Screen 28th Nov

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Issue 1781 November 28, 2014

“THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FILMS I HAVE EVER SEEN

— IN TERMS OF ITS VISUALS, AND ITS OVERRIDING MESSAGE ABOUT THE POWERFUL FORCES OF THE ONE THING WE ALL KNOW, BUT CAN’T MEASURE IN SCIENTIFIC TERMS. LOVE.” – RICHARD ROEPER,

D WA A WA R D S . C O M Š2014 DreamWorks Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES INCLUDING

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE and BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR PRODUCED BY | BONNIE ARNOLD, p.g.a.

BEST DIRECTOR | DEAN DEBLOIS BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY | DEAN DEBLOIS B a s e d u p o n t h e “ H OW TO T R A I N YO U R D R AG O N ” book series by CRESSIDA COWELL

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE | JOHN POWELL BEST VISUAL EFFECTS V i s u a l E f f e c t s S u p e r v i s o r | D AV E WA L V O O R D Head of Character Animation | SIMON OTTO H e a d o f E f f e c t s | L I - M I N G L AW R E N C E L E E Co-Head of Effects | SCOTT PETERSON VISUAL CONSULTANT | ROGER DEAKINS, ASC, BSC STARRING J AY B A R U C H E L • C AT E B L A N C H E T T • G E R A R D B U T L E R • C R A I G F E R G U S O N A M E R I C A F E R R E R A • J O N A H H I L L • C H R I S T O P H E R M I N T Z - P L A S S E • T. J . M I L L E R KRISTEN WIIG • DJIMON HOUNSOU • KIT HARINGTON

EUROPEAN FILM MARKET  IT ALL STARTS HERE.

513 Feb 2015

Early Bird Registration until November 30.

Online Film Submission until December 23.

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LEADER

The time traveller’s life

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UK office MBI, Zetland House 5-25 Scrutton Street, London EC2A 4HJ Tel: +44 (0) 20 3033 4267 US office 8581 Santa Monica Blvd, #707, West Hollywood, CA 90069 E-mail: firstname.lastname@screendaily.com (unless stated) Editorial Editor Wendy Mitchell +44 (0) 20 3033 2816 US editor Jeremy Kay +1 310 922 5908 jeremykay67@gmail.com News editor Michael Rosser +44 (0) 20 3033 2720 Chief critic and reviews editor Mark Adams +44 7841 527 505 Group head of production and art Mark Mowbray +44 (0) 20 3033 2817 Group art director, MBI Peter Gingell +44 (0) 20 3033 4203 peter.gingell@mb-insight.com Chief reporter Andreas Wiseman +44 (0) 20 3033 2848 Asia editor Liz Shackleton, lizshackleton@gmail.com Contributing editors Sarah Cooper, Fionnuala Halligan, John Hazelton, Louise Tutt Contributing reporter Ian Sandwell Sub editors Adam Richmond, Loveday Cuming Advertising and publishing Commercial director Andrew Dixon +44 (0) 20 3033 2928 Sales manager Scott Benfold +44 (0) 20 7391 4533 Sales manager Nadia Romdhani (maternity leave) UK, South Africa, Middle East Andrew Dixon +44 (0) 20 3033 2928 France, Spain, Portugal, Latin America, New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Scott Benfold +44 (0) 20 3638 5050 Germany, Scandinavia, Benelux, eastern Europe Gunter Zerbich +44 (0) 20 3033 2930 Italy, Asia, India Ingrid Hammond +39 05 7829 8768 ingridhammond@libero.it VP business development, North America Nigel Daly +1 323 654 2301 / 213 447 5120 nigeldalymail@gmail.com US sales and business development executive Nikki Tilmouth +1 323 868 7633 nikki.screeninternational@gmail.com Production manager Jonathon Cooke +44 (0) 20 3033 4296 jonathon.cooke@mb-insight.com Festival and events manager Jessica Stacey +44 (0) 20 3033 2870 jessica.stacey@mb-insight.com Group commercial director, MBI Alison Pitchford +44 (0) 20 3033 2949 alison.pitchford@mb-insight.com Subscription customer service +44 (0) 1604 828 706 help@subscribe.screendaily.com Sales administrator Justyna Zieba +44 (0) 20 3033 2694 justyna.zieba@mb-insight.com Chief executive, MBI Conor Dignam +44 (0) 20 3033 2717 conor.dignam@mb-insight.com Screen International is part of Media Business Insight Ltd (MBI), also publisher of Broadcast and shots

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WENDY MITCHELL EDITOR

Ellar Coltrane and Ethan Hawke in Boyhood

an you think back to July 2002? I had started a new job at indieWIRE in New York, working on a magazine with IFC called IFCRant, with Maggie Gyllenhaal on the cover talking Secretary.

Channel 4 pulled the plug on Film Four (as it was then), Bob Berney left IFC for Newmarket (and My Big Fat Greek Wedding was a hit), Venice announced plans to screen films including The Magdalene Sisters and Far From Heaven. Men In Black II led the box office and The Lovely Bones was published.

If you’re not feeling old yet, it was also the summer Britney Spears, aged 20, was ranked by Forbes as the world’s most powerful celebrity.

And modestly, in Texas, Richard Linklater and a six-year-old boy named Ellar Coltrane started to make film history, shooting the first scenes of what would become Boyhood.

Here we are, 12 years later, enjoying the fruits of their labours. I usually find films that are envelope-pushing and history-making to be admirable more than enjoyable. But Boyhood is a moving watch even without its unusual backstory. It’s a huge compliment to Linklater that the movie doesn’t feel like a curio. It feels like an emotionally rewarding film that just happened to be shot over 12 years. I didn’t leave the cinema with dry eyes, and I’m not even a parent.

To me, Boyhood is every bit as ambitious — and maybe even more revolutionary — than Interstellar. That film had two years of work and

$165m spent, and yet to me it doesn’t have the emotional impact of Linklater’s $4m production.

As evidenced by that Google-assisted roll call of events from 12 years ago, 2002 feels like a lifetime ago for me, as it will for most of you. So what a testament in these fast-moving times that the Boyhood team had this film in their minds across the life changes and myriad other projects over the years. It’s the opposite of short-attention-span cinema.

In Jeremy Kay’s Boyhood case study (see page 28), producer John Sloss and Linklater talk about the logistical headaches they had to overcome: bonding, multiple contracts, planning 12 shoots and juggling shifting schedules. The mind boggles.

In terms of financing, it’s stunning that Jonathan Sehring was able to convince IFC this was a good investment to make — and keep making — over the years. Not many people, nor many companies, would have leapt with Linklater. I also wonder if it’s the kind of project that could have been made with soft money in Europe. The pessimist in me thinks it wouldn’t have been, that it wouldn’t have been able to tick the kinds of boxes that a public funding body might need.

Of course, Ellar Coltrane is at the centre of the film and it’s remarkable to see him grow up on screen, but Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette also turn in stunning performances (more interviews with them in next week’s issue).

As much as it’s a story of boyhood, it’s also a story of parenthood — it was Hawke’s journey to becoming a responsible grown-up that moved me the most.

Linklater had a crazy vision and he worked for 12 years to make it work.

If that doesn’t make you the best director s of the year, I don’t know what does. ■

Bear essential Even growing up as a fan of Paddington Bear, I was one of those slightly put off by the ‘Creepy Paddington’ meme a few months back — that CGI bear did look a bit scary, especially superimposed into The Shining. I’m thrilled to report Paddington is not at all creepy on the big screen. In fact, I’d say this film has all the makings of an instant classic. A lot of family films, especially ones based on beloved franchises, can feel staid and predictable. This Paddington manages to feel timeless yet also fresh. Hats off to StudioCanal and golden-touch producer David Heyman for taking some risks and not just going down the obvious route — especially the decision to hire Paul King to write and direct. Pairing the director of The Mighty Boosh and Bunny And The Bull with a marmalade-loving bear isn’t self-evident, but it was an inspired decision.

Seeing King’s quirky comedy pals such as Simon Farnaby, Alice Lowe, Steve Oram and Tom Meeten crop up in small roles is a special delight. The film is genuinely laughout-loud funny for adults and kids; it’s charming not treacly. I hope Paddington is the massive hit it deserves to be. You can even go see it as an adult on your own without feeling weird. Just leave the cuddly toys at home.

November 28, 2014 Screen International 3

Contents

International correspondents Asia Liz Shackleton lizshackleton@gmail.com Australia Sandy George +61 2 9557 7425 sandy.george@me.com Balkan region

08

Vladan Petkovic +381 64 1948 948 vladan.petkovic@gmail.com Brazil Elaine Guerini +55 11 97659915 elaineguerini@terra.com.br France Melanie Goodfellow +33 6 21 45 80 27 melanie.goodfellow@btinternet.com

20

18

Germany Martin Blaney +49 30 318 063 91 screen.berlin@googlemail.com Greece Alexis Grivas +30 210 64 25 261 alexisgrivas@yahoo.com Israel Edna Fainaru +972 3 5286 591 dfainaru@netvision.net.il Korea/deputy Asia editor Jean Noh +82 10 4205 0318

22

10

hjnoh2007@gmail.com Nordic territories Jorn Rossing Jensen +45 202 333 04 jornrossing@aol.com

November 28, 2014

Scotland Allan Hunter +44 (0) 7904 698 848

Feature focus

allan@alhunter.myzen.co.uk Spain Juan Sarda +34 646 440 357 jsardafr@hotmail.com UK Geoffrey Macnab +44 (0) 20 7226 0516 geoffrey@macnab.demon.co.uk

Subscriptions Screen International subscriptions Department, 3 Queensbridge, The Lakes, Northampton NN4 7BF Tel +44 1604 828 706 E-mail help@subscribe.screendaily.com Screen International ISSN 0307 4617

08 Dubai draws on Arab talent Following a period of strategic upheaval, Dubai International Film Festival has emerged with a renewed focus on local fare

10 rally the troops Minefield drama Kajaki: The True Story has adopted a unique distribution model.

Producer Gareth Ellis-Unwin talks about the film’s release

Awards focus 14 attack the blocks Phil Lord and Chris Miller on their animated hit, The Lego Movie, which far exceeds its commercial spin-off roots to become a story that celebrates human creativity

All currencies in this issue converted according to

16 return fire

exchange rates that applied in November 2014

How To Train Your Dragon 2 director Dean

4 Screen International November 28, 2014

DeBlois and producer Bonnie Arnold talk about tackling more mature themes and harnessing the latest animation technology

18 Brought to life

27 AMPaS’s global reach Dawn Hudson, chief executive of AMPAS, describes how the organisation is advancing its influence across the world

Despite a disastrous first pitch to Guillermo del Toro, Jorge Gutierrez’s The Book Of Life is a unique animated feature inspired by Greek mythology and Mexico’s Day of the Dead

28 about a boy

20 everyday heroes

36 Awards people

Big Hero 6 co-directors Don Hall and Chris Williams reveal how they created San Fransokyo for their Marvel comic superhero adaptation

22 the security guard

Bafta Los Angeles presents its annual Britannia Awards, CPH:DOX in Copenhagen invites Citizenfour director Laura Poitras to curate a special strand, while film composer Johann Johannsson talks about a move into directing

Laura Poitras becomes part of the story with her Edward Snowden doc, Citizenfour

Regulars

25 truth in the telling

32 reviews

Chief executive Jess Search explains how the non-profit organisation Britdoc works holistically across a film’s lifecycle, and how it took a risk with Citizenfour

A critical eye on the latest films including An Open Secret, Paddington, Horrible Bosses 2, Big Eyes and Aleksei Fedorchenko’s Angels Of Revolution

The team behind Richard Linklater’s Boyhood share the challenges and rewards of bringing to life this extraordinary 12-year project

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“Disney’s most visually extravagant animation ever… unfussily staged, meticulously timed and, crucially, uproariously funny.”

