Screen 6th Dec lr by Media Business Insight

Issue 1769 December 6, 2013

LEADER

In any event

UK office MBI, 101 Finsbury Pavement, London, EC2A 1RS Tel: +44 (0) 20 3033 4267 US office Screen International, 8581 Santa Monica Blvd, #707, West Hollywood, CA 90069 E-mail: firstname.lastname@screendaily.com (unless stated) Please note our new London phone numbers 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 (0) 20 3033 4213 Group head of production and art Mark Mowbray +44 (0) 20 3638 5060 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, Leon Forde, John Hazelton, Louise Tutt Contributing reporter Ian Sandwell +44 (0) 20 3033 4212 Advertising and publishing Commercial director Andrew Dixon +44 (0) 20 3033 2928 Sales manager Scott Benfold +44 (0) 20 3638 5050 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 Production manager Jonathon Cooke +44 (0) 20 3033 4296 jonathon.cooke@mb-insight.com Group commercial director, MBI Alison Pitchford +44 (0) 20 3033 2949 alison.pitchford@mb-insight.com Subscription customer service +44 (0) 20 3033 2620 help@subscribe.screendaily.com Festival and events manager Mai Le +44 (0) 20 3033 2950 mai.le@mb-insight.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

The Doctor’s popularity surprised at the box office

here’s an elephant in the room, or indeed an elephantsized opportunity in the cinema: ‘event cinema’ — those non-film offerings that were also formerly tagged ‘alternative content’. At this week’s Screen Film Summit in London (see page 4), one hot topic was the success of the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special, The Day Of The Doctor, which took $2.3m theatrically on a single Saturday night in the UK despite being freely accessible on TV at the same time. It made more than $10m globally in cinemas. Both an exhibitor, Philip Knatchbull of Curzon Artificial Eye, and a distributor, Zygi Kamasa of Lionsgate UK, were in awe of such figures. Research points to the sector being worth $1bn by 2015. BBC Worldwide’s Doctor Who was one of the first fanboy event cinema launches; usually the audiences (to generalise) are older and wealthier, and coming in for opera and theatre events. Kamasa noted the free-to-air The Day Of The Doctor was a big step forward for event cinema, because the content wasn’t exclusive and proved that audience demand exists for experience viewing. There are other recent success stories — The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Richard II starring David Tennant made $1.6m during its launch night in the UK on November 13. That’s better than the UK opening weekend for something like Disney’s awards-season contender Saving Mr Banks or Sony’s Carrie remake. The British Museum’s Pompeii Live and the V&A’s David Bowie cinema releases were

also innovative and profitable launches earlier this year. The growth of event cinema is a boon to the whole industry. Film distributors shouldn’t feel scared of a new kind of competition, they should be happy new kinds of audiences are flocking to cinemas. Once they’re in and have a nice night out, they are likely to come back. Also, cinemas have a depressing vacancy rate during non-peak hours and these event offerings are usually not taking over Saturday night prime-time screens (the Doctor notwithstanding). For exhibitors, these audiences are ways to keep their businesses growing as film admissions flatline. For some cinemas, event cinema represents as much as 12% of their boxoffice revenues, according to trade group the Event Cinema Association. No wonder box-office-tracking company Rentrak has recently started tallying event cinema releases. Where such fortunes lie, inevitably there will be copycat companies trying to cash in on the trend but without the top-notch content that audiences will demand. Quality will win out. You’d think the studios might try to use synergies with their music or TV businesses to create more event cinema offerings. Savvy content creators of all shapes and sizes should learn from the buzzy, must-attend marketing for event cinema to make their films stand out in a similar way — with competition for screens so tough, every opening weekend for a film, especially a smaller independent s release, can be seen as an event. ■

Thank you for the music The Broken Circle Breakdown has emerged as one of the top European films of the year, at least in terms of widespread acclaim and its box-office performance at home in Belgium. The drama, about a musician couple struggling as their daughter is diagnosed with cancer, is the leading nominee for the European Film Awards and should definitely show up on the Oscar foreign-language shortlist. I also love that the film has now spawned a band — the bluegrass soundtrack of the film was so popular that the band created for the film, led by lead actors Johan Heldenbergh and Veerle Baetens (pictured), is on the road with sell-out gigs throughout 2014. Read our interview with director Felix Van Groeningen on page 19.

December 6, 2013 Screen International 1 ■

International correspondents Asia Liz Shackleton lizshackleton@gmail.com Australia Sandy George +61 2 9557 7425 sandy.george@me.com Balkan region 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 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 hjnoh2007@gmail.com Nordic territories Jorn Rossing Jensen +45 202 333 04

jornrossing@aol.com

Scotland Allan Hunter +44 (0) 7904 698 848 allan@alhunter.myzen.co.uk

December 6, 2013

Spain Juan Sarda +34 646 440 357 jsardafr@hotmail.com

Analysis

Regulars

4 Know your audience

8 Fishing for talent

28 REVIEWS

Geoffrey Macnab +44 (0) 20 7226 0516

The UK’s top experts came together at the Screen Film Summit in London to talk about the current state of the industry and the exciting developments for the future

Dubai Film Market is expanding with an increase in exhibitors and the introduction of the Dubai Docs initiative

Covering the top films including Powder Room, Oldboy and Homefront, and the best from the idfa and ajyal film festivals

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@subsribe.screendaily.com

6 Back to its roots The Dubai International Film Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary by shining a spotlight on Arab cinema

Screen International ISSN 0307 4617

All currencies in this issue converted according

10 MOUNTAIN HIGH France’s Les Arcs combines screenings and skiing and has a growing profile

12 The British invasion Exclusive Media’s Tobin Armbrust and Simon Oakes on plans to extend the company’s production strategy in the UK, making non-genre fare in addition to its output through Hammer Films

to exchange rates that applied in December 2013

n 2 Screen International December 6, 2013

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Contents

Awards countdown 14 NEWS DIGEST A round-up of recent awards headlines

16 Into the gloom Acclaimed cinematographer Roger Deakins talks about creating a brooding, wet atmosphere for Prisoners

19 Full circle Belgian drama The Broken Circle Breakdown was a major European breakout in 2013. Writer-director Felix Van Groeningen talks about making the unusual love story

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22 THERE’S Something about Mary Saving Mr Banks tells the inside story of how Walt Disney persuaded reluctant author PL Travers to let him film Mary Poppins. The film-makers talk about a project which, like the story, spanned Australia, the UK and Hollywood

32 AWARDS CIRCUIT Inside Llewyn Davis’s Oscar Isaac, Short Term 12’s Brie Larson and Richard Linklater collect awards

26 Independent’s day The Moet British Independent Film Awards celebrate the diverse output of the UK film industry, and provide a significant platform for films and film-makers

December 6, 2013 Screen International 3 n

In association with

Supported by

Know your audience The UK’s top experts came together at the Screen Film Summit in London to talk about the current state of the industry and the exciting developments for the future. Wendy Mitchell reports

he buzzword of the day at the Screen Film Summit was ‘audience’ — whether that was offering content to audiences on new platforms, working on creative co-productions that attract film-goers in multiple territories, building audiences via social media, or enticing audiences with event cinema. In his keynote talk, Ian Lewis, director of Sky Movies and Acquisitions, said keeping Sky’s customers happy was of top importance. Lewis highlighted expansion at Sky including tech innovations such as Sky Go, NOW TV, new branded movie channels including Sky Movies 007 and Sky Christmas and film production investment. “The growth in the VoD market makes it more complicated for the customer. But it has also been stimulating as we’ve become more focused,” he said

