Filed under: Classics, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Foreign Language, Independent, Casting, Deals, Celebrities and Controversy, Distribution, The Weinstein Co., Family Films, Movie Marketing, Politics, Michael Moore, Lists, Cinematical Indie
Have you been reading Cinematical Indie lately? If not, here's what you've been missing ...
INDIE FILM GRAB BAG
- Atom Egoyan will start shooting on his newest film, Adoration, this fall -- his first since 2005's Where the Truth Lies.
- Cinematical Indie Seven: Documentaries worth catching on DVD ...
- Deliver Us From Evil director Amy Berg (pictured) talks to Cinematical Indie about the $660 million payout by the Catholic Church to victims of clergy sexual abuse, and how she feels about Cardinal Roger Mahony's "apology" to the victims.
FEST NEWS
- Michael Moore's Traverse City Film Fest announces its lineup, which includes some retro films (Grease, Raiders of the Lost Ark). It's Michael Moore's fest, so it's a given that there are plenty of social-issue films, but there will also be other fest fare like Waitress, Paprika and The King of Kong.
- Heading to a slightly more exotic locale, news from the Thessaloniki Film Festival is that the fest will be honoring one of Monika's fave directors, John Sayles, with a "Golden Alexander." The fest will also screen the European premiere of Sayle's latest film, Honeydripper (Monika wrote earlier this month about Honeydripper being selected for Toronto ... busy year for Sayles.
- The Middle East International Film Festival, announced at Cannes earlier this year, has a Festival Director: film fest veteran Jon Fitzgerald, who helped launch Slamdance and has worked for AFI and, well, lots of other fests. The fest will be held in October in Abu Dhabi, and the main site of the fest is the truly stunning Emirates Palace. Seems like the organizers of the fest intend to make it a major business-oriented fest with lots of deal-making going on ... it will be interesting to see how Fitzgerald grows the fest, and if it eventually becomes a key fest for dealmakers -- kind of like the Toronto or Sundance of the Middle East. Interesting ...
- The AFI Dallas Film Fest has announced its call for entries for 2008, the second year of the fest, so get your films submitted.
- Cinematical Indie gears up for our coverage of the major fall film fests, Telluride, Toronto and Venice.
DEALS and DISTRIBUTION
- Just when we got all excited about the July 20 release of one of our fave flicks from Toronto last year, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, things got curiouser and curiouser, culminating with the announcement that -- too bad, so sad -- we're going to have to wait until 2008 for the film's official release now. Wha --? Poor Mandy -- first, she didn't get a freaking poster until two weeks before her release date, then she got dumped by the Weinsteins' Dimension and acquired by Senator Entertainment. But never fear, the Brothers Weinstein have a positive spin on the bizarre dumping of the film, saying that Senator will give Mandy a wider release than they had planned for her, and Senator already owned her German rights anyhow ... and there's less competition in the film's new release slot (and, just maybe, the horror genre will recover from the dreadful opening of Captivity by then -- though Elisha Cuthbert's career may not). Ah, Mandy. The guys dying to see the film will just have to wait a while longer ... but I guess as long as a girl is trading up, it's all good.
- Speaking of the Weinstein boys, The Weinstein Company (TWC) also acquired Benny Chan's Invisible Target ... and Peter Martin ponders whether this one might head straight to DVD ...
- Here! Films picks up Tribeca player Fat Girls, while First Run (finally, it's about time someone did) acquires one of my own fave Sundance flicks, For the Bible Tells Me So.
- Robert Bresson's first film, Les Anges du Péché, finally gets a DVD release, but you have to buy it from a French website.
- Willy Wiggins reinvents The Outlaw Son.
- Peter Martin writes up the latest indie DVD releases, including his top pick-of-the-week, Avenue Montaigne.