THE TELEGRAPH | Robbie Collin

FO R YO U R CO N S I D E R AT I O N

A N I M AT E D F I L M Directed By

Don Hall & Chris Williams Produced By

Roy Conli, p.g.a.

ORIGINAL MUSIC Henry Jackman

S E E IT O N T H E B I G S C R E E N Fo r o u r sc re e n i n g sc h e d u l e vi s it u s at WA LTD I S N E YS T U D I OSAWA R DS .CO M ©2014 Disney

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES

BEST DIRECTOR

Anthony Stacchi Graham Annable

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Screenplay by Irena Brignull, Adam Pava Based upon the book “Here Be Monsters” by Alan Snow

“The Best Animated Film Of 2014. A Total Delight.”

NIGEL SMITH / indieWIRE

“A Marvel Of Craft.”

A. O. SCOTT / THE NEW YORK TIMES

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

John Ashlee Prat, Director of Photography

BEST FILM EDITING Edie Ichioka, ACE

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN Paul Lasaine

BEST COSTUME DESIGN Deborah Cook

BEST SOUND EDITING Supervising Sound Designers Ren Klyce, Tom Myers

BEST SOUND MIXING

Re-Recording Mixers Tom Myers, Ren Klyce, Nathan Nance

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS Visual Effects Supervisors Brian Van’t Hul, Steve Emerson

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE Music by Dario Marianelli

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

“The Boxtrolls Song” words and music by Eric Idle “Quattro Sabatino” music and lyrics

by Dario Marianelli

55

different sculpts of prop cheeses were created

W

ith 79 sets and over 20,000 handmade props, “The Boxtrolls� is

the biggest production ever to be made in stop-motion animation!

For more on this extraordinary film, go to www.FocusGuilds2014.com

in focus dubai international film festival

Out Of The Ordinary

Dubai draws on Arab talent The winds of change are blowing through Dubai International Film Festival (Dec 10-17) which, after a period of strategic upheaval, has emerged with a renewed focus on local fare. Melanie Goodfellow reports

R

umours about the future of Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) swirled about the global festival circuit for much of this year, some even suggesting the event was on the verge of being axed.

But reports of its imminent demise, to misquote Mark Twain, appear to have been greatly exaggerated.

DIFF will unfold for its 11th edition starting December 10 with a reinforced commitment to showcasing Arab cinema and a new focus on supporting the distribution of local fare in the Gulf and wider Arab world.

“We are not going anywhere. We are very much here to stay,” asserts DIFF managing director Shivani Pandya. “After our 10th anniversary last year, we decided to take a look at what we’d been doing over the past decade and what we want to achieve going forward.

“It was a lengthy process and we couldn’t say anything until we had the new strategic plan signed off,” she continues. “I think we perhaps made a mistake by staying so quiet for so long, which started the rumour mill turning.”

The management team’s analysis revealed that, while development and post-production

8 Screen International November 28, 2014

‘We’re not going anywhere. We are very much here to stay’ Shivani Pandya, Dubai International Film Festival

initiatives for Arab films had proliferated in the region — resulting in an increase in local fare — few of these productions were finding audiences at home.

“When we set up the festival, we were the only ones supporting development and post-production in the region, but since then a number of other programmes have been launched,” says Pandya. “We decided it was time for a step-change and to start looking at how we could help the distribution of Arab films.”

She uses Saudi Arabian film-maker Haifaa Al Mansour’s Bafta-nominated film, Wadjda, as an example of the challenges facing local films.

The movie generated respectable arthouse receipts across Europe and the US — drawing some 500,000 spectators for Pretty Pictures in France and grossing $1.34m for Sony Pictures Classics in the US — but hardly anyone saw it in the Gulf.

‘This is a film that belongs to the GCC, starting with its selection for Gulf Film Festival’s Script Market, through to post-production, which was supported by DIFF’s Enjaaz programme, and then the Arab Muhr win at the festival,” says Pandya. “But it hardly got any attention here.

“For years we’ve seen the industry suffering in terms of distribution and we feel it’s time to try to change this,” she adds.

Fresh initiatives At the heart of the new drive is Dubai Distribution Programme. Under this initiative, local distributors Gulf Film, Front Row Filmed Entertainment and Kuwait National Cinema Company alongside exhibitor VOX Cinemas, have agreed to acquire and release at least one Arab title from DIFF’s 2014 line-up.

“This means they will invest time in looking at and researching the titles at DIFF, as they do in any major market around the world, and try to figure out which ones could be commercially viable,” says Samr Al Marzooqi, head of Dubai Film Market.

As part of Dubai Distribution Programme, the festival is also laying on a day of talks about distribution, to educate local producers and directors.

“They have unrealistic expectations about what distributors will pay for their films.

When you hear that a mainstream Egyptian comedy got an MG [minimum guarantee] of just $10,000 for the Gulf and Kuwait, it gives you an idea of what MGs are. Distributors are good at paying returns on admis-

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sions but they’re not prepared to carry the risk up front.”

Al Marzooqi is also trying to encourage more broadcasters to attend Dubai Film Market. “In the Middle East, the TV market is the biggest market while film is struggling. At a time of convergence, when the gap between TV and film is closing, it makes sense to try to get the broadcasters here,” he adds.

Al Marzooqi also thinks Dubai Film Market’s December dates make it an ideal venue to launch and do business on upcoming productions being put together for the Ramadan season in June and July, when viewing figures peak across the Arab world, as families watch these shows following their fastbreaking Iftar meal.

“The cycle of these Ramadan shows is that they start developing ideas over the summer, green-lighting towards the end of the year and then shooting in early spring in time for Ramadan,” explains Al Marzooqi.

Beyond the physical market, DIFF also plans to reinforce its online Cinetech Catalogue to transform it into a proper sales and acquisitions platform where local and international buyers can go to find Arab films.

“The offering will be curated, not just everyone and everything, and the aim will be to show the very best films coming out of the Arab world,” says Pandya.

Project markets axed The new accent on distribution, however, comes at the cost of DIFF’s project development-focused programmes, Dubai Film Connection and Interchange, a joint initiative with TorinoFilmLab and European producers body EAVE with the support of the European Union’s MEDIA Mundus. Both have been axed. “Our resources are limited so we couldn’t keep Dubai Film Connection and Interchange and create the new distribution programmes,” says Pandya.

The festival’s Enjaaz post-production fund and IWC Filmmaker Awards, which give $100,000 to an up-and-coming Gulf film-maker, remain intact. Shortlisted projects for the latter this year comprise Saeed Salmeen Al Murry’s Going To Heaven, Ahd Kamel’s Sandfish and Abdullah Boushahri’s The Water.

DIFF has also partnered with Samsung to launch a short-film contest, the winner of which will be awarded a trip to Cannes, where their film will be screened in the Short Film Corner.

“It’s really business as usual. There’s no dramatic downsizing or cutting or whatever, but rather a question of positioning the festival to highlight elements that are important to the Arab world, to this region and most importantly to the GCC and Dolphins s UAE,” says Pandya. ■

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‘Distributors are good at paying returns on admissions but are not prepared to carry the risk up front’

Central Market

Samr Al Marzooqi, Dubai Film Market

Atlantic

Sara 2014

ARAB FILMS SHINE AT DIFF in keeping with its rebooted commitment to arab cinema, diff’s programme features one of the strongest selections of regional cinema since the festival’s creation.

This year sees a record number of films competing for the Best Muhr Fiction Feature award, including Emirati director Waleed Al Shehhi’s Dolphins ; veteran Egyptian director Daoud Abdel Sayed’s paranormal drama, Out Of The Ordinary ; and Palestinian filmmaker Khalil Al Mozian’s Gaza-set Sara 2014, revolving around an honour killing.

There is considerable local excitement over Al Shehhi’s Dolphins, the tale of a young boy coping with his parents’

separation, which won the IWC award last year and was also supported by Enjaaz.

A number of other up-and-coming local film-makers will have their work showcased in the Gulf Voices sidebar including Saleh Nass’s Central Market from Bahrain, revolving around a delivery boy at a local market, and Iraqi director Ali Kareem Obaid’s Hassan In Wonderland, chronicling the impact of war on a group of boys whose playground is a car cemetery in Baghdad.

“Our goal with Gulf Voices is to provide an unapologetic, insightful portrayal of life in the region while supporting exciting young artists,” says DIFF artistic director Masoud Amralla Al Ali. The popular Arabian Nights programme will screen Jan-Willem van Ewijk’s Atlantic, about a Moroccan man who tries to windsurf to Europe, and

Emirati director Ali F Mostafa’s pan-Arab road movie, From A To B, which proved a hit at Abu Dhabi Film Festival.

“We generally don’t show films that have been showcased at other festivals but it’s an Emirati film and we thought it would be great to support Ali and give him visibility in his home town of Dubai,” says Pandya.

On the international front, the Cinema Of The World selection includes a number of awards season titles, such as Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game, Jean-Marc Vallée’s Wild and Andrea Di Stefano’s Escobar: Paradise Lost.

“A fabulous collection of films are going to be showcased in the international programme, many of which look set to be awards-season contenders,” adds Pandya.

November 28, 2014 Screen International 9

Distribution Kajaki: The True Story

Rally the troops Minefield drama Kajaki: The True Story has adopted a unique distribution model for its release. Producer Gareth Ellis-Unwin talks to Michael Rosser about the mission

Kajaki: The True Story

‘‘O

rganised like a military operation” is a term often bandied about in the film industry, but it isn’t far from the truth in the case of Kajaki: The True Story.

The battlefield drama is based on the first-hand accounts of a group of British soldiers who became trapped in a minefield while stationed at the Kajaki Dam in Afghanistan in 2006.

Directed by Paul Katis, the feature was produced at lightning speed by Pukka Films to coincide with the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan.

A unique distribution plan has been created with the aim of benefiting armed forces charities including the Royal British Legion, Help For Heroes, Walking With The Wounded and The Hashemite Commission for Disabled Soldiers.

Bedlam Productions’ Gareth EllisUnwin, one of the producers of Oscar winner The King’s Speech, boarded the project early in the process and has spearheaded the distribution strategy.

“Almost from the beginning it became apparent we were going to entertain a direct-distribution approach,” he recalls.

“The most important reason was to maximise support to the charities we’re backing, so we retained the UK rights and I

10 Screen International November 28, 2014

started a conversation with Stuart Boreman [film buying director at exhibitor Vue Entertainment].”

Ellis-Unwin reveals he approached Boreman with three major proposals.

“The first was a West End premiere for the veterans and the cast — I wanted that big night for them,” he says.

“The second was to take it on the road, honouring veterans who are still with us as well as those we lost, visiting each of their home towns.

“Finally, I wanted to do an exclusive deal with Vue as partners. To his credit, before Stuart had seen the script or a frame of film, he said it was something he would entertain.”