■ 4 Screen International December 6, 2013

at the Summit, held at the BFI Southbank on December 2 in association with the BFI and with support from Creative Skillset. Lewis said there was scope for Sky to continue to push theatrical windows, citing the example of the day-and-date release of Bachelorette as a promising model: “Our partners would like to do more of that,” he confirmed. “There’s not a single member of the public who knows what windows are or cares.” In terms of original Sky productions, Lewis said there were six family films in development and he reiterated that when delivered those films would be shown to Sky subscribers first, but that he was open those films having a theatrical component. Also talking about keeping up with audience trends, Curzon Artificial Eye

‘I wouldn’t factor a US deal into your finance plan if you are making a British movie’ David Garrett, Mister Smith

CEO Philip Knatchbull and Lionsgate UK CEO Zygi Kamasa noted the success of the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special, which took $2.3m theatrically in the UK on a Saturday night (November 23) despite a free-to-watch TV airing at the same time. “[Event cinema] is a massive part of our business,” said Knatchbull. “We’re building out new venues all around the UK and we’re telling our designers to focus on this, to design the venues so they feel accessible to the younger generation from this perspective.” Strong growth in the VoD sector has changed the audience landscape. Kamasa, whose Bachelorette went out day-and-date warned, however, against day-and-date VoD releases being considered as “a second choice or a burial ground for failed theatrical releases”.

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Theodore Wood

Screen Film Summit In focus

mum guarantee paid out all investment and the film is in the clear financially, Jones confirmed. Further afield, Isabel Davis, the BFI’s head of international, noted that on the day of the Summit, BFI chief executive Amanda Nevill was in China, where a UK-China cultural agreement was signed, paving the way for a co-production treaty. “A co-production treaty opens up that opportunity to give UK co-produced films a much larger opportunity in the marketplace,” Davis said. David Garrett of sales company Mister Smith said the US market is also a tough one. “The US is still not an easy market to penetrate, that’s not just film, that’s literature, that’s music. I wouldn’t factor a US deal into your finance plan if you are making a British movie,” he says.

Crossing platforms

8 Knatchbull explained that as a company, Curzon Artificial Eye has taken the approach that the “old business model is completely broken… We have to find our audience and hold on to them — to connect the rather soulless experience of social networking with the soulful experience of going to the cinema.”

Talking money The day started with some eye-opening statistics presented by BFI acting head of research David Steele, who revealed the startling figure that only 7% of UK films make a profit. (The figures looked at 613 British films produced or co-produced in the UK from 2003-2010; bigger films with budgets of more than $16.3m (£10m) were the most successful, with 17.4% of those profitable.) “The landscape for private equity in the UK for film is very challenged, partly because of those profitability statistics,” said Ingenious Investments director Nik Bower. “The UK may be the third largest territory for film but it is still a lot smaller than the US. Theatrical rental is particularly lower here than the rest of the world so it makes it really hard to make films profitable in the UK.”

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10 Pictured, from top left: 1 Ben Roberts, BFI Film Fund 2 Zygi Kamasa, Lionsgate UK 3 Ian Lewis, Sky Movies 4 Nik Bower, Ingenious Investments 5 Dr Jo Twist, UKIE 6 Anna Higgs, Film4.0 7 Philip Knatchbull, Curzon Artificial Eye 8 Paul Webster, Shoebox Films 9 David Garrett, Mister Smith Entertainment 10 MJ Delaney, director of Powder Room

Shoebox Films’ Paul Webster, who has produced films such as Pride & Prejudice, Atonement and Locke, acknowledged “it’s a very challenging market right now, unless you hit the sweet spot”, he said. “There are shining lights out there like Philomena, which is playing into the growing grey pound audience.” Another shining light, said the country’s key funders, is that the quality of projects being submitted to them is on the rise. “The trend in the last five years is the quality of scripts we’re seeing. There are more viable projects than there were 10 years ago,” said BBC Films commissioning executive Joe Oppenheimer. In an on-stage conversation, Powder Room producer Damian Jones and director MJ Delaney explained their low-budget film was heading into its opening weekend with all investment already recouped. Jones was principal producer and also financier on the $286,000 (£175,000) Powder Room through the BFI’s Locked Box producer equity scheme (which gave him funds after The Iron Lady’s success). When Universal took world rights at Cannes, that mini-

A panel on convergence discussed the huge amount of creative potential in the multi-platform arena, but Film4.0 head Anna Higgs said content creators had to be savvy. “Thinking about them all as the same pipe to put the same content is dangerous,” she explained of multiple platforms. The panel also underlined the huge potential of the games industry. Dr Jo Twist, CEO of games trade body UKIE, spoke of a lack of understanding of games “as interactive systems of content” and pointed to the fact that the global value of the games industry has been forecast to reach $87bn in 2017. “There is a tremendous creative opportunity here,” Twist said of the film and game worlds coming together more. Jamie Carmichael, president of Content Media Corp, pointed to the success of its adaptation of the Halo video game, and also to its current project based on the Street Fighter franchise, which is being licensed in both traditional ways and digitally. “When you have a brand there is a built-in audience,” explained Carmichael. Looking 10 years into the future, Steele predicted cinema would continue to flourish as “people love the experience and watching a film with others will still be special”. He also predicted that wide-release films will continue to retain a theatrical window as “many consumers are unaware and not hostile to the gap between release and home entertainment”. However, he said that most narrow release films would go s day-and-date with VoD. n

December 6, 2013 Screen International 5 n

Dubai goes back to its roots The Dubai International Film Festival (Dec 6-14) is celebrating its 10th anniversary by shining a spotlight on Arab cinema. Liz Shackleton reports

t is now official that the young, ambitious film festivals in the Gulf region are not quite so young any more. The oldest among them, the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), is turning 10 this year. Since its first edition in 2004, a new Arab cinema has begun to emerge and make its presence felt at an international level, a transformation that has partly been made possible by festivals such as DIFF. The festival has introduced many new initiatives and partnerships to celebrate its 10th anniversary — including the launch of the Cinematic Innovation Summit (CIC), a planned annual conference to discuss the impact of technology on the film industry, and a tie-up with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) — both of which highlight DIFF’s links with Hollywood and the wider global film industry. But the anniversary will also be an opportunity for DIFF to celebrate and take stock of the current state of filmmaking in the Arab world. “We’ve made the conscious decision that the best way to celebrate is to go back to our roots and push something that we’ve always been behind, which is Arab cinema,” says DIFF chairman Abdulhamid Juma, who has been with the festival since 2004. “Our celebration this year is really focusing on Arab filmmakers and Arab cinema, while continuing the work we do in Dubai Film Market, and bringing in good international films along with stars.” The Arab focus is reflected on several fronts. DIFF is opening with Hany Abu-Assad’s Omar — the first time an Arab film has opened the festival since Abu-Assad’s Paradise Now kicked off proceedings in 2005. The festival has also compiled a list of the best 100 Arab films of all time, following a survey among 475 leading critics, writers and

n 6 Screen International December 6, 2013

‘We hope in the past 10 years we have proved to ourselves and to film-makers how much we respect Arab cinema’ Abdulhamid Juma, DIFF

academics, and published the results in a book, Cinema Of Passion, which also analyses the history of Arab cinema. Egyptian director Chadi Abdel Salem’s The Mummy (1969) tops the list and will screen at the close of DIFF. In addition, leading Egyptian critic Samir Farid will receive one of DIFF’s lifetime achievement awards. Arab cinema is also celebrated across the wider programme. DIFF is screening a total of 174 features, documentaries and shorts, of which more than 100 are from the Arab world. In addition to the Muhr Arab competition (see sidebar), the festival will host two red-carpet gala screenings for Arab films — the world premiere of Mohamed Khan’s Factory Girl and Laila Marrakchi’s Rock The Casbah, which premiered at Toronto. DIFF also has more world premieres this year — 70 compared with 49 in 2012 — most of which are for Arabiclanguage films.

