Category: Movies

MUMBAI: Seven bulls that were to take part in the shooting of Knight & Day starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz broke free on a set in Spain causing slight injury to two people on Sunday.

The two actors are scheduled to arrive in the city of Cadiz in southwest Spain for the filming of the film next weekend.

Two unidentified women were slightly injured by the bulls as they broke free from the downtown location and ran through streets to a nearby beach. It was not however clear if the women had anything to do with the film.

The film‘s director Jose Luis Escolar told reporters that he was unaware how the bulls escaped.

Filming in Cadiz was to begin today, but local government spokesman Ignacio Romani said that it has now been suspended until further notice.

MUMBAI: The Twilight Saga: New Moon got off to a flying start overseas, opening at the number one position in France grossing $4.4m from 751 screens and drawing 488,000 on its first day.

Reports from Australia say that the film was the highest grossing midnight screening since Star Wars: Episode 3‘s $1.2m in May 2005, fetching $1.6m from 466 by the end of its first day.

In Italy the film grossed $2.7m from 625 last Wednesday, making the film the third highest Wednesday launch ever behind Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix.

Spain generated $2.2m from 652 screens in what was also the third highest Wednesday launch, trailing only Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix and Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince.

MUMBAI: Nicholas Ray‘s restored version of the experimental film We Can‘t Go Home Again will be premiered at the 68th Venice film festival in 2011.
 

The film, which for the past 30 years has remained on the shelf of a film depository, has been specially restored for the festival.

MUMBAI: Lee Daniel‘s Precious will close the 2009 Bahamas International Film Festival (BIFF) that will be on from 10 to 17 December.

Winner of three awards at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, including the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, Lee Daniels‘s Precious based on the novel Push by Sapphire is a vibrant, honest and resoundingly hopeful film about the human capacity to grow and overcome.

Set in Harlem in 1987, the film tells the story of Claireece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), a sixteen-year-old African-American girl born into a life no one would want. She‘s pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother (Mo‘Nique), a poisonously angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is a place of chaos, and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and an awful secret: she can neither read nor write.

The girl may sometimes be down, but she is never out. Beneath her impassive expression is a watchful, curious young woman with an inchoate but unshakeable sense that other possibilities exist for her.

Threatened with expulsion, Precious is offered the chance to transfer to an alternative school, Each One/Teach One. Precious doesn‘t know the meaning of “alternative,” but her instincts tell her this is the chance she has been waiting for. In the literacy workshop taught by the patient yet firm Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), Precious begins a journey that will lead her from darkness, pain and powerlessness to light, love and self determination.

MUMBAI: Director of Monsters vs. Aliens Peter Ramsey is set to direct The Guardians, (working title) for DreamWorks Animation SKG.

The Guardians is based on The Guardians of Childhood, a series of children‘s books by William Joyce. Pulitzer Prize winning writer David Lindsay-Abaire has signed on to write the script.

In addition to directing Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space, Ramsey served as Head of Story on DreamWorks Animation‘s Monsters vs. Aliens and has served as a storyboard artist on a number of live action feature films. Lindsay-Abaire was most recently nominated for a Tony Award for his book and lyrics for Shrek The Musical.

The Guardians will be produced by Christina Steinberg and Nancy Bernstein and executive produced by Michael Siegel, Joyce‘s manager. DreamWorks Animation acquired the property from Reel FX where the characters and the world of The Guardians of Childhood were developed in a partnership with William Joyce. Joyce will also serve as co-director.

MUMBAI: Filmmaker Werner Herzog will head the jury of the 60th Berlin International Film Festival to be held from 11 to 21 February.

Herzog made over 50 films during a career which has spanned almost 50 years, including The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Special Jury Prize, Cannes 1975), Fitzcarraldo (1982, Silver Palm in Cannes for Best Director), Cobra Verde (1987) and Rescue Dawn (2006).

He has also produced numerous documentaries, including Grizzly Man (2005) and Encounters At The End Of The World (2007), for which he received an Oscar nomination.

This year, Herzog has two films in competition in Venice: Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans starring Nicolas Cage and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done starring Willem Dafoe.
 

MUMBAI: The UK film industry has welcomed the reorganisation of the UK Film Council and has described the major changes effected as “producer friendly”.

Says Robert Bernstein of Ecosse Films, producer of Sam Taylor Wood‘s Nowhere Boy “It is a very positive thing that money recouped by the UKFC on successful films will go back into the production fund, as it is an incentive for producers to come up with commercially successful projects.”

Paul Raphael of Starfield Productions, who produced the 2007 drama about the Lebanon war Under the Bombs was “glad to see that the focus is on helping producers. It shows that the people having the discussions understand the realities we are all facing.”

Christopher Granier-Deferre of production company Possion Rouge Pictures, who produced the 2008 thriller The Hide, added, “The merging of funds is a fairly cosmetic move. It should be more about re-evaulating how the fund is run. It should be a democratic and transparent process, as to how the films are supported.”

The new fund will be managed by one ‘head‘, supported by three senior executives with distinct, creative roles. All will be appointed by 2 April next year.

The existing heads of the New Cinema Fund and the Development Fund -Lenny Crooks and Tanya Seghatchian respectively- will be eligible to apply for one of the four positions. The posts will also be open to external candidates.

MUMBAI: The Academy Foundation of The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences has given Film Independent a $30,000 grant for the 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF).

The festival is among 24 to receive grants designed to make the events more accessible to the general public in the US and it is understood that the LAFF top brass will use the $30,000 to fund International Spotlight.

Last year‘s International Spotlight focused on documenting Mexico through selections from the Ambulante Film Festival. A series of screenings, followed by Q&A‘s with the film-makers and Ambulante co-founders Diego Luna and Pablo Cruz, was key in bridging the gap between film-makers and LAFF attendees. 

“The Academy Foundation‘s generous support enables us to continue to cultivate audiences for diverse film-making cultures and to expose LA‘s movie-loving public to voices and stories beyond our own backyards,” festival director Rebecca Yeldham said.

The 2010 edition is scheduled to run from 17 to 27 June.