Leicester Square premiere The result was a glitzy premiere at the Vue Leicester Square on November 12, which saw a standing ovation for the real-life soldiers portrayed in the film.

Advance preview screenings followed at Vue cinemas in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds and Bristol, attended by the filmmakers, actors and their real-life counterparts from the cities. A two-week exclusive window will begin on November 28 across all 82 Vue sites, and will total 1,437 showings within the first week.

‘People get that it’s new thinking and for the right reasons’ Gareth Ellis-Unwin

Importantly to the producers, all profits from the events and a portion of profits from the film’s subsequent release will go to the armed forces charities supported by the film.

“Instead of the charities sitting in fourth position within the [profit] waterfall, they have gone up into second position,” says Ellis-Unwin.

“After the exclusive two-week window, we’re hoping to take it out wider and I’m talking to the other chains about picking up the film from December 12 onwards.”

Exclusivity can be a risky game as the assumption is that other chains may feel slighted. But Ellis-Unwin says: “I’ve been really impressed with the maturity that everyone has shown. People get that it’s new thinking and we’re doing it for the right reasons.

“We’ll see how it does in the first cou-

ple of weeks and if it does good numbers, I have high hopes we’ll be sharing it across the other chains.”

Asked if more films could be distributed this way, he says: “Each film should be considered on a case-by-case basis.

One of the prime motivators for adopting this model is cost-driven. If your costs of production are modest enough to look at something like this and raise your P&A fund, then great.

“But as the numbers go north, if you’re making higher-budget films, then the weight of a distributor is a crucial part of your finance plan. If your budget is more modest, maybe it will become more common. But I don’t think my next two will go this way.”

Back on Kajaki: The True Story, EllisUnwin adds: “We hope the British cinema audience is going to take this story to their hearts and will go see it knowing that a significant chunk of profits will go to supporting four very important charities.

“I genuinely have not seen an audience react to a film like that since The King’s Speech,” he recalls of the premiere screening. “Seeing everyone up on their feet, giving thanks to the guys that s served, was incredibly moving.” n

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M

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EVERY CHARACTER UNDER THE SUN

M A R C H 6 - 1 5,, 2 0 1 5

AWARDS SPECIAL ■ THE LEGO MOVIE ■ HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 ■ THE BOOK OF LIFE ■ BIG HERO 6 ■ LAURA POITRAS ■ AMPAS IN EUROPE ■ BRITDOC ■ BOYHOOD CASE STUDY

Drawn together nimation is huge business — How To Train Your Dragon 2 has made almost $619m worldwide — but it also doesn’t feel like by-the-numbers storytelling.

It’s not just the technology that’s moved along in recent years, it’s also the storytelling: animation shows off the imaginative side of the studio world. What’s exciting about this year’s crop of animation feature contenders is

A

that they are all telling quirky stories adults can appreciate, too. These aren’t just fluffy animated animals frolicking in forests, they have rich source material and characters you won’t see in live-action films.

Robotics meets superheroes in Big Hero 6, trash-collecting trolls lead The Boxtrolls, the spirits of Mexican folklore feature in The Book Of Life, Hiccup comes of age in How To Train

Your Dragon 2, a construction worker saves the world in The Lego Movie, ancient stories are revisited in Song Of The Sea and a 10thcentury Japanese folktale is reimagined in The Tale Of Princess Kaguya.

So in 2014, animation should be lauded not only for its box-office might but for its rich storytelling as well.

Wendy Mitchell, editor

The Boxtrolls

www.screendaily.com

» November 28, 2014 Screen International 13

ANIMATION SPECIAL THE LEGO MOVIE

Directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord with actor Chris Pratt

Attack the blocks Phil Lord and Chris Miller talk to Michael Rosser about their animated hit, The Lego Movie, which far exceeds its commercial spin-off roots to become an emotional story that celebrates human creativity

14 Screen International November 28, 2014

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P

hil Lord and Chris Miller have built a career out of exceeding expectations. The directing duo scored surprise hits with animation Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs in 2009 and buddy comedy 21 Jump Street in 2012, both of which spawned sequels that have collectively made more than $1bn at the worldwide box office.

The Lego Movie is their biggest hit yet, taking a seemingly cynical cash-in on the beloved construction toys and creating a funny, clever and meaningful film that made $468m at the global box office.

When first approached in summer 2010, Lord and Miller had similar concerns about the project, which was conceived by producer Dan Lin. “We hit it off with Dan right away but initially thought it was too commercial and felt a little too young,” Lord tells Screen.

“But then we came across these homemade Brickfilms, which people make in their basements, and were really inspired.

Maybe in the guise of this big commercial property we could make a democratic, grassroots film about the essential quality of human creativity for life.”

Miller says they made a simple but ultimately complicated rule: “Everything had to be made from Lego — water, fire, smoke… everything. Figuring out how to make a Lego ocean, for example, made it very exciting as it was something audiences would have never seen before.”

The approach was met with scepticism.

“People were worried it was going to look too busy, and concerned it was going to be too shiny and reflective,” says Miller. “What we didn’t tell them is that we wanted it to have a shallow depth of field so it looked like miniature photography and that not everything would be perfectly in focus — something they were also very nervous about.”

Character tests proved they could generate a range of emotion with a cinematic quality, creating two-dimensional faces that delivered nuanced performances with characters that could not bend at the knee or elbow.

Stop-motion feel The film, the first to be produced by Warner Animation Group, was greenlit in November 2011 and Australian studio Animal Logic was hired to generate the animation.

Computer graphics were used to render a stop-motion look, with camera systems that featured different lenses and a Steadicam simulator replicating live-action cinematography. The scenery was projected through The Lego Group’s own Lego Digital Designer. At times the mini-figures were even placed under microscopes to capture the seam lines, dirt and grime into the digital textures.

As well as directing, Lord and Miller wrote the screenplay about an ordinary Lego construction worker (voiced by Chris

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The Lego Movie The Lego Movie

‘So much humour comes out of the moment. In animation, you’re breaking it down frame by frame and that’s very challenging’ Phil Lord, co-director

Pratt) recruited to stop an evil tyrant (voiced

by Will Ferrell) from glueing the Lego universe into eternal stasis.

Asked about the challenges of making animation funny, Lord says: “It’s hard to create spontaneity. So much humour comes out of the moment. In animation, you’re breaking it down frame by frame and that’s very challenging.”

Miller adds: “It’s hard because it’s such a long process. You’ve seen all the jokes 100 times by the time it’s fully executed so it’s hard to remember why it was funny in the first place. On the plus side, you get a new take on it at each step of the process and when an animator interprets your joke, you get a fresh look.”

Adult humour It might also surprise some that the duo behind R-rated 21 Jump Street can transfer that same humour to a family film.

“We treat writing a movie like Jump Street and Lego the same, just without the bad words,” explains Miller. “We don’t write for kids; we write for people,” adds Lord.

The film premiered February 1 in Lego’s homeland of Denmark, and its success has already spawned plans for spin-offs Ninjago for 2016, The Lego Batman Movie for 2017 and sequel The Lego Movie 2 for a 2018 release.

“We’re writing Lego 2 right now and producing the others,” says Miller. “We have built a new office in Hollywood that houses the entire production so we can be there, overseeing it all. Animation people are comic-book nerds, so people are pumped to be working on Ninjago and Batman. So far, so good but I’m sure we’ll meet some obstas cles along the way.” ■

November 28, 2014 Screen International 15

ANIMATION SPECIAL HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2

Return fire

How To Train Your Dragon 2 director Dean DeBlois and producer Bonnie Arnold talk to John Hazelton about the film’s more mature themes and making the most of the latest animation technology

W

hen DreamWorks Animation asked Dean DeBlois to brainstorm ideas for a sequel to How To Train Your Dragon — the 2010 fantasy adventure that took $495m at the global box office and earned an animated feature Oscar nomination — the writer-director was already thinking way ahead.

“I proposed a trilogy,” says DeBlois, who wrote and directed the original with Chris Sanders (also his collaborator on Lilo & Stitch), “so we could treat the three films as three acts of an overall coming-of-age story.”

In line with that plan, How To Train Your Dragon 2 picks up the story of Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel), his dragon, Toothless, and the other inhabitants of clifftop Viking colony Berk five years after the end of the first film.

To help tell the tale of Hiccup’s passage into adulthood, DeBlois introduced a menagerie of new dragons and three new human characters: Hiccup’s long-lost mother, Valka, power-hungry villain Drago and dragon trapper Eret.

The Valka role was written with Cate

How To Train Your Dragon 2

Blanchett in mind, and the Oscar-winning actress came on board to voice the character after a chance meeting at the 2011 Oscars.

“I walked up to her and told her I [had written] her a part in Dragon 2,” DeBlois remembers. “Fortuitously she said the [original] movie was a big hit in her household.”

Djimon Hounsou’s ominous delivery won him the role of Drago. “We didn’t even have a design when we heard Djimon’s voice,” says Dragon 2 producer Bonnie Arnold, who also produced the original. “We heard how powerful his voice was and it just felt like it fitted.”

The 3D animation challenges that the sequel presented included the creation of the Dragon Oasis, the haven that ‘dragon whisperer’ Valka has nurtured since leaving her husband and son, and the depiction of the film’s climactic battle, during which two massive ‘Bewilderbeast’ dragons go head to head.

But there were also more subtle challenges, according to DeBlois. “Some of the characters themselves are much more complex than they were in the first film,” he says.

“They have many more controls and many more details.”

‘Hiccup is older and the themes are more mature, so it made sense to continue to find subtle ways of making the look that much more sophisticated’ Dean DeBlois, film-maker

‘We budgeted to produce 88 minutes and we were able to get 92 minutes of finished footage.

That speaks a lot about how efficient we were’ Bonnie Arnold, producer

16 Screen International November 28, 2014

In designing the look of the sequel, DeBlois once again worked with renowned cinematographer Roger Deakins (credited as visual consultant), who on the first film helped create lighting effects that gave a sense of reality to the action.

“I wanted to carry that forward with the second film to keep that sense of peril and consequence,” DeBlois explains. “But because Hiccup is older [in the sequel] and the themes are a little more mature, it made sense to continue to find subtle ways of making the look that much more sophisticated.”

Space-age tools The task that DeBlois, Arnold and their team took on was made easier by DreamWorks Animation’s breakthrough proprietary technology called Apollo, which got its first full workout on Dragon 2.

Apollo’s two primary software components are animation tool Premo, which allows artists to work with characters in real time on tablet computers; and lighting package Torch, designed to help with lighting department workflow.

With Apollo, says DeBlois, animators “were able to work in a very intuitive way, with tablets and styluses. So it’s like a pencil in the hand of an animator again instead of spreadsheets and graphs. It allowed the animators to go back and do a lot more refining. It’s far less time-consuming and much more creatively liberating.”

From Arnold’s point of view, the Apollo technology helped to ease the production process and allowed the film-makers to get more on screen.

“DreamWorks had been working on this technological advance across the board for quite a time, and it just happened to be ready in time for us,” says the Dragon 2 producer.

“That was challenging but then again it helped us. It was more artist-friendly, yet more efficient in a lot of ways. We had budgeted to produce 88 minutes and we were able to get 92 minutes of finished footage. That speaks a lot [about] how efficient we were.”