Women in focus

Clockwise from top left: Cate Blanchett, who will return to the IWC jury, at last year’s event; Stray Dogs; Ilo Ilo; Factory Girl; Rock The Casbah

“We’re also seeing the largest number of women film-makers presenting their films at DIFF — about 40% of the filmmakers in the Arab programme are women, which is great to see,” says DIFF managing director Shivani Pandya. “We’ve also seen an increase in world premieres because many people have kept their films for us. They realise that with the combination of press, industry and market, we’ve become a leading destination for Arab films.” But the Arab focus will not be taking attention away from international cinema and stars. Two red-carpet screenings will be held each day to celebrate DIFF’s 10th edition — in addition to the Arab films, galas also include Disney animation Frozen and 3D adventure Walking With Dinosaurs, along with acclaimed titles such as Labor Day, 12

Years A Slave, Fruitvale Station, Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom and Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox. David O Russell’s American Hustle will close the festival. Talents expected to walk the red carpet include Martin Sheen, who will also receive a lifetime achievement award; Cate Blanchett, who returns to Dubai for the second year to head the jury of the IWC Filmmaker Award; and Rooney Mara and Mark Ruffalo, who will attend the annual Oxfam and Dubai Cares charity event. Elsewhere in the programme, the Muhr AsiaAfrica competition will screen films that have been taking the festival circuit by storm, such as Anthony Chen’s Ilo Ilo and Tsai Mingliang’s Stray Dogs, along with world premieres such as Mostofa S Farooki’s Ant Story (see sidebar). The Cinemas of the World line-up includes films such as Asghar Farhadi’s The Past, Clio

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DUBAI FESTIVAL FOCUS

MUHR COMPETITION HEATS UP At the heart of DIFF’s programming are its three competition sections: Muhr Arab, Muhr AsiaAfrica and Muhr Emirati. The Muhr Arab and Muhr AsiaAfrica sections are further divided into features, documentaries and shorts, while Muhr Emirati will showcase 15 films across all formats. This year, a record 90 films will compete for more than $575,000 in prize money. Jim Sheridan is heading the Muhr Arab Feature competition jury, while veteran Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah leads the jury for Muhr Arab Documentary. The jury for the three categories of short films — Arab, AsiaAfrica and Emirati — will be headed by Tunisian film-maker Nouri Bouzid. This year’s Muhr Arab Feature line-up includes several titles from Morocco and two omnibus films — Void and The Mice Room. The Muhr Arab Documentary line-up includes Mais Darwazeh’s poetic documentary My Love Awaits Me By The Sea and Yemeni film-maker Sara Ishaq’s The Mulberry House. DIFF chairman Abdulhamid Juma points to the current strength of Arab documentary: “We’re seeing more professionalism in the delivery of these films and in terms of form and subject matter they’re really pushing into new areas.”

Muhr Arab Features

Barnard’s The Selfish Giant, Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty and Jonathan Teplitzky’s The Railway Man. Underpinning all this activity are DIFF’s strong industry programmes under the banner of the Dubai Film Market, which have directly contributed to the development of Arab cinema over the past 10 years (see page 8). This year’s Film Forum includes two sessions in association with AMPAS: Beyond The Oscars, providing an overview of AMPAS activities, and An Academy Conversation on Directing with Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth) and Ava DuVernay (Middle Of Nowhere). “We’re also working on a programme where we will eventually be taking films from the Arab world and, with the assistance of AMPAS, screening them in the US,” says Pandya. Co-organised with Seattle-based Center for New Cinema and France’s Naseba, the CIC (December 5-6)

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features speakers such as Pixar cofounder Alvy Ray Smith, Lava Bear Films CEO David Linde and actors Andy Serkis and Stephen Lang. Held at the Atlantis, Palm Jumeirah, the event features interactive demonstrations of new technology in addition to panels and networking sessions. Looking back over the festival’s past 10 years, Juma says it is achieving its goals of balancing glamour and industry initiatives with support for regional filmmakers: “We’ve been talking for a very long time about our sincerity and the way we feel about Arab cinema. We hope that in the past 10 years we’ve proved to ourselves and to film-makers how much we respect this cinema, and look forward to seeing it s flourish.” ■

Adios Carmen Dir: Mohamed Amin Benamraoui (Mor-Bel-UAE) Challat Of Tunis Dir: Kaouther Ben Hania (Tun-Fr-Can-UAE) Factory Girl Dir: Mohamed Khan (Egypt-UAE) Ladder To Damascus Dir: Mohamed Malas (Syria-Leb-Qatar) May In The Summer Dir: Cherien Dabis (Jord-Qat-US) Omar Dir: Hany Abu-Assad (Pal-UAE) The Mice Room Dirs: Nermeen Salem, Mohamed Zedan, Mohamad El-Hadidi, Mayye Zayed, Hend Bakr, Ahmed Magdy Morsy (Egypt-UAE) Palestine Stereo Dir: Rashid Masharawi (Pal-UAE-Nor-Fr-TunIt-Switz) Pillow Secrets Dir: Jillali Ferhati (Mor-Qatar) The Proof Dir: Amor Hakkar (Alg-Fr-UAE) Rock The Casbah Dir: Laila Marrakchi (Fr-Mor) Sotto Voce Dir: Kamal Kamal (Mor-UAE) Stable Unstable Dir: Mahmoud Hojeij (Leb-Qatar) They Are the Dogs Dir: Hicham Lasri (Mor) Void Dirs: Tarek Korkomaz, Zeina Makki, Jad Beyrouthy, Christelle Ighniades, Salim Haber, Maria Abdel Karim, Naji Bechara (Leb)

Muhr AsiaAfrica Features Ant Story Dir: Mostofa S Farooki (Bang) Durban Poison Dir: Andrew Worsdale (S Afr) Fish And Cat Dir: Shahram Mokri (Iran) Grigris Dir: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Fr-Chad) Ilo Ilo Dir: Anthony Chen (Sing) The Lunchbox Dir: Ritesh Batra (India-Fr-Ger) Stray Dogs Dir: Tsai Ming-liang (Fr-Tai) Thou Gild’st The Even Onur Unlu (Tur) Thuy Kim Jae-han (S Kor) Under The Starry Sky Dyana Gaye (Fr-Sen)

Left: Omar

December 6, 2013 Screen International 7 ■

festival focus dubai

Walls And People previously took part in Dubai Film Connection

Fishing for talent Dubai Film Market is expanding with an increase in exhibitors and the introduction of the Dubai Docs initiative. Liz Shackleton reports

hile the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) showcases completed Arab films, the accompanying Dubai Film Market (DFM) has been responsible for getting many of these titles into production in the first place. This year’s DIFF programme includes three films that previously took part in DFM’s projects market, Dubai Film Connection: Mohamed Khan’s Factory Girl, Abdenour Zahzah’s The River and Dalila Ennadre’s Walls And People. Three of the region’s foreignlanguage Oscar submissions — Lebanon’s Blind Intersections, Wadjda from Saudi Arabia and Palestine’s Omar, which is opening DIFF — were supported by DFM initiatives. DFM supports films through several different programmes: co-production markets Dubai Film Connection and Interchange, the IWC Filmmaker Award, post-production and production fund Enjaaz and trading platform Filmmart. This year the market has also launched new initiative Dubai Docs, which aims to raise awareness of creative, as opposed to journalistic, documentary film-making in the Arab world. “Creative documentaries is one of the areas that is most difficult to get funded both in the region and internationally so the idea is to get feedback from interna-

n 8 Screen International December 6, 2013

‘We have a mix of established and new filmmakers, which is what we want’ Jane Williams, Dubai Film Connection

tional experts on what film-makers need to do to get funding and get their projects made,” says Jane Williams, director of Dubai Film Connection and Film Forum. DFM is working with five partners on Dubai Docs’ three-day training and talent development programme (December 10-12): the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), DOCmed, Screen Institute Beirut, Germany’s Robert Bosch Foundation and Denmark’s CPH:DOX Lab. Seven project teams will receive training in pitching while a larger group will be given insights into how commis-

