binoche as the event‘s guests.

The Pusan International Film Festival has said on its website that the annual weeklong event in the southern South Korean city will open with Zhang‘s Under the Hawthorn Tree, a love story set in China‘s decade-long ultra-leftist Cultural Revolution that will premiere in the country next week.

The eight-day programme will close with Camellia, a three-part film shot in the festival‘s host city by directors from South Korea, Japan and Thailand.

On the whole, the festival will feature 103 world premieres, 82 for feature productions and 21 for short films including special sections on Czech and Kurdish cinema.

Organizers will also present their annual Asian Filmmaker of the Year award to Malaysian Tsai Ming-liang, best known for exploring isolation and loneliness in slow-paced art-house productions with minimal dialogue and music.