With How To Train Your Dragon 2 having proved even more popular than the original — it racked up an impressive $619m in worldwide box office this summer — Arnold and DeBlois have already discussed an outline for How To Train Your Dragon 3.

DeBlois is currently writing a script and the trilogy finale is due to land in cinemas s in June 2017. ■

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November 28, 2014 Screen International 17

ANIMATION SPECIAL THE BOOK OF LIFE

Jorge Gutierrez

18 Screen International November 28, 2014

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Brought to Life Despite a disastrous first pitch to Guillermo del Toro, Jorge Gutierrez succeeded in making a unique animated feature inspired by Greek mythology and Mexico’s Day of the Dead. Jeremy Kay reports

J

orge Gutierrez, co-creator with his wife of the Emmy-winning Nickelodeon animation series, El Tigre, could not get his first feature going until the Mexican Santa Claus stepped in.

When producer Brad Booker of Texasbased Reel FX Animation Studios Effects asked the Mexican-born artist who would be his ideal producer on The Book Of Life, there could only be one.

“Like all up-and-coming [Mexican] directors, I yelled, ‘Guillermo del Toro!’,” says Gutierrez. “And like the Mexican Santa Claus, sure enough he appeared.”

As everybody knows, the great gift-giver comes at a price. In this case, Gutierrez would have to pitch directly to the dark genius behind Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hellboy series.

Gutierrez admits readily the experience was “a disaster” as he contrived to almost fall into del Toro’s pool and had to shout over the sound of gardeners with leaf-blowers.

“At the end of it he said, ‘You know, Jorge, that’s a terrible, terrible, terrible pitch, but there’s something here, something magical.’”

Gutierrez says the pair bonded once he learned to fight his corner. “What he always kept telling me was, ‘I don’t want you to make something you think I want. I want you to make something you believe in.’”

Even with del Toro on board, Hollywood was sceptical until the team eventually struck gold. “Twentieth Century Fox’s Jim Gianopulos and [Fox Animation Studios president] Vanessa Morrison heard the pitch and fell in love with the story, and here we are with the finished movie,” the director explains.

The Book Of Life is not at all what one might expect. The famous Mexican tradition of honouring the dear departed is an important through-line, although the plot architecture derives from another culture.

“The Book Of Life is very much inspired by Greek mythology, especially Orpheus,” says Gutierrez. “In mythology I’ve always loved stories where the humans teach the gods a lesson. So here we have two mischievous gods making a wager on the heart of mankind and there’s a group of three friends — two boys and a girl.”

While the flirtatious deities Xibalba and La Muerte — voiced by del Toro regular Ron Perlman and telenovela star Kate del Castillo — do their dance, the story of the youngsters plays out.

“One of the boys becomes this big military hero [Joaquin, voiced by Channing Tatum] and the other boy is sort of a romantic who

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‘You are who you choose to be and you make yourself out of the things you love’ Jorge Gutierrez, film-maker

wants to play the guitar [Manolo, voiced by Diego Luna],” says Gutierrez.

“The third is what we call the anti-princess [Maria, voiced by Zoe Saldana]. She’s a very feisty girl. And so the wager [the gods] make is, who will win the heart of the girl?

“It’s sort of a wager on mankind — is the heart of man pure, or is it corrupted? And so our hero, Manolo, goes on this amazing journey through three magical lands, not only to win the heart of Maria, but to find himself.”

The Book Of Life

Visual feast The story inhabits landscapes of arresting beauty, where colours glow and shimmer in dazzling variety. Accompanying all this is an engrossing score and soundtrack overseen by “the father of Latin alternative music”, Gustavo Santaolalla.

Song highlights include a “grunge bolero” version of Radiohead’s Creep and a “ranchero accordion” take on I Will Wait by Mumford & Sons. “I loved Moulin Rouge!, and I always loved this idea that once a song exists people will take it and make it their own,” the director adds.

“That’s one of the messages from the movie — you come from a certain place, your parents do a certain thing, but you are who you choose to be and you make yourself out of the things you love.”

Naturally the Day of the Dead tradition drips through the story. “It’s a way for us to remember [loved ones] and for us to remind ourselves we’re alive, enjoy this, make it count and do things, hopefully admirable things, that other generations will talk about.

“As a kid I remember celebrating it and [visiting] the graves of my great-grandparents and my father telling me, ‘Jorge, what are you going to do so we remember you?

What are you going to do so that we tell your stories?’”

As if that were not enough pressure, del Toro reminded Gutierrez during the shoot: “Just remember you have the whole weight of Mexico on you, don’t let us down.”

Many who have seen The Book Of Life s would agree he has not. ■

November 28, 2014 Screen International 19

ANIMATION SPECIAL BIG HERO 6

Big Hero 6

Everyday heroes Big Hero 6 co-directors Don Hall and Chris Williams tell Jean Noh about building the world of San Fransokyo for their Marvel comic superhero adaptation

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etween them, Big Hero 6 co-directors Don Hall and Chris Williams have close to 40 years’ experience at Walt Disney Animation Studios, working on films including Winnie The Frog Bolt Pooh, Frozen, The Princess And The Frog, and Mulan.

For their latest, they searched the Marvel comic vaults and found Big Hero 6,, about a Japanese superhero team, creating a hybrid of San Francisco and Tokyo — San Fransokyo — in which to set the story.

“That’s the first thing we do before we go into story. We create worlds.

And we like them to be fantasy worlds, because we deal in fantasy,”

20 Screen International November 28, 2014

says Hall, speaking to Screen at the film’s world premiere at Tokyo International Film Festival in October. “We took an existing city like San Francisco because it’s very iconic.

Then we took a Japanese aesthetic and applied it to the whole city to create something new and hopefully fresh.”

Williams says they were following Walt Disney chief creative officer John Lasseter’s mandate of creating worlds where hopefully the audience will want to go. “We’ve heard again and again — San Fransokyo has a feeling of authenticity, even though it’s a mythical place...”

“It feels grounded in reality,” adds Hall, finishing his co-director’s thought. “It comes out of the sketching, the photos and the observation. We’d like to take all the credit but Scott Watanabe and Paul Felix, our art director and production designer, did an amazing job of creating a synthesis.”

The tasks of lighting and peopling the world were aided by new in-house technology: Hyperion and Denizen. “We had a strong desire to push ourselves for the look of the movie to make it very cinematic and push the lighting in directions we hadn’t really gone before and it coincided with the development of this new software, Hyperion,” says Hall. “Our desire was to make the backgrounds, or the world, very dense and detailed, and our characters by contrast would be very simple.”

Sim cities Disney worked with Denizen to create the hustle and bustle of San Fransokyo.

“The software allowed for many different body types and ethnicities, but not only that, the animators were smart because while the

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‘We knew it was going to have some pretty deep emotion with some broad comedy at the same time’ Chris Williams, co-director

story was still taking shape, and the main characters were still getting rigged and designed, they started doing animation cycles that could be used.

“They did people on the street talking on the cellphone — you know, just slices-of-life kinds of things — people walking up stairs, a hill. When you get into production, you don’t have the time to really think about that stuff

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but, thanks to them, we had a whole library,” says Hall.

“In one of the crowds there are people communicating with sign language. And we didn’t make that choice, an animator did years ago. And I think that’s really exciting.

A lot of the movie really depends on investment from the entire crew,” says Williams.

Hall adds: “We’re trying to create as

‘We storyboard and screen the movie about seven or eight times over the course of its life’ Don Hall, co-director

collaborative an environment as we can. We have to have the vision for the film and guide it but, even within those perimeters, you want people to bring as much of themselves to the project.”

“The challenge for this film was that it was such an amalgam. We always knew it was going to be this Marvel-and-Disney thing, and a meeting of East and West. We knew it was going to have some pretty deep emotion, taking on the idea of loss, with some broad comedy at the same time. We spent years putting out version after version of this film,” says Williams of the story of a young robotics expert who assembles a superhero team to take on a masked villain.

They explain how Disney’s screening process let them develop the story.

“We storyboard and screen the movie about seven or eight times over the course of its life. So we’re constantly in a state of, ‘What’s working, what’s not working?’” says Hall. “It’s all storyboards until your third or fourth screening and then parts of your movie are starting to work, other parts don’t, and we have faith that the overall story and thematic is there. We’ll start putting some sequences into production and they’ll start getting animated.”

Talking about this fluid process and collaborative environment for honing a story, Williams says: “We have to foster an environment where people feel comfortable expressing conflicting viewpoints. Then when you have that energy of people coming together who are passionate and volunteering their ideas, that’s how the movie gets better.”

The result is a film that is unlike any other animated feature this year.

Hall says: “From The Lego Movie to How To Train Your Dragon 2 to Big Hero 6, they’re all wildly different. I love that animation seems to be a place where there’s a lot of boundary-pushing right now. It only helps the industry to have a selection of films that are different thematically, have different s looks; that’s a sign of a healthy industry.” ■

November 28, 2014 Screen International 21

INTERVIEW LAURA POITRAS

Laura Poitras

22 Screen International November 28, 2014

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The security guard Film-maker Laura Poitras becomes part of the story with her history-in-the-making documentary, Citizenfour, about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Wendy Mitchell reports

T

he veteran documentarian, Laura Poitras, may be an Oscar and Emmy nominee but she is not used to being the centre of attention. “The other day someone came up to me in a café. I’m not used to that; for many years I’ve been a filmmaker who’s been under the radar,” she says, speaking from her adopted home of Berlin.

That new level of attention is thanks to Citizenfour, her extraordinary feature documentary about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Poitras did not set out to make a film about Snowden. In 2011, she had already started a different film about the issues around surveillance. It was a loose thematic follow-up to her previous docs, The Oath (about Guantanamo Bay) and My Country, My Country (about Iraq), in a trilogy about America after 9/11. “I was wanting to bring the trilogy back to the US and understand how the war on terror was playing out in the US,” she says.

“What happened to someone like William Binney [a previous NSA whistleblower] was shocking to me. So I started interviewing Binney in the spring of 2011. I was interested in all these themes.”

Surveillance was also a subject of personal interest to Poitras. The former New Yorker

has been stopped at the US border for questioning more than 40 times, after her provocative earlier films. She adds: “The fact I’m on a watch list wasn’t the main motivation, but it gave me an interest.”

In early 2013, she was contacted by an anonymous source, later revealed to be Snowden. Alongside The Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, she met Snowden in a hotel room in Hong Kong in June 2013.

Within minutes, before they even knew his name, Poitras had her camera recording.

She becomes more of the film than she ever has before — she dislikes the term ‘fly on the wall’, but her earlier works were observational in a more vérité style. “For My Country, My Country, I made a very intentional decision to exclude myself… I wanted the audience to think about Iraqis, not about me. For The Oath, we had my off-camera questions, we broke the fourth wall to keep the narrative.”

By contrast, Citizenfour put Poitras in the room as history was unfolding, and she was now part of that timeline. “I wanted to document the journalism and I am part of those events,” she says. “It was an extraordinary journalistic encounter… It’s not like I was hiding behind the camera, I was aiming it.”

She also narrates part of Citizenfour, and

‘I was interested why somebody so young would jeopardise their whole future’ Laura Poitras, film-maker

recollects her own role in the process of telling Snowden’s story.

She was, of course, struck by the data about widespread government surveillance that Snowden was leaking, but even more than that she wanted to tell a human story.