DUBAI FILM CONNECTION LINE-UP FICTION A Reverence For Spiders Dir: Faiza Ambah (S Arab) Bastard Dir: Uda Benyamina (Mor) Chedda Dir: Damien Ounouri (Alg) Gaza, DC Dir: Rashid Masharawi (Pal) God Protect My Daughter Dir: Leyla Bouzid (Tun) Heatwave Dir: Joyce A Nashawati (Leb) Kharouf Dir: Ahmed Ibrahim (Egypt) Trees Also Die Dir: Rabih El-Amine (Leb)

Until The End Of Time Dir: Yasmine Chouikh (Alg) Men In The Sun Dir: Mahdi Fleifel (Pal) The Flag Dir: Firas Khoury (Pal)

DOCUMENTARY Dangerous Profiles Dir: Mark Lotfy (Egypt) Even To China Dirs: Yanis Koussim, Mohamed Hireche (Alg) Illusion Dir: Bavi Yassin (Iraq) The Forgotten Dir: Ghada Terawi (Pal) The True Story Behind Me Dir: Maryam S Jum’a (Jor)

sioning editors work. The event will also introduce international professionals to creative documentary film-making in the Arab world. Dubai Film Connection (DFC) has selected 16 features and documentaries to present to potential investors, sales agents and co-producers (see sidebar). “We received a lot of submissions from Algeria this year, which is a new development,” says Williams. “We also received projects from young talent attached to short films in the DIFF line-up. So we have a mix of established and new filmmakers, which is what we want.” DFM’s Filmmart is also set for further expansion this year with the number of exhibition booths increasing from eight to 30. Exhibitors include regional players Dubai Film and Television Commission, Abu Dhabi’s twofour54, Doha Film Institute and Jordan’s Royal Film Commission, along with a French pavilion organised by Unifrance, the Ile de France Film Commission and broadcaster TV5. Filmmart’s digital video library Cinetech will screen titles from the DIFF and Gulf Film Festival line-ups, along with films from DFM-registered sales agents and exhibitors. Cinetech will also screen 10 titles from DFM partners the Venice Film Festival, Cannes Market’s Doc Corner and the Biarritz Latin American film festival. The market expects around 1,700 buyers, sellers and producers; similar to last year. “We’ve had more requests from international professionals, but Ventana Sur has postponed its dates [December 3-6], which makes it a bit more difficult for some buyers to attend,” says DFM international business manager Pascal Diot. DFM is also providing a platform for distribution network MEDIS, pulling together around 20 distributors from across the Arab world. Spearheaded by the EU’s Euromed Audiovisual Programme, MEDIS was launched at DFM last year and will hold a general assembly at this year’s market on December 11. Euromed will also hold a panel on tackling piracy during DFM’s Film Forum. The seven-day seminar and networking programme (December 7-13) also includes sessions with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Art Dubai and Sharjah Art Foundation, along with regional and international s industry players. n

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Festival focus Les Arcs

Love Is The Perfect Crime

Mountain high

France’s Les Arcs (Dec 14-21) combines screenings and skiing and has a growing industry profile. Michael Rosser previews the fifth edition

s festivals look to distinguish themselves in a crowded market, the Les Arcs European Film Festival is surely the only film event to offer screenings in an igloo — a new addition 2,200 metres up in the mountains and accessible only by skis or bobsleigh. The festival returns for its fifth edition from December 14-21 with its now well established blend of screenings and skiing in the French Alps. Also being introduced for the first time is an honorary award supporting women directors. The inaugural Femme du Cinema prize will go to Jasmila Zbanic, the Bosnian director of For Those Who Can Tell No Tales. Such additions are important for a festival that cannot rely on high-profile world premieres due to its timing in the festival calendar. Instead, Les Arcs focuses on showcasing independent European cinema in a similar way to how Sundance champions US indie fare. Artistic director Frédéric Boyer has ensured that around 70% of the line-up will be French premieres and many of the titles will begin their European push fresh from Toronto. The event’s Parisbased co-founders Pierre-Emmanuel Fleurantin and Guillaume Calop, who both hail from Les Arcs, are anticipating the festival’s biggest year to date. Fleurantin, who runs production outfit Paprika Films, says: “This year’s competition selection is one of the strongest.

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Les Arcs’ opening ceremony in 2012

‘It is a real balance of the diverse offering that can be found across Europe’ Pierre-Emmanuel Fleurantin, Les Arcs

It is a real balance of the diverse offering that can be found across Europe.” The 12 titles competing for the Crystal Arrow include Arnaud and JeanMarie Larrieu’s French thriller Love Is The Perfect Crime, which also opens the festival; Hungary’s foreign-language Oscar submission The Notebook by Janos Szasz; and Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida, which has already collected prizes at Toronto and London. On the industry side, Fleurantin highlights the fact that submissions for the Arc 1950 Co-Production Village were up from 160 last year to 250 for the 2013 selection, of which just 28 were cherrypicked by Les Arcs head of industry Vanja Kaludjercic, who also heads up Paris Project. They include new projects from Ireland’s Ian Fitzgibbon and Iceland’s Runar Runarsson among others. “As each year passes, sales agents are

increasingly realising that Les Arcs is a wonderful place to promote their films,” says Fleurantin. The Work In Progress section is also a hot draw each year, with this year’s offerings including Liebling directed by Steve Aernouts, Ellen Schoenaerts and Bert Haelvoet and produced by Bullhead’s Bart Van Langendonck; Paris Of The North directed by Either Way’s Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson; and Russian director Vuk Rsumovic’s No One’s Child. In another sign of the event’s growing stature, a number of key players in European sales and production have already signed up to attend, including Indie Sales chief Nicolas Eschbach, Arte Cinema’s Remi Burah, SND’s Lionel Uzan, HanWay’s Fabien Westerhoff, Protagonist Pictures’ Mike Goodridge and Fox International Production’s Anna Kokourina. “We have invited American and Canadian distributors,” says Fleurantin. “We want to open the market to non-European professionals, such as Fox International Production, so they can find good European films to finance.” For the first time, the festival is providing a screening room at the heart of the village where sellers and producers can hold private screenings of their new films. It will also house a digital video library. This year’s country focus will be on the cinema of the former Yugoslavia. There will be special industry events tied to the region as well as a programme of films. Screen is set to moderate a session that includes award-winning directors Danis Tanovic (An Episode In The Life Of An Iron Picker), Srdan Golubovic (Circles) and Zbanic. Other festival sidebars include the Panorama section, aimed at European films that have scored box-office success but have yet to secure a French distributor. As in previous years, Les Arcs will host the DIRE days (December 17-21) organised by the independent French distributors network, during which each of the members will screen an upcoming release to exhibitors and discuss the challenges behind releasing European films in France. Outside of the screening rooms and industry events, executives will take to the slopes for the skiing competition. Asked about his festival goals, Fleurantin jokes: “Defeating Remi Burah for the s European Cinema Ski Cup.” n

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Inside_Screen IntAd_2013_FullPage:Layout 1 29/11/2013 13:16 Page 1

The National Film and Television School would like to congratulate the following 22 participants on their successful completion of the film business programme Inside Pictures 2013

Jakob Abrahamsson, Director of Distribution and Acquisitions, NonStop Entertainment Jeremy Baxter, Head of Acquisitions, Protagonist Pictures Katherine Bridle, Head of Production & Development, See-Saw Films Mark Byrne, Head of Business Affairs, Element Pictures Peter De Maegd, Producer & Founder, Potemkino Kate Gardiner, Head of Fox Searchlight UK, Twentieth Century Fox Andy Green, Chief Operating Officer & Founder, Distrify Limited Beatrice Gulino, Head of Acquisitions, Academy Two Sophie Hedegaard Frandsen, Head of New Business, TrustNordisk Jacob Jarek, Producer, Profile Pictures Aet Laigu, Producer, Meteoriit Film Llc

Sune Lind Thomsen, Head of Theatrical Distribution & Release, SF Film A/S Wayne Marc Godfrey, Managing Director, The Fyzz Facility Aranka Matits, Head of Acquisitions, Pretty Pictures Camille McCurry, Agent, United Agents Theresa Roberts, Head of Publicity, Entertainment One Pedro Uriol, Producer, Morena Films Raymond van der Kaaij, Producer & Founder, Revolver Amsterdam Felix Vossen, Producer, Embargo Films Saskia Wagner, Acquisitions & Production, Prokino Filmverleih GmbH John Wallace, Producer, Black Sheep Productions Sean Wheelan, CEO, Filmgate

On behalf of the participants, we would like to sincerely thank all the speakers, the interview panel, the projects supervisors and other key contributors for so generously giving their time and expertise: John Attanasio, VP Global Product Marketing, Warner Bros Entertainment Jeff Bader, President, Program Planning, Strategy & Research, NBC Entertainment John Bates, Adjunct Professor of Strategic and International Management and Entrepreneurship, London Business School Zal Batmanglij, Director Tobias Bauckhage, CEO, Moviepilot Wolfgang Behr, Producer & Shareholder, Neue Bioskop Rob Bell, SVP International New Media, NBCUniversal Tim Bevan, Co-Chairman, Working Title Films Nicholas Bogner, Manager Producer, Affirmative Entertainment Kieran Breen, Executive Vice President, International Marketing, 20th Century Fox LIz Brion, Head of Media Tax, Grant Thornton Skip Brittenham, Senior Partner, Ziffren Brittenham LLP Kaaren Brook, Facilitator & Coach, Let's Grow Paul Brooks, President, Gold Circle Films Laurence Brown, Solicitor Alan Brunswick, Partner, Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP Kate Bulkley, Journalist / Writer / Presenter / Analyst Joannie Burstein, President, The Burstein Company Katherine Butler, Deputy Head of Film, Film4 Sally Caplan, Independent Film Consultant Peter Carlton, Head of Warp Films, Warp Films Ian Christie, Board Member, Europa Cinemas Leon Clarence, CEO, Motion Picture Capital Howard Cohen, Co-President, Roadside Attractions Christine Corner, Partner, Media & Entertainment Group, Grant Thornton Andrew Cripps, President Europe, Middle East and Africa, IMAX Corporation Eddie Cunningham, President, Universal Pictures International Entertainment Audrey Darmon, International Business Development VP, STUDIOCANAL Chris Dennis, Manager, Underground Films Ben Donovan, Co Founder and President, Maker Studios Stuart Ford, CEO, IM Global Peter Gerard, CEO, Distrify Gudrun Giddings, Producer Alex Goldstone, Manager Producer, Anonymous Content Steve Golin, CEO, Anonymous Content Paul Grindley, Business Affairs, Pulse Films Mike Gubbins, Analyst Karen Hermelin, EVP Marketing Research and Strategy, Paramount Pim Hermeling, CEO, Wild Bunch Benelux Distribution Billy Hinshelwood, Lawyer Janet Hirshenson, Casting Director, The Casting Company Vince Holden, Project Finance Director, Icon Group UK Samantha Horley, Managing Director, The Salt Company Jimmy Horowitz, President, Universal Pictures

Luisa Huang, Director Digital Development & Analysis, Warner Bros Entertainment Jane Jenkins, Casting Director, The Casting Company Eleonora Jonusiene, Director Global Consumer Insights & Research, Warner Bros Entertainment Rebecca Kearey, Executive Vice President, International Marketing & Distribution, Fox Searchlight James Kearney, Agent, United Talent Agency Duncan Kenworthy, Independent Producer, Toledo Productions Cindy Kirven, COO, Endgame Entertainment Steve Knibbs, Chief Operating Officer, Vue Entertainment Michael Kuhn, Chairman, Qwerty Films Daniel Levine, Senior VP Sales Strategy & Development, NBCUniversal Ian Lewis, Director of Sky Movies, BskyB Andrew Lowe, Company Director, Element Pictures Julie Lynn, Producer, Mockingbird Pictures Ivan MacTaggart, Partner, Trademark Films Cameron McCracken, Managing Director, PathĂŠ UK Bill Mechanic, President and CEO, Pandemonium Films Kelly Merryman, VP of Content Acquisition, Netflix Christos Michaels, Partner, Lee and Thompson Film Group Benjamina Mirnick-Voges, Head of Acquisition and Co-Production, Universum Film GmbH Bob Moczydlowsky, formerly SVP Product & Marketing, Topspin Charles Moore, Partner, Wiggin LLP Susanne Mueller, Executive Director Feature Films, ZDF German Television Al Munteanu, President, SquareOne Allan Niblo, Co-founder, Vertigo Films Lucas Ochoa, Head of Film, Pulse Films Joe Oppenheimer, Commissioning Executive, BBC Films Andrew Orr, Managing Director, Independent Film Company Jan Pace, Head of Production and Sales, Quickfire Films Jordan Park Peed, SVP International Creative Advertising, Paramount Sir Alan Parker CBE, Director / Writer / Producer Steve Peace, SVP International Media, Paramount Dr Andreas Pense, Partner, Unverzagt von Have Richard Philipps, Partner, Reed Smith LLP Anthony Platt, TMT Associate Director, Grant Thornton James Richardson, Co-Founder, Vertigo Films Malcolm Ritchie, Co-Managing Director, Qwerty Films Josephine Rose, Head of Packaging, Wiggin LLP Marion Rosenberg, Manager / Producer, Marion Rosenberg Office Andrew Runyon, VP International Interactive Marketing, Paramount Aaron Ryder, President of Production, FilmNation Entertainment Philip Rymer, Partner, Lewis Silkin Jamie Schwartz, President, International Marketing, The Weinstein Company

Andrea Segre, Director Deborah Sheppard, Film Marketing Consultant and Producer James Shirras, Joint Managing Director, Film Finances Ltd Nico Simon, CEO, Utopia S.A Steve Siskind, EVP Worldwide Marketing/Advertising, Paramount Bec Smith, Agent, United Talent Agency David Solomon, Managing Director, Sun and Moon Training Rosalie Swedlin, Literary Manager, Producer, Anonymous Content Jessica Tuchinsky, Producer, Watermark Pictures Ryan Victor, Senior VP Business & Legal, NBC Universal Bonnie Voland, Head of International Marketing and Publicity, IM Global Robert Walak, President / MD, TWC Europe Nigel Walley, Managing Director, Decipher Media Research Sofie Wanting Hassing, Producer & Consultant, Wanting Film & Media Geoff Webb, CFO and Executive Director, Content Media Krista Wegener, SVP International Distribution, Miramax Chris Williams, Chief Development Officer, Maker Studios Mark Woolley, Finance & Commercial Director, Ecosse Films Dragoslav Zachariev, Secretary-General, EuroVoD Amotz Zakai, Literary Manager, Echo Lake Management Jeremy Zimmer, CEO & Founding Partner, United Talent Agency

Inside Pictures is grateful to the following organisations for providing programme scholarships: the Film Distributors Association, Ingenious Media and the Irish Film Board. We would also like to thank The British Film Commission, the British Consul-General in LA, DDA Public Relations, Grant Thornton LLP, Lee & Thompson LLP, Twentieth Century Fox Film Company Ltd and Wiggin LLP.