“I was interested in Snowden and why somebody so young would jeopardise their whole future… I wasn’t just interested in reporting on the documents, I wanted to understand the risks this person was taking.

I’m interested in what people do.”

Poitras has taken extraordinary risks herself in playing a part in Snowden’s story. “I talked to several lawyers in New York about the risk…

The US government has never used the Espionage Act against a journalist but they could…

One lawyer urged me to go to Hong Kong but not bring my camera. I ignored that. The Washington Post’s lawyers urged me not to go and I ignored that advice, too.”

When she was in the Hong Kong hotel room, she says it was almost like “a state of shock, it felt like anything could happen, that the door could be kicked in and I thought about needing to back up footage if we were raided. I wanted to trust my journalistic s instincts.” ■ » See Britdoc, page 25

Citizenfour

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November 28, 2014 Screen International 23

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AWARDS SPECIAL BRITDOC

Truth in the telling Britdoc chief executive Jess Search tells Wendy Mitchell about how the non-profit organisation works holistically across a film’s lifecycle, and how it took a calculated risk with Citizenfour

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ritdoc came on board the film that would become Citizenfour when the idea was a very loose concept pitched by director Laura Poitras.

Britdoc founder and CEO Jess Search remembers: “She said, ‘It’s a film about American surveillance. There will be no proposal or a confirmation of what I’m filming.

It makes it difficult to fund if people don’t know what I’m filming.’”

But that is exactly the kind of project that Britdoc and its Bertha Foundation-backed Bertha Britdoc Fund for Journalism were keen to support. “Bertha are risk-taking funders. They came in with a big grant,” she says of the $100,000 initial grant from the journalism fund — another $62,300 (¤50,000) came from the Britdoc Circle Fund. “This was a year or more before Snowden approached her.”

“That’s the role I want Britdoc to play, spotting projects early,” says Search.

“It’s in those early days when film-makers need more support.”

Britdoc is not just a signVirunga the-cheque funder. “We want to come in holistically,” Search says. “It’s not just money, it’s belief and conviction… It’s our contacts and moral support. It’s kind of like being a Sherpa for that film-maker on their journey.”

That journey continues into distribution, and Britdoc has recently become more involved in both managing distribution and being a distribution partner. “With Citizenfour it felt too important to just leave it with a commercial distributor,” Search explains (in the UK, the organisation partnered with Artificial Eye). “It deserves to do well.”

She advocates thinking of box-office success and social change going hand in hand — not having two teams work separately on those goals. “The more money it makes at the box office, the more power it has and the more social change it can effect,” she explains.

For Citizenfour, it was important to get as many people as possible interested. “We made a list of people we thought should see the film and be in the discussion. We didn’t leave it to chance.”

For Ping Pong, a doc about elderly tabletennis champions, Britdoc organised screenings in care homes. Meanwhile for gang story One Mile Away, the organisation wanted to

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A Good Pitch session in progress

target African-Caribbean adolescents. “We call it impact distribution. From the beginning we ask, ‘What does the film mean for society and what sort of distribution should it get?’” says Search. “We want to be involved in a film’s full lifecycle. We think of ourselves as being like a think tank.”

Making connections Channel 4 was a founding partner of Britdoc in 2005, and at the time funded all the $1.3m (£800,000) annual budget. Now the channel provides just 8% of Britdoc’s funding, although it remains a broadcast partner with a first-look deal on Britdoc projects.

Britdoc’s annual budget is now about $3.9m (£2.5m). The Bertha Foundation and the Ford Foundation are major backers, although there are a whopping 45 funders in total behind the work that Britdoc does.

Staff has grown from four in 2005 to 12 in 2014; and the name Britdoc remains despite work being done across the globe.

Even for films Britdoc is not ‘sherpa-ing’ itself, the organisation has become a key connector. Good Pitch is one case in point — these events around the globe let docu-

‘Britdoc’s role is kind of like being a Sherpa for the film-maker on their journey’ Jess Search, Britdoc

mentary film-makers pitch their projects to charities, NGOs, foundations and brands to forge coalitions and campaigns. Since 2008, 134 projects have been pitched with 1,005 partnerships struck, and $16m in funds raised. Films to have benefited from Good Pitch include Dirty Wars, The Square, Virunga, Citizen Koch, Bully, The House I Live In and Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry.

“It’s our way to work with tonnes more film projects. We can be transformative for them without putting our own funds into them,” Search explains.

Britdoc also works with partners including Netflix, Puma, the Knight Foundation and the Compton Foundation to present the annual Impact Award, which this year went to five films — American Promise, Blackfish, Granito, The House I Live In and No Fire Zone — that earned $15,000 each in recognition of the social change they affected. It is not just a celebration of good work, it is learning from best practices — explored in Britdoc’s Impact Field Guide and Toolkit (impactguide.org).

Britdoc also offers the DocAcademy programme in 400 UK schools, and Something Real, building audiences for online docs. The next phase will be making more ‘orphaned’ docs available on digital platforms.

These varied programmes build on a guiding tenant, that feature documentaries can change the world. As Search sums up: “We believe the feature documentary can really take people on a journey of understanding and empathy. If we play our cards right, we can convert the whole world to be s feature doc fans.” ■

November 28, 2014 Screen International 25

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AWARDS SPECIAL AMPAS

‘The film-making community has become more global and we connect internationally’ Dawn Hudson, AMPAS

position AMPAS has in the world — hundreds of millions of viewers watch the Oscars every year. “It’s a heritage brand that’s not just respected and revered; it has stayed relevant for 87 years.”

AMPAS’s global reach AMPAS boss Dawn Hudson talks to Wendy Mitchell about advancing the Academy’s influence across the world and its efforts to protect film’s legacy

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MPAS exists outside of Los Angeles. It has for many years, but there is a new focus on developing its international activities, particularly in Europe.

The approach was evident recently in London, as AMPAS CEO Dawn Hudson joined chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne at an 11 Downing Street event in late October to welcome new AMPAS members. Guests included full-time Brits such as Tom Hooper and Rosamund Pike, as well as visitors to the UK such as Lupita Nyong’o, in London to shoot the new Star Wars film.

“The board has such an appetite for increasing our presence internationally, to show the world what we’re about,” says Los Angeles-based Hudson over tea at The Ritz in London. “The film-making community has become more global and we connect internationally.” Some 10% of AMPAS membership votes from outside the US and a big part of that is in the UK. As Hudson notes: “It’s a renaissance in London filmmaking.”

Hudson has been spreading the word that AMPAS wants to identify new members around the world. Academy members may now sponsor one new member each year for consideration.

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(Above) a sketch of the proposed Academy Museum in Los Angeles.

(Below) Rosamund Pike and Dawn Hudson at the AMPAS event at 11 Downing Street

Another key move in October 2013 was to hire Carola Ash for the new London-based post of director of Europe.

“I couldn’t have started at a better time; every time I suggest something to Dawn, she says, ‘Why haven’t we done that before?’” says Ash. “We have a very strong membership here. One of the things members love is to connect more with what’s happening in LA. They feel more connected with the mothership now.”

Event horizon Ash has spearheaded three big events in the last year, including the new members party, a nominees lunch and a realtime, late-night viewing party for the Oscars at Soho House. AMPAS has also started weekly screenings in London for its members, as a way of connecting them more frequently. “It’s feeling more fun and lively,” Ash says.

AMPAS is one of those organisations that attracts a lot of global goodwill. “The Academy represents the movies and people love the movies,” Hudson says.

She knows what a special

Year-round offerings Part of the reason for that relevance is what the Academy does on the other 364 days of the year when it’s not handing out those gold statuettes.

“We’re increasing the effectiveness of our year-round activity,” Hudson says. “Our industry can be even prouder to know all the work that’s behind the scenes.”

Important year-round programmes include the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting (two of this year’s four fellowships went to UK writers).

There are other educational programmes, and of course the Academy’s Science & Technology Council brings together industry experts — recently tackling issues such a digital workflow and preservation standards, creating the Academy Color Predictor app (free on iTunes), and developing the industry standard Academy Color Encoding System. “It’s the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and we take the science part very seriously,” says Hudson, who has been CEO for three-and-a-half years.

Most people do not realise just how crucial are the Academy’s library and film archives, with the latter boasting 185,000 items. Part of that collection — and more — will be included in the new Academy Museum, which saw its plans greenlit in October 2012 and a full fundraising push is under way. More than $225m in pledges (towards a goal of $300m) has been raised from 1,000 donors.

The museum, which could open as soon as 2017, will be situated next to the LACMA campus on Wilshire and Fairfax in Los Angeles. Renzo Piano is the architect in charge of updating the existing landmark Wilshire May Company building. David Geffen has already committed $20m to fund the 1,000-seat David Geffen Theater.

The internet also helps the Academy to connect globally through the Oscars.org and Oscars.com websites, and increasing social media activity. “Our outreach went from a college graduate posting on Facebook every few days to now having 5 million-plus followers… More people are able to connect to the Oscars,” Hudson says. “Some of our members may be the film elite, but we don’t s have to be exclusionary and inaccessible.” ■

November 28, 2014 Screen International 27

Photography by Matt Lankes

AWARDS SPECIAL BOYHOOD

28 Screen International November 28, 2014

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About a boy I

t was September 2001 in Venice, and Richard Linklater was enjoying the postpremiere buzz on Waking Life. He was happy but restless. A new idea tugged at his thoughts and he needed to share it.

“It was in my mind for a few years to make a feature about growing up and boyhood,” says the Austin-based film-maker. “Once I struck on this idea I jumped into motion.”

It turns out Linklater could not have been in better company, as he outlined his vision for a 12-year chronicle of youth to two friends who were prominent film executives.

The involvement of both would be critical, although they were initially flummoxed.

“I thought it was inspired, slightly crazy but brilliant, and that it was going to be very hard to finance,” says John Sloss, the New York-based industry veteran who had packaged Waking Life and would serve as a producer on Boyhood.

“As a lawyer I thought it was fraught with challenges, the nature of bonding people for 12 years, especially children… it creates all sorts of danger signs. But it happened better than any of us imagined.”

Sloss and Linklater took the idea to Jonathan Sehring, whose IFC Films had invested in Waking Life and, like Sloss, had collaborated with Linklater on the 2001 Ethan Hawke drama Tape.

“Nobody had ever done something about growing up in the way he wanted to do it,” says Sehring. “He said he wanted to shoot the family from first grade to 12th grade.

My eldest was in high school and our two youngest were in kindergarten and first grade, so I got it.

“The only thing I could draw as a parallel was 7 Up, but Rick said this would be a fiction film, a little autobiographical.

He wanted to draw on his experiences. It was like, ‘OK, we’re in.’”

“I got lucky,” says Linklater, who had already enlisted the support of Hawke and Patricia Arquette as the on-screen parents. “IFC thinks long-term. There’s a big corporation with a big library and they have to have a long-term plan.”

Everybody moved fast to execute the idea that

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Picture Credit

The team behind Richard Linklater’s Boyhood talks to Jeremy Kay about the challenges and rewards of bringing to life this extraordinary 12-year project

over the next 12 years, would ebb and flow throughout their creative lives.

“I talked to the people I worked for,” says Sehring. “My boss, Josh Sapan [of Rainbow Media, IFC’s owner before AMC Networks], didn’t have a moment’s hesitation. He said we should do it.”