Nik Powell, Director, NFTS Jill Tandy, Executive Producer, Inside Pictures Julia Short, Programme Director, Content, Inside Pictures Corinne Ranaraja, Programme Director, Operations, Inside Pictures

NFTS AND QWERTY FILMS PRESENTS INSIDE PICTURES 2014 WILL OPEN FOR APPLICATIONS ON 6TH FEBRUARY. CHECK WEBSITE TO APPLY www.inside-pictures.com

PRODUCING FILM EXECUTIVES S U P P O R T E D B Y T H E M E D I A P R O G R A M M E A N D C R E AT I V E S K I L L S E T

Creative Skillsetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Film Skills Fund is funded by the National Lottery via the BFI, as well as directly by industry through the Skills Investment Fund (SIF)

The Woman In Black: Angel Of Death

The British invasion Exclusive Media’s Tobin Armbrust and Simon Oakes tell Wendy Mitchell about plans to extend production strategy in the UK, making non-genre fare in addition to the company’s output through Hammer Films

fter spooking big audiences with scary hits such as The Woman In Black via its Hammer Films label, Exclusive Media is now ready to show a softer side in the UK. Exclusive recently announced plans to produce and fully finance comedy Daylight Robbery, which reunites the Calendar Girls team of director Nigel Cole and writer Tim Firth, and tells the story of a group of feisty retirees who plan a bank heist to help a friend. Tobin Armbrust, president of worldwide production and acquisitions at Exclusive Media, explains that this project marks a widened production remit for the company. “After we had done Ides Of March, End Of Watch and Rush, the next part of our production strategy was to build our

n 12 Screen International December 6, 2013

‘The UK offers us an opportunity for a creative agenda’ Tobin Armbrust, Exclusive Media

activities on non-genre films in the UK,” he says. “It’s not something we woke up one day and decided to do, it’s a natural offshoot of our production activities here. We’ve made The Quiet Ones, Rush, and The Woman In Black here, and we think that’s a good basis for UK production experience. We’re now actively developing eight film projects in the UK and dealing with the writers and film-makers already,” he says, adding that he has been travelling to the UK more frequently from his base in Los Angeles.

One-stop shop Exclusive can offer the same thing it does in the US, which is a one-stop shop for finance, production and sales (via the company’s international sales arm

led by Alex Walton). “We want people to know that beyond Hammer we are a one-stop shop for production in the UK. That’s a rarity,” Armbrust says. “We’re not owned by a studio, we’re not someone you come to and have to piece together your financing.” Exclusive would, however, be open also to partnering with other funders and companies on specific titles. Budgets for the company’s non-genre features are likely to be $3m at the low end of the scale and up to $50m-plus for the right commercial project. All of Exclusive’s productions so far, in the US or overseas, have been backed by equity investment combined with pre-sales and tax rebates. Working in the UK means the company can keep taking advantage of the stable UK tax

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Exclusive media INTERVIEW

credit. London-based Simon Oakes, vice-chairman of Exclusive Media Group and president & CEO of Hammer, says: “I think [the UK tax credit] is important to every producer and it should be applauded and maintained. Raising 80% of financing for film is the easy bit, it’s the final 20% that’s tougher. And that’s your tax credit. It’s a massive boon to the industry.” Yet the move into more British productions is not just about the money, Armbrust reiterates. “The UK offers us an opportunity not to see something here for a business agenda, but for a creative agenda. It’s a strong marketplace — the small comedies travel, the romantic comedies travel, whether it’s The Full Monty or The King’s Speech, these films travel.” The UK is also famed for its talent, both on screen and behind the camera, and Exclusive already has close ties to some writers, directors and producers through its past feature films as well as through new UK TV work being spearheaded by Oakes. “The best way for us to work is to find a few trusted partners and keep going back to them,” he says of collaborators like producer James Gay-Rees, who worked on Hammer’s The Quiet Ones and is on board for Daylight Robbery. Meanwhile, Hammer will continue with its genre focus. The company’s

Can A Song Save Your Life?

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‘The UK tax credit is important to every producer and it should be applauded and maintained’ Simon Oakes, Exclusive Media

most recent shoot was for John Pogue’s supernatural thriller The Quiet Ones, which Lionsgate will release in the US and UK in 2014. Tom Harper’s The Woman In Black: Angel Of Death is now shooting with Exclusive co-financing alongside eOne, and Hammer producing with Talisman. The follow-up to the 2012 hit returns to Eel Marsh House four decades after the last film’s story ended, as a group of children are evacuated from Blitz-era London to the manor. The cast features Phoebe Fox, Jeremy Irvine, Helen McCrory and Oaklee Pendergast. EOne will release in the UK in February 2015 and it has rights for Spain and Canada. Exclusive’s US production team has been busy with the likes of Parkland, Toronto hit Can A Song Save Your Life?, A Walk Among The Tombstones starring Liam Neeson, and Gillian Flynn adaptation Dark Places, starring Charlize Theron. There are plans afoot for Exclusive to move into Asian production, with the company working alongside China’s Talent International on Skiptrace, starring Jackie Chan.

An empowering story Of Daylight Robbery, which will likely shoot in the first half of 2014 on the south coast of England on a budget of less than $10m, Armbrust says the film won’t just be a cheap attempt to cash in

on the rising grey pound at the UK box office. “The idea immediately captured our attention. This concept of people feeling disenfranchised, it felt real but very timely; this idea that they were the forgotten generation,” he says. “It turned out to be a really warm, realistic and inviting script. It’s very cast-able and nuanced.” Oakes adds: “Since [the success of ] The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel you could end up making something patronising… [but] this is an empowering movie. It’s also showing the benefits of community.” Oakes says the film is akin to something like the modestly budgeted Toronto hit Can A Song Save Your Life?, which Exclusive backed and sold. He says: “There is a great model for what you can do: you make a great film at a level that attracts a cast based on the quality of script and director. The general strategy is to make films that don’t have to have that US pre-sale.” The British production slate will then include “different kinds of films”, Armbrust notes. “There are a couple that we are reformatting for the UK. We’ve hired UK talent to come in and set them here. There is a film community in the UK that provides a level of accessibility; it’s a close-knit community and the walls are down — you can access the talent a lot quicker, you can get answers a s lot quicker.” n

The Quiet Ones

December 6, 2013 Screen International 13 n

AWARDS COUNTDOWN New York critics Hustle

BIFAs honour Julie Walters

The New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) honoured American Hustle with three awards: best picture, screenplay for Eric Singer and David O Russell, and supporting actress for Jennifer Lawrence. In other lead categories, Robert Redford was named best actor for All Is Lost and Cate Blanchett best actress for Blue Jasmine. Steve McQueen won best director for 12 Years A Slave. Ryan Coogler won best first film for Fruitvale Station. Jared Leto triumphed in the supporting actor category for Dallas Buyers Club and Sarah Polley won for non-fiction with Stories We Tell. In other prizes, Bruno Delbonnel won best cinematography for Inside Llewyn Davis, The Wind Rises won best animated film, and Blue Is The Warmest Colour won for foreignlanguage film. Documentary vet-

Julie Walters will receive The Richard Harris Award at the Moet British Independent Film Awards on December 8.

Oscars set doc shortlist The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the 15 films in the documentary feature category that will advance in the voting process for the 86th Oscars. One hundred and forty-seven films qualified in the category. The 15 films, in alphabetical order by title, are: The Act Of Killing; The Armstrong Lie; Blackfish; The Crash Reel; Cutie And The Boxer; Dirty Wars; First Cousin Once Removed; God Loves Uganda; Life According To Sam; Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer; The Square; Stories We Tell; Tim’s Vermeer; 20 Feet From Stardom; and Which Way Is The Front Line From Here? The Life And Time Of Tim Hetherington. The Academy’s documentary branch selected the shortlist in a preliminary round of voting. The next task is to choose five nominees to be announced on January 16.

Grandmaster leads APFF

American Hustle

eran Frederick Wiseman won a special award. Members voted on the awards on December 3 at the Film Society at Lincoln Center. Prizes will be handed out during the annual ceremony on January 6 at The Edison Ballroom.

“I’m happy with the work we’ve done today,” said 2013 NYFCC chairman, Time Out New York’s Joshua Rothkopf. “The complexion of our group guarantees some surprises, but we vote from our hearts. It was a strong year for American movies.”

The Coens take Gotham The Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis was named best film at the 23rd annual Gotham Awards on December 2 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York. In a solid recognition of independent talent, Matthew McConaughey reinforced his awards season credentials with the best actor win for Dallas Buyers Club. Brie Larson prevailed over Cate Blanchett to win the best actress award for her acclaimed turn in Short Term 12. Fruitvale Station claimed two prizes with the Bingham Ray B re a kthrough Director award for Ryan Coogler and Break-

■ 14 Screen International December 6, 2013

through Actor honours for Michael B Jordan. Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act Of Killing scooped the best documentary prize. In the audience award Tadashi Nakamura’s Jake Shimabukuro: Life On Four Strings emerged victorious, while Gita Pullapilly’s Beneath The Harvest Sky won the Euphoria CK Spotlight On Women Filmmakers Live The Dream Grant. Forest Whitaker received a tribute, as did the late James Gandolfini, Before Midnight director Richard Linklater and NYC film commissioner Katherine Oliver. Inside Llewyn Davis

Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster has scored the highest number of nominations for the upcoming Asia Pacific Film Festival (APFF) awards to be held in Macau from December 13-15. The Grandmaster scooped nine nominations, followed by Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer with seven, and Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox with six. Tsai Ming-liang’s Stray Dogs and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Like Father, Like Son have five apiece, and Anthony Chen’s Ilo Ilo has four.

Capri awards Sorrentino Paolo Sorrentino will receive the Capri, Hollywood – International Film Festival’s International Visionary Movie Award while David O Russell will collect the Master Of Cinematic Art Award. Capri runs in Italy from December 27 to January 2.

Loach lands Golden Bear Director Ken Loach is to receive the Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival in February.

Gatsby tops AACTA noms Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby and Kim Mordaunt’s The Rocket lead the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Award (AACTA) nominations: 14 and 12 respectively.

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FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY

THE ACT OF KILLING

BLACKFISH

MUSCLE SHOALS

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DIRECTED BY GABRIELA COWPERTHWAITE

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AWARDS COUNTDOWN ROGER DEAKINS

Into the gloom Acclaimed cinematographer Roger Deakins talks to Jeremy Kay about creating a brooding, wet atmosphere for Prisoners

Roger Deakins (right) on the Atlanta set of Prisoners with director Denis Villeneuve

â&#x2013; 16 Screen International December 6, 2013

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oger Deakins relishes the challenge of extracting a story’s essence from different palettes. Whereas James Bond’s twists and turns in 2012 smash Skyfall were punctuated by vivid splashes and sharp contrasts, the murky moral maze of Prisoners unravels across a more subdued canvas. “The hardest thing was that we were shooting in Atlanta, which wasn’t known for being wet,” says Deakins of his assignment on Alcon Entertainment’s child-abduction thriller. “We were very lucky — Atlanta had the wettest winter for many years. “Denis [Villeneuve, director] was very insistent on that look. On Skyfall we wanted grey light when we were filming in London but we didn’t get it and you’re stuck with the weather you get. But on Prisoners, it was important for a film with that kind of brooding atmosphere.” Most of the action settles into a gloomy milieu that is suitably oppressive given the dark subject matter, yet Prisoners is never allowed to become uniform or uninteresting. There are visual flourishes and the widely respected cinematographer conjured up several sequences that play out like fever dreams. In one example, Jake Gyllenhaal’s Detective Loki drives desperately across town to convey precious cargo to the nearest hospital. Every burst of incandescence around the car’s night-time exterior was carefully staged and the

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effects of weather were controlled as much as was humanly possible. “That was really hard because we knew what we wanted,” says Deakins. “It wasn’t a very big budget and we searched forever to find the right streets and we only had one night and half a night outside the hospital. “We had nozzles mounted to the front of the car to create rain on the windshield but we couldn’t put rain over such a large area of that whole drive. We wet the streets down. All the snow was CG because there was no way we could create snow over such a vast area.” The vigil encounter where Loki espies a suspicious character also stands out. “[That was a] tricky scene because we had the chase through the back of the houses. We had maybe two nights to shoot and you wanted it to feel realistic. “We used streetlights, candles and lights in the houses. We put them in every night scene… to get that feeling of Christmas lights. We had double-wick candles and some 250w halogens and dimmed them down to boost the light level so I could shoot without artificial lights. I wanted everything to feel as if it was coming from the candles.” Villeneuve has described working with Deakins as like returning to film school and said their time together on Prisoners was “the most beautiful cinematic experience of my life”. For his part the British cinematographer enjoyed

‘It was a very sensitive film to keep on track. It could have become over the top and Gothic’ Roger Deakins, cinematographer

the process and had been looking forward to it for some time. “[Denis] is such a lovely man. We had a great time. He was nominated for the Oscar for Incendies and I was asked to introduce Denis, whom I didn’t know, but I’d seen the film and was glad to do it. “We really got on and I really liked the film [Incendies] and asked my agent to see what he was going to do and if he was going to do a film in the US. When we heard he was going to do Prisoners, I put my name forward and that was it.” The overall result pleased Deakins. “In general for a film like that it isn’t an individual scene that sticks out for me. It’s about keeping control of the picture from start to finish and that includes effects. “Everything has to fit together, otherwise the audience is too easily taken out of a story like that. It was a very sensitive film to keep on track. It could have become over the top and Gothic.” At 64, the veteran has been nominated for 10 Oscars and is renowned throughout the industry as the best cinematographer to not yet win an Academy Award. But he will not get in a lather about that or the current season. Speaking from Australia, where at time of writing he was shooting Angelina Jolie’s wartime survival story Unbroken, Deakins says he is happy Prisoners has found its audience and critical acclaim. “Let’s hope there are s more like it.” n

December 6, 2013 Screen International 17 n

F O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R AT I O N OFFICIAL BELGIUM ENTRY FOR THE 86TH ACADEMY AWARDS

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

“A BRILLIANT HEARTBREAKER ... a cross between Walk the Line and Blue Valentine.” –

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“A SURE-FIRE, TEAR-JERKING, AUDIENCE PLEASER ... wears its heart resolutely on its sleeve, blending love, friendship, grief and drama with some romping and rousing bluegrass tunes.” –

M A R K A DA M S , S C R E E N I N T E R NAT I O NA L

“IMPECCABLY PERFORMED...

the closing minutes mark the strongest instance of a climactic music sequence since All That Jazz.” –

WINNER

PANORAMA AUDIENCE AWARD

BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL 2013

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AWARDS COUNTDOWN BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN

The Broken Circle Breakdown: Veerle Baetens and Johan Heldenbergh as Elise and Didier