An unusual finance plan While Linklater assembled his cast and crew, Sloss and Sehring began to thrash out the deal points on what would become a $4m-plus production.

“We structured it in a way that took a little pressure off [Sehring],” says Sloss. “He committed to finance the first year and could stop at any time, but if he did we could bring in someone else in a more favourable position.

“It took pressure off him and still created enough for us to be able to go out and find other financiers if IFC changed their business agenda.

Jonathan stuck with it. Rick and the cast stuck with it. About

400 crew people worked on it throughout.”

“It’s almost like financing a short film every year,” adds Sehring. “We did it on an annual basis. We were committed for 12 years and a big part of the production process.

“In terms of finance, Rick would come to us every year and we’d talk about the project and we would give him roughly $200,000, give or take 10%. That was our commitment, and it doesn’t include post and music, etc.”

‘We did it on an annual basis. We were committed for 12 years and a big part of the production process’ Jonathan Sehring, IFC Films

Richard Linklater on set with Ethan Hawke (far left); Boyhood’s star Ellar Coltrane (left) through the years (above)

The role of a lifetime Pitching a short film every quarter of every year for 12 years made for some tricky meetings with Sehring’s corporate paymasters but the executive’s powers of persuasion, and his production and acquisition track record at IFC Films and formerly at InDigEnt, won through. “I never got any grief about it from the top of the organisation,” he says.

When a long casting call for the role of the protagonist Mason landed unknown Austin child actor Ellar Coltrane the role of a lifetime, Linklater knew the gods of film-making were smiling on him. “It really was a tribute to Rick and the loyalty he inspires, and his judgment,” Sloss says of Linklater’s approach. “When he was casting Ellar, he was also casting his parents. He knew his parents and had confidence they were going »

November 28, 2014 Screen International 29

AWARDS SPECIAL BOYHOOD

to show up every year and be responsible.

That was the wild card, because the [onscreen] daughter is Rick’s daughter [Lorelei Linklater], anybody who knows Patricia knows she’s a stand-up person and we started this film before they conceived Before Sunset [the 2004 middle episode in the Before series], and Rick and Ethan had a very strong bond by then.”

It was time to map out the production.

“Ultimately it’s 12 years, 12 scripts, 12 productions,” says the director, who sent a rough outline to IFC that he would update each year. “Within that it had quite a structure.

I knew the last shot.”

Boyhood’s small budget dictated the nature of the locations. “I wanted to keep it local,” says Linklater. “We didn’t have enough money to fly people around.” And so Mason’s coming-of-age would play out against an array of Texan locales that included Austin, Houston and San Marcos.

Texas scenery meant Texas laws. Sloss did his due diligence on what was permissible in the actors’ contracts. Coltrane signed successive deals lasting seven and five years. Production on what was known at the time as The Twelve-Year Project got under way in July 2002 when Coltrane was seven. By the time shooting wrapped at the Big Bend Ranch State Park in West Texas in October 2013, they had filmed for 49 days in total and Coltrane was 18.

Time-sensitive Bringing everybody together each year for three or four days of shooting was a logistical challenge.

“We would finish one year and talk about the possibilities for when we could get back together again,” says Cathleen Sutherland, an Austin native who came on board in the second year to produce with Linklater, Sloss and Sehring.

“People think we had this set date every summer. It wasn’t like that. It had to shift because Ethan was in a movie or doing a play, Patricia was in Medium, Rick had things going on. The kids were the easiest ones, with the rest of us trying to juggle life and responsibilities.”

Sutherland adds: “There were times when I could put my brain on cruise control.

If I knew we were planning something a year out I could start to gear up when I needed to. Then things changed and some-

30 Screen International November 28, 2014

‘It really was a tribute to Rick and the loyalty he inspires’ John Sloss, producer

body’s schedule changed and we had to play it by ear. One year somebody’s schedule changed and we jumped into that window six weeks out.”

Linklater would stay in touch with his actors throughout the year and often found the reunions quite seamless. “It’s a little bit like running into an old friend you haven’t seen in a while,” he says.

“It didn’t always work out that every crew member came back but for the most part people tried to repeat the job,” adds Sutherland. “It became a very close community. By the end of the film there was the 10-Year Club. It was great having that commitment from people.” As Coltrane says: “When you work on an art project with people for any amount of time, you become like family.”

Some of the senior personnel who became fixtures on the decade-plus journey alongside Linklater and casting director Beth Sepko included editor Sandra Adair, first AD Vince

busy running Cinetic Media. “I didn’t go to see it; it’s better I wasn’t on set.

He had a great crew and people he surrounds himself with, and that’s how Rick works.

“He is so different; I don’t know any production that shot two to three days a year over a 12-year period.

People ask why I wasn’t on set but honestly, what was I going to do?”

Ellar Coltrane in Boyhood, age six (top); actors Coltrane and Patricia Arquette (middle); actor Lorelei Linklater with her father Richard Linklater

Palmo Jr, script supervisor Brooke Satrazemis, production designer Rodney Becker, makeup Darylin Nagy, costume Kari Perkins, set decorator Melanie Ferguson and grip Joe Vasquez.

As the production proceeded, Sloss mostly stayed away from the set.

“Ultimately a Richard Linklater film is a Richard Linklater film,” he says.

“He collaborated with his cast and I made suggestions, but he’s looking to us to give him the resources and protect him and get the film out.”

Sehring was of the same mind. “The whole production is unlike any other production in the world,” says Sloss, who was also

Touching moments Hawke describes the making of Boyhood as “a triumph of patience and scheduling”. Like the events in the story itself, the production glided along without major drama. It was the little things that registered.

“Watching certain scenes touched on my life,” says Sutherland. “The scene with the bully in the bathroom was at the same junior high school where I went. The high school we shot in was where I graduated.”

Yet the undertaking inevitably fed into a collective sense of growing accomplishment that had a big impact on everyone involved.

Linklater recalls there being a build-up of tension that he had not anticipated. “Starting out, I thought it would maybe feel like an obligation. The first half of the movie was almost abstract because the end was so far away. But it really built and people got more invested in it. Everybody felt that way.”

By the time the finishing line was in sight, Linklater and Sutherland were zipping around, scouting for the final location for the

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scene in which Mason, now a college student, enjoys a trip out with new friends.

“Rick and I had scouted Big Bend National Park the month before and spent a few days in the car because it’s so big,” says Sutherland. “We were full-steam ahead with the park and we had come back to Austin and somebody said to me, ‘What about the government shutdown?’”

From October 1-16, 2013, the US federal shutdown went into effect following a Congressional impasse on funding legislation for the upcoming financial year. Government operations were put on hold and national park gates were closed.

“Everybody got kicked out of the park.

This was a couple of days before we were getting ready to go there. So we called the Big Bend Ranch State Park, where we ended up shooting, and they were great. It’s wilder terrain.

We hadn’t scouted anything there but we got out there.”

The resulting scene, framed within the light of the retreating sun, seemed like a fitting finale.

“It was an odd feeling to get to the end,” says Sutherland. “We were in a perfect place. The story had brought us out to west Texas for that last scene when they sit looking out at the sunset; that was the last scene we shot with the cast there.

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Ellar Coltrane, age seven (above); Lorelei Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Coltrane, age nine (top right); Lorelei Linklater and Ethan Hawke in Boyhood (middle); writer-director Richard Linklater on set (bottom right and below)

“It was a great moment. It was the end of the process. It helped the crew and us. It felt right for us to be there and to finish strong.”

For Linklater, it was an unprecedented moment. “The last shot of [each] day had an intensity. Twelve years of that and when the sun goes down and it’s the last shot, you can imagine the intensity. I have never experienced anything like it.”

Patience of saints Sehring was one of only four people who had seen the rough cuts each year alongside Linklater, Sloss and Hawke, likening the experience to “looking at a family album that you know you love, but you have no idea what anybody else is going to think”.

When the time came for the first internal IFC screening in late 2013, Sehring knew they had passed the first acid test. “Two people were crying at the end, so I thought that was good.”

Boyhood premiered in Sundance 2014 after it was dropped into the schedule late in the day. The response was euphoric. “I have been doing this for 30 years,” says Sloss, “and I have never come close to the notices.”

Although this was an IFC production, the plan in Park City was always to go in with open eyes. “If somebody had made us an offer we could not refuse, we would have sold it,” says Sehring, who wound up distributing Boyhood.

Everyone loved the film. Critics and audiences were in raptures. However, at two hours and 40 minutes, admiring distribu-

tors were concerned about playability. The following month Boyhood travelled to Berlin for its international premiere and Linklater won the Silver Bear for best director.

A deal was struck at Sundance with Universal for international rights excluding Canada (Mongrel), France (Diaphana) and Benelux (Lumiere), and after more international festival kudos the film opened in July in the US. By mid-November the audacious $4m experiment that had seemed so risky had amassed more than $23m Stateside and around $50m worldwide.

Sloss calls Boyhood one the “great privileges” of his career. Sehring says the whole package has turned a profit and admits to a deep personal attachment. “It’s a project that nobody really wanted to let go of or share.

It was a big secret,” Sehring says.

“People would ask about the Richard Linklater ‘Twelve-Year Secret’. Fans would ask about it and it took on a mythology of its own. Did it really exist? It was like a family secret you don’t want to share.

“Everybody’s melancholic about it [being over]. People ask about the sequel and we laugh and it becomes less humorous and we miss it. Never say ‘never’, even though everybody said ‘never’ at the outset.”

If it ever happens, a return to the world of Mason and his family could take several forms. Sutherland, who is compiling a book of pictures about the film, may already have had a premonition.

“I had this strange dream,” she says. “We s were producing Boyhood: The Musical.” ■

November 28, 2014 Screen International 31

REVIEWS Highlights of the week’s new films in Review. For full reviews coverage, see Screendaily.com

Reviews in brief Love, Rosie Dir Christian Ditter. UK-Ger. 2014. 102mins

Saccharine-sweet and at times trying just too hard for its own good, Ditter’s self-conscious British rom-com attempts to mine the ‘can friends be lovers’ motif of When Harry Met Sally... There are some likeable moments and the screen pairing of Lily Collins and Sam Claflin works well, but in the end it all feels rather heavy-handed and overladen with musical cues, to the extent that the story rarely gets a chance to breathe and properly develop.

Fans of the source novel — Cecilia Ahern’s 2004 bestseller, Where Rainbows End — may well be intrigued enough to see it click as an accessible, sweet and engagingly sexy date-night film.

Mark Adams CONTACT MISTER SMITH www.mistersmithent.com

Angels Of Revolution Dir Aleksei Fedorchenko. Rus. 2014. 112mins

Many would place Fedorchenko’s strange, lyrical 2010 road movie Silent Souls somewhere on the outer edge of the auteur spectrum. But it looks downright commercial compared to the three features he’s completed since. His new film is a dense, rambling, often baffling period piece set in the 1930s. Loosely inspired by the so-called Kazym rebellion of 1933, it follows a group of young Soviet avant-garde artists and ethnographers who spread the modernising, secular Bolshevik gospel in a remote Siberian province, whose proudly independent inhabitants are still tied to their folk traditions and to the pre-Christian gods. There’s no faulting the inventiveness of Fedorchenko, his co-scriptwriters and the creative team.

Lee Marshall CONTACT ANTIPODE elena@antipode-sales.biz

Ouija Dir Stiles White. US. 2014. 89mins

Ouija boards have been around for more than 120 years, so maybe it’s no surprise that the movie based on what is now marketed as a Hasbro game feels flimsy and old-fashioned. Delivering only a modest supply of shocks and chills, this lowbudget supernatural thriller, produced by Michael Bay and horror meister Jason Blum, will certainly turn a profit at the box office but probably not enough of one to give Hasbro another big-screen franchise. Olivia Cooke stars as a high schooler struggling to come to terms with the apparent suicide of her childhood friend and so persuades friends to try the spirit board for answers.

John Hazelton CONTACT UNIVERSAL PICTURES

32 Screen International November 28, 2014

An Open Secret Dir Amy Berg. US. 2014. 100mins

Forget the old casting couch for starlets. Young actors in Amy Berg’s unsettling documentary, An Open Secret, allege that boys aspiring to act in Hollywood are routinely the victims of sexual abuse — sometimes by prominent figures — and that the industry turns a blind eye. With a range of charges implicating film-makers and film executives in sexual abuse, and plenty of details of youths who become prey, An Open Secret could leverage the shock value of young men speaking publicly on camera for the first time. Yet its damning revelations risk remaining secret, since few distributors will dare to release a film with such incendiary claims.

More painstaking and exhaustive than lurid, Berg’s inquiry eyes a business where children rise in the acting profession through their managers — trusted guides who often betray that confidence. Corey Feldman and Todd Bridges, rare showbiz voices denouncing abuse, provide grim prehistory.

Berg (Deliver Us from Evil, West Of Memphis) then shifts into her core case histories, those of boys who entered the 1990s orbit of Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), an early online video company that operated out of a lavish mansion in Encino. DEN closed in 2000 because too few of its teen consumers had broadband access. Its founder, Marc Collins-Rector, a web entrepreneur who was later jailed for paedophilia (and since fled the US), entertained investors at poolside parties that, say the boys, made Roman Polanski’s adventures seem tame. Bryan Singer was a DEN investor, as were other studio bold-faced names, David Geffen and the oilman, Michael Huffington. Singer has denied all charges of abuse.

Boys who hoped for roles in DEN’s series say they were required to strip naked after dark and forced into sex. Those who dared complain, such as the handsome teen Michael Egan of Nebraska, were allegedly attacked and driven out of the movie business. The aspiring Ohio model Mark Ryan, now paralysed after a seizure from alcohol withdrawal, is in a wheelchair unable to talk. In the boy’s hospital room, his father reads a deposition dripping with tales of coercion.

“I’m not sure of all the things that were done to me.

However, I know that Collins-Rector drugged me and abused me,” Ryan testified.

The accused predators declined to speak to Berg, although one child manager admits begrudgingly that abuse happens. Their silence, the boys and their advocates suggest, is evidence that Hollywood prefers to sweep any such problem under the rug, which may help explain why the doc premiered in New York.

Even without interviews with the alleged predators, or with their lawyers, An Open Secret paints a grim picture of behaviour that was ignored, if not tolerated.

Judicious throughout, Berg short-changes the roguery of the DEN crowd in favour of the boys’ stories of anguish; yet the smarmy cocktail of sex, sybaritism and start-up cash has the makings of a Hollywood Babylon melodrama. Realising that seductive project makes the chances of releasing An Open Secret seem easy.

David D’Arcy CONTACT MATTHEW VALENTINAS matthewvalentinas@gmail.com

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Horrible Bosses 2

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Reviews in brief Miracle: Devil Claus’ Love And Magic Dir Isshin Inudo. Japan. 2014. 115mins

The rather clumsily titled Miracle: Devil Claus’ Love And Magic (Miracle Debikuro Kun No Koi To Mahou) is a slushy and mushy bit of Christmas romantic fantasy, and likely to click with local audiences ready for some warm-hearted lovin’. The film is unlikely to travel much beyond mainstream Asian markets despite its rather innocent charm. It is a fluffy film with moments of animation to keep things interesting and, while these sections do help pep up things, at heart this is a rather traditional tale of misunderstood love and longing, all set against a romantic Christmas backdrop. Predictable every step of the way, it at least never pretends to be anything other than frothy, festive fun.

Mark Adams CONTACT ASMIK ACE

www.asmik-ace.co.jp

Maya The Bee Movie Dir Alexs Stadermann. Aus-Ger. 2014. 87mins

Paddington Dir/scr Paul King. UK. 2014. 85mins

The much-loved British children’s book character, Paddington Bear, makes a smooth transition to the big screen in this delightfully entertaining family film that has charm, fun and a glossy sense of adventure to spare. While resolutely British in tone, humour and casting, its sheer sense of generous exuberance could well see it click with international audiences (the books have sold more than 35 million copies and been translated into 40 languages).

Paddington Bear first sniffed the light of day in Michael Bond’s 1958 book, A Bear Called Paddington, with the subsequent series proving bestsellers. A successful 56-episode British TV series, which began in 1975, designed and directed by Ivor Wood and beautifully narrated by Michael Hordern, was also a great hit, though this film marks the first time Michael Bond has approved his characters appearing on the big screen.

The film opens in engaging retro-style sepia as a dashing young explorer heads to “darkest Peru” in search of rare and wonderful beasts. He meets the rarest of creatures — genial bears who share his love for marmalade and who, amazingly enough, master the English language. He leaves behind his hat and a pledge that they would always be welcome in England.

Years later, a young bear is happily living with his Uncle Pastuzo and Aunt Lucy (voiced by Michael Gambon and Imelda Staunton), where they enthusiastically make marmalade and lead happy lives. But after tragedy strikes, the young bear heads to London for the promise of a hearty welcome.

He ends up at London’s Paddington Station, where he is befriended by the kindly Mrs Brown (Sally

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Maya, a cheeky girl honeybee, was created in 1912

by German children’s author Waldemar Bonsels.

A century later, after a fondly remembered German TV series in the late 1970s and a highly successful German/Austrian/Japanese series that began in 2012, Maya gets feature-length CGI animation. The film, which boasts voice performers Jacki Weaver, Richard Roxburgh, Noah Taylor, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Miriam Margolyes, features vivid colours and plenty of unthreatening action — young Maya is bored with regimented hive life and takes to the meadows in search of adventure with one of her bee pals.

Hawkins). She volunteers to take him home with her family (and names him Paddington after his ‘bear name’ proves unpronounceable), much to the disbelief of the more serious Mr Brown (Hugh Bonneville) and the bemusement of their two children.

Soon the accident-prone Paddington is properly part of the family — despite a rather funny bathroom incident that sees him flood the house — and even becomes something of a local hero when he foils a Portobello Road Market pickpocket. The Browns search for the explorer to try and help find Paddington a home, but things take a darker turn with the arrival of Millicent (Nicole Kidman, having a great time as a hiss-worthy baddie very much in the Cruella de Vil mould), a taxidermist at the Natural History Museum, who has her own designs on the genial young bear.

Paddington is beautifully adapted and directed by Paul King (who made cult film Bunny And The Bull), giving the film a gentle magical quality. The fact that a small talking bear in a floppy red hat and a blue duffle coat is among Londoners is never given a second thought, and it is all imbued with compassion and charm. Certainly there is a degree of action/peril as the Browns head off to and try and rescue Paddington from danger at the Natural History Museum (also an excuse for a great location, probably not used as well since the 1975 classic One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing) but it is all played for gambolling laughs.

Imagine a single-sex version of Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise: Love, directed with compassion and transposed to the Dominican Republic, and you’re close to the spirit of this delicate tale of the relationship between a French grandmother — played with slow-burn passion by Geraldine Chaplin — and a young Dominican girl. Sand Dollars (Dolares De Arena) has enough audience appeal to work theatrically beyond the micro-markets reached by the directing duo’s last feature, immigration docudrama Jean Gentil. It’s a film with a restless motion, a film about people in transit, in which the question of whether to stay or go takes on a special, existential resonance.

Mark Adams

Lee Marshall

CONTACT STUDIOCANAL

www.studiocanal.com

Frank Hatherley CONTACT STUDIO 1OO MEDIA www.studio100media.com

Sand Dollars Dir/scr Laura Amelia Guzman, Israel Cardenas.

Dom Rep-Mex-Arg. 2014. 85mins

CONTACT FIGA FILMS

contact@figafilms.com

November 28, 2014 Screen International 33

»

Reviews in brief Big Hero 6 Dirs Don Hall, Chris Williams. US. 2014. 96mins

Corporate relatives Disney and Marvel try for some creative synergy in Big Hero 6, an animated comedy-adventure that cannily combines the emotion, humour and — courtesy of a cuddly inflatable robot — cuteness expected from Disney with a heavy dose of Marvel-style superhero action. The result is a solidly entertaining sci-fi-infused, anime-influenced tale that should win over a sizeable boyskewing family audience even if it doesn’t captivate to the same extent as last year’s girl-skewing Disney Animation Studios smash, Frozen. Inspired by a late-1990s run of Marvel comic books, the film is set in the near-future city of San Fransokyo, where orphaned teen Hiro finds support from Baymax, a friendly healthcare robot (with a soothing voice supplied by Scott Adsit, from TV’s 30 Rock) that his brother had been developing prior to his death.

John Hazelton CONTACT Walt Disney

www.disney.com

The World Of Kanako Dir Tetsuya Nakashima. Japan. 2014. 118mins

Proving he is one of the most provocative Japanese directors around, talented Tetsuya Nakashima pulls out all the stops with his sublimely violent The World Of Kanako, a complex and impressively twisted tale of a troubled man who heads off on a dark journey when he finds out how little he knows about his estranged daughter. It is a brutal and bloody film, to be sure, but an oddly watchable and compelling one all the same. After a series of festival screenings it could well spark interest for savvy buyers — especially ones who may have handled the likes of Oldboy or similar genre fare.

Nakashima’s film-making pedigree means that it demands attention and, while a difficult film to watch, it is still made with zest and real skill.

Mark Adams CONTACT GAGA CORPORATION

www.gaga.co.jp

Good For Nothing Dir Gianni Di Gregorio. Italy. 2014. 87mins

Italian comedy must be one of the most unexportable of all genres — for good reasons, cruel realists will say. Director Gianni Di Gregorio furnished one of those exceptions that prove the rule back in 2008, when his charming, self-starring geriatric divertissement Mid-August Lunch proved to be a small sleeper hit in several territories. There’s no reason why this third ‘Gianni the Roman flaneur plays Gianni the Roman flaneur’ outing shouldn’t continue to plough the furrow with equal success.

Though Good For Nothing (Buoni A Nulla) breaks no new ground, and despite some script wobbles (particularly in the abrupt, over-neat finale), the film displays the same gentle, melancholic humour that is Di Gregorio’s stock-in-trade, and once again pulls off the useful trick of sending Italy up while at the same time selling the pleasures of its lifestyle.

Lee Marshall CONTACT JANINE GOLD

janinegold13@yahoo.com

34 Screen International November 28, 2014

Horrible Bosses 2 Dir Sean Anders. US. 2014. 108mins

Maybe there is an anti-capitalist subtext to Horrible Bosses 2 but, while there are more than a few laugh-outloud moments, there is a niggling sense that this ribald sequel is just trying way too hard, with the semi-improvised gags colliding and clashing rather than slotting sweetly together.

Nevertheless, though it lacks the surprise factor of bosses behaving extremely badly that helped the original crack $117m in its 2011 US release, the sequel will likely find a welcoming audience for those keen on a dose of rude and crude comedy in a marketplace currently bereft of mainstream comedy fare.

The lead threesome of Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day certainly put in a shift as they search desperately for gags. There is strong support from Christoph Waltz and Chris Pine, and welcome cameos from Kevin Spacey and Jamie Foxx, while Jennifer Aniston again punctures her ‘sweet’ image, reprising her role as a sex-mad dentist.

The original film saw hard-working, sensible Nick (Bateman), frisky Kurt (Sudeikis) and permanently worried Dale (Day) plotting to work together to dodge their machinating bosses, even resorting to an inept triple-homicide plan. This time around, they have aspirations to become bosses themselves as they plan to launch their own company to sell their bathroom accessory, The Shower Buddy.

Millionaire retail giant Bert Hanson (played by Waltz) offers to take their first 100,000 units for a hefty $3m but, after the naive threesome spend a fortune setting up their manufacturing operation, Bert reneges on the deal, announcing that he wants to see them go out of business and then pick up what remains at auction.

The desperate three decide to kidnap Hanson’s son, Rex (Pine) — after some advice from old friend

Dean ‘Motherfucker’ Jones (Foxx, whose performance is one of the best things in the film) and Nick’s former boss (played with vicious zeal again by Spacey) who is still in prison — but naturally their plans fall apart with outlandish consequences.

Rex soon gets the upper hand and announces that he wants to be kidnapped so he can take revenge on his domineering father. The plot manages to leverage in the reappearance of Dale’s ex-boss Dr Julia Harris (Aniston), who is using her sex-addiction class as a place for scouting new sexual conquests, and while Aniston adds some genial pep to the proceedings the film itself struggles to find the balance between comedy and action (there are car chases and gunplay), with the overlapping comedy dialogue between Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day hampering rather than helping.

The desperate need for laughs give Horrible Bosses 2 an edgy, hyperactive quality that tends to submerge the more subtle laughs — although there are some memorable moments in the film.

Bateman, as usual, offers a unique, more slowerpaced, straight-faced humour, and his ‘encounter’ with Julia allows him to have some real fun. Sudeikis seems to relish the merriment of his role as a affable sexhound (though his character is the most thinly drawn of the threesome), while Day’s hyperactive routine veers between amusing and irritating.

The film does drag rather as it layers on action to the climactic proceedings, but then this is what the Horrible Bosses format is all about — over-the-top rude-andcrude silliness that tries to overpower its audience rather than draw it in with wit and cleverness.

Mark Adams CONTACT WARNER BROS

www.warnerbros.com

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REVIEWS

tokyo Reviews in brief Kyoto Elegy Dir Kiki Sugino. Japan. 2014. 94mins

Actress, producer and now director Kiki Sugino makes her directorial debut with Kyoto Elegy (Manga Niku To Boku), a strikingly unusual domestic drama that harks back to classic Japanese cinema that dwelled on suffering women but that is at the same time contemporary and edgy.

In different hands it could have been played as a broad comedy or even an intense drama, but here the film is playful, thoughtful and keenly observed.

Sugino — who produced and starred in Au Revoir L’été and had Taksu, her second film as a director, premiere at Busan earlier in the year — directed three films in 2014, with Boy’s Dream still to be screened. Kyoto Elegy had its world premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival and should certainly intrigue further festivals keen to focus on emerging Japanese talent.

Mark Adams CONTACT KATSU-DO CO nakamura.tadashi@yoshimoto.co.jp

Pale Moon

Big Eyes

Dir Daihachi Yoshida. Japan. 2014. 126mins

Dir Tim Burton. US. 2014. 106mins

Stepping away from the worlds of fantasy, horror and science fiction for the first time in 20 years, director Tim Burton delivers one of his most thoughtful and accomplished works in far too long. Like 1994’s Ed Wood, Big Eyes is based on a true story about a misfit artist making kitsch. The two films could be companion pieces, although this new offering is perhaps even more complex an examination of the relationship between creator and creation. Highlighted by two very different performances — Amy Adams’ muted, silently suffering painter, Margaret Keane, and Christoph Waltz’s gregarious, master-manipulator husband, Walter — Big Eyes is a crowd-pleaser that sees Burton toning down his usual visual flourishes, a development that’s most welcome.

Spanning about 10 years, Big Eyes details the troubled relationship between Margaret and Walter. When they first meet in the late 1950s, Margaret has run out on her no-good husband, taking her young daughter to San Francisco in the hopes of realising her dream of becoming a painter. Walter is also a painter, but his banal portraits of Parisian street scenes can’t compare to Margaret’s unconventional, striking images of sad young children with markedly oversized eyes.

A charmer instantly smitten with Margaret, Walter impulsively proposes, beginning a whirlwind romance.

But the problems soon arise once Walter discovers that nobody in San Francisco likes his art — while Margaret’s starts to attract attention. Utilising his natural talent for salesmanship, he tells prospective buyers that he’s the artist behind the so-called ‘big eyes’ paintings, and once the money starts rolling in, Margaret feels too sheepish to publicly contradict her husband’s claim. This proves to be a mistake: as Walter’s fame grows, Margaret is forced to produce more and more paintings to meet the demand, having

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to maintain her husband’s lie so as not to jeopardise their financial success.

In Big Eyes, the writers and Burton are fascinated by the unusual relationship between Margaret and Walter but they’re also interested in examining how this marriage was a microcosm for unequal gender roles of the time. The bitter irony of Margaret’s life is that when she encounters Walter, she’s already fled one unhappy marriage, a commonplace occurrence today that was viewed as progressive, almost scandalous, for a woman in the 1950s. But all she does with her newfound freedom is fall into the arms of another domineering man who takes advantage of her trusting nature and meek demeanour. She’s a potential feminist icon who doesn’t quite have the courage to stand up for herself.

As a consequence, Adams has a difficult task: she’s playing a woman who is a pushover, tolerating her husband’s megalomania while she’s trapped upstairs painting day and night. Margaret could be an unsympathetic doormat but it’s to Adams’ credit that the character largely sidesteps that problem.

While Adams plays Margaret with understatement, Waltz’s Walter is a marvellously oversized construction. At first, Walter seems like a kind-hearted man who is wounded by his lack of artistic recognition.

But Waltz’s warm countenance eventually morphs into a chilly mask as his greed, ambition and ego begin to suck all the oxygen out of their marriage. The film-makers have conceived Walter as a magnificent ass, and Waltz is terrific at modulating the character’s emerging wretchedness.

An absorbingly subversive Japanese film that delightfully blends drama with moments of almost mischievous fun, Daihachi Yoshida’s Pale Moon (Kami No Tsuki) is a real delight, given heart, compassion and a real sense of low-key rebellion thanks to Rie Miyazawa’s delightful lead performance as a mid-mannered bank worker and wife who turns to embezzling so she can keep her younger lover happy. The film pokes gentle fun at the notion of Japan’s ordered, obedient and mannered society and, while running perhaps a little too long, its story never dawdles and heads towards a smart ending that leaves you sympathetic to this most gentle and kindly swindler.

Mark Adams CONTACT SHOCHIKU

www.shochiku.com

Garm Wars: The Last Druid Dir Oshii Mamoru. Japan. 2014. 92mins

Lush but ludicrous, beautiful but bewildering, inventive but inaccessible, the latest fantasy romp from Oshii Mamoru (Ghost In The Shell) is a film that will challenge the endurance power of even the most loyal fans of this type of live action/animation/video game mélange. The casting of name actors such as Lance Henriksen and Kevin Durand may help international marketing and distribution, but formal release will be a challenge. There is a great deal of ambition to its complex storyline and, while the visual effects are busily vivid at times, the sheer po-faced seriousness of the story and the thinly developed fantasy characters makes it feel like this is simply one chapter in a massive, interweaving narrative and one that ends abruptly as if calling out for an equally overblown sequel.

Tim Grierson CONTACT THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY www.weinsteinco.com

Mark Adams CONTACT GOOD UNIVERSE abernacchi@good-universe.com

November 28, 2014 Screen International 35

AWARDS PEOPLE

RULE BRITANNIA

AFI’S STARS SHINE

Elyes Gabel, Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain, director JC Chandor and David Oyelowo Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey Jr and Jon Favreau

It was an especially starry year at AFI Fest in Los Angeles (Nov 6-13), which premiered films including A Most Violent Year (cast pictured), American Sniper and Selma.

CITIZEN POITRAS

Emma Watson

Eddie Redmayne

Judi Dench and Dustin Hoffman

William Binney (left) and Laura Poitras

Bafta Los Angeles presented its annual Britannia Awards on Oct 30 at the Beverly Hilton. Honorees included Robert Downey Jr, Mark Ruffalo, Emma Watson, Mike Leigh and Judi Dench, with Rob Brydon hosting and presenters including Jon Favreau, Eddie Redmayne, Jamie Foxx and Dustin Hoffman.

CPH:DOX in Copenhagen (Nov 6-16) welcomed Citizenfour director Laura Poitras to not only show the Edward Snowden doc but to also curate a special strand of films.

Poitras was joined by whistleblower William Binney, who also gave a talk.

POLES APART Musician and film-maker Johann Johannsson is having quite a busy year — in addition to scoring Oscar contender The Theory Of Everything, he’s also found time to direct his first film, an artful 28-minute short called End Of Summer.

The short, which had its world premiere at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, will now head to other festivals.

It’s an almost meditative, blackand-white look at the world the director visited in Antarctica, where the population is led by penguins. “I didn’t really go there with the intention of making a film. It was a spur-of-themoment thing to bring along a Super 8 camera and some sound recording

36 Screen International November 28, 2014

equipment,” says the Iceland-born, Berlin-based Johannsson. “But what I brought back was hypnotic and emotionally affecting in some way. It’s like an anti-nature film… It’s not the HD Planet Earth way of seeing nature.”

He shot on a sensitive, rare film stock formerly used for titles. “This is basically

End Of Summer

the end of this particular stock, unless there is someone who secretly hoarded it out there,” he says. “It was a huge risk to take this stock along, I could have ended up with unusable footage… but there’s something about working with a very organic medium.”

Of course, for a composer, sound is

crucial to the short as well. “It’s a really beautiful sound world and a harsh one, too. They can be abrasive sounds these birds make. It has that very austere melancholy to it. The sounds of the seals can be very haunting, they sound like laments almost. The image is very lo-fi but the sound is detailed and focused.”

Johannsson says it didn’t feel alien moving into directing. “When I am a composer for films, I feel like a filmmaker; I feel like part of the team that’s making the film. It’s not some abstract composing project, it’s about making something that works for the film.”

In addition to reteaming with his Prisoners director Denis Villeneuve to score Sicario, Johannsson will be working on another directorial project, Last And First Men, shooting in the Balkans in December and to be premiered in Kortrijk, Belgium in May. Wendy Mitchell

www.screendaily.com

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F O R

Y O U R

C O N S I D E R A T I O N

“REMARKABLE” – THE NEW YORK TIMES

“SUNDANCE’S BUZZIEST AWARDS ENTRY SINCE ‘TOP OF THE LAKE’” – THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“EXHILARATING DRAMA” – THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

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CAPTIVATING” – TIME

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