Full circle Belgian drama The Broken Circle Breakdown was a major European breakout in 2013. Writerdirector Felix Van Groeningen tells Wendy Mitchell about making the unusual love story

luegrass songs, tattoo parlours, a dying child. It doesn’t necessarily sound like an easy recipe for success. But Felix Van Groeningen’s The Broken Circle Breakdown has proved itself to be one of the best European films of the year. It is nominated for five European Film Awards this weekend, and is Belgium’s entry for the foreign-language Oscar (and thought to be a strong contender for the shortlist, if not a nomination). The film premiered to strong reviews and won the Panorama Audience Award in Berlin and went on to win best actress and best screenplay in Tribeca (it was released in the US by Tribeca Film on November 1, while StudioCanal has UK rights). “There is something going on with

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this movie,” Van Groeningen says of the film’s effect on audiences. “On the one hand, it feels very real to people, inevitably [illness] is part of life. And on the other hand, the characters are exotic in a way — how they fully go for life, in combination with the music. Those things make the movie very special. The effect that it has on people is that it opens them up.” The film, sold by The Match Factory, marks Van Groeningen’s fourth feature, after The Misfortunates (2009), which was selected for Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes; With Friends Like These (2007); and Steve & Sky (2004). Like Broken Circle, they have all been produced by Dirk Impens of Menuet. The project started its life as a play by Johan Heldenbergh and Mieke

‘I saw the play and was blown away, but it took a long time to decide to make a movie about it’ Felix Van Groeningen, film-maker

Dobbels, about Elise and Didier, two musicians who have a passionate life together until their daughter Maybelle is diagnosed with cancer. “I saw the play and then I started talking to Johan about it,” Van Groeningen remembers. “I was completely blown away, but it took a long time for me to decide to make a movie about it, it wasn’t obvious. The material was interesting, but how was I going to do it?” He adapted the play with Carl Joos, saying that actor-writer Heldenbergh knew he was “too close to it” to work on the script. The play’s structure sees the characters telling the audience about what has happened in their lives, interwoven with music. In the film, things are slightly more complex — with the structure shifting through time. “We »

December 6, 2013 Screen International 19 ■

AWARDS COUNTDOWN BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN

started playing with structure in the script,” Van Groeningen says. By the time they got to the seven-month-long edit, they pushed the time-shifting even further. “We showed it to an audience and they weren’t confused at all, and that really excited us.”

Creating chemistry The electric performances and chemistry between lead actors Veerle Baetens and Heldenbergh are central to the film’s power. Heldenbergh had co-written and starred in the play and was eager to be in the film: “I didn’t have to convince him, he was eager to do it,” Van Groeningen says. As for Baetens, the director feared she might be too well known in Belgium to take on the role, but her first audition convinced him to cast her. “It was incredible what she did. She added a really dark side and a strength to this character,” he says. “She scared me a little bit and she scared Johan during the audition. She took it to a very dark place.” The actors hadn’t worked together previously, but they got to know each other during six months of music rehearsals prior to the film being shot (they sang to pre-recorded tracks during the shoot). And they had another month before the shoot to rehearse and improvise with Van Groeningen.

■ 20 Screen International December 6, 2013

‘Veerle added a really dark side and a strength to this character. She scared me a little bit’ Felix Van Groeningen, film-maker

“The chemistry was there all the time when we were shooting,” Van Groeningen says. “They were like a couple.” As Elise is a tattoo parlour owner, Baetens was subjected to spending four to five hours a day in a make-up chair to get her tattoos applied. “It must have been exhausting, but for an actress it’s a great thing to be able to do,” the director says. “Even when you are naked you have a costume.” The atmosphere on set was focused and “heavy” he says, because of the emotional scenes. But the cast and crew bonded like a family. “The farm where

Elise and Didier live was a nice location. While we were shooting there, every night the producer would light a campfire and a lot of people would hang out and Johan would play music and talk. It was warm and cosy.” Van Groeningen has more music ahead: in late 2014 he plans to shoot his next script about two Belgian brothers who open a bar, which becomes the hippest spot in town, but they grow apart. “It will be with a lot of music, again. Everything but bluegrass music. I’m really looking forward to it — it’s a s lot of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.” ■

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TIME IS monÂŁy

In our ever-changing industry, ongoing training is vital to your career. But taking time off work costs money, which is why Creative Skillset offers funding for training to support professionals from all backgrounds across the UK.

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Film and TV professionals can apply for up to ÂŁ800 towards training in areas including camera, sound, hair and make-up, production management and health and safety. Funding is also available for organisations to run training in areas including digital exhibition and audience development.

Find out more and apply at www.creativeskillset.org/funding @SkillsetSSC

26/11/2013 14:06

AWARDS COUNTDOWN SAVING MR BANKS

Director John Lee Hancock, Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson on the set of Saving Mr Banks

â&#x2013; 22 Screen International December 6, 2013

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There’s something about Mary Saving Mr Banks tells the inside story of how Walt Disney persuaded reluctant author PL Travers to let him film Mary Poppins. Sarah Cooper speaks to the film-makers about a project which, like the story, spanned Australia, the UK and Hollywood

ack in 1965, Disney’s iconic musical Mary Poppins won five Oscars including best actress for Julie Andrews and best original score. Half a century later and the studio is back with the behind-the-scenes story — specifically, the reluctance of author PL Travers to hand over the rights to her beloved Mary Poppins books to Walt Disney — which is now generating its own Oscar buzz. “There are a lot of strange symmetries,” says Sean Bailey, president, Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production, not least that the film’s own behindthe-scenes progression — from Australia, to the UK and into the hands of Disney — mirrors that of its protagonist. Like Travers, Saving Mr Banks began life in Australia in the form of a documentary, The Shadow Of Mary Poppins. This was produced by Ian Collie, who went on to commission Australian writer Sue Smith to write a dramatic feature version. Smith’s script found its way onto the desk of UK producer Alison Owen in 2010. “I read it and liked it, but it was much more of a biopic,” says Ruby Films’ managing director Owen, who nevertheless spotted the potential for a project centred around PL Travers’ wranglings with Walt Disney. “The good news was I could see a great story trying to get out, the bad news was that story would be full of Disney intellectual copyright. We couldn’t go to Disney until we had a great script, but we couldn’t go somewhere else to set it up, because everyone would say you would only be able to do it with Disney,” explains Owen.

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Nevertheless, she managed to persuade BBC Films to put up some development funding for the project. BBC Films head Christine Langan, who has backed previous Ruby projects including Jane Eyre and Tamara Drewe, says: “I agreed that Pamela Travers was a fascinating figure and that there was definitely a story in there, but it was definitely a high-stakes game. It had to be a very focused bit of development.”

Drawing Disney Owen had been looking for a project to entice British writer Kelly Marcel, a 2010 Screen International Star Of Tomorrow who, despite having no film credits, had impressed Owen with her writing samples. “She had a brilliant range, and I could see that she could walk the walk,” says Owen of Marcel, who wrote a new script based on Smith’s in three months in a shed at the bottom of her garden in London, surrounded by old photos of Travers and Disney. “I started off doing some pretty heavy research and was fascinated at every turn,” says Marcel, who has since become one of the most sought after writers in Hollywood, her latest work being the initial draft of the anticipated screen adaptation of Fifty Shades Of Grey. With limited funds there was no room for a long development process, but Marcel rose to the challenge. “It was probably the best first draft I’ve ever read of anything,” says Owen, who began sending the script out to agents to whet their appetites and attract some early heat before attempting to present the proposal to Disney. In 2011 the script made it onto the

‘It was definitely a high-stakes game. It had to be a very focused bit of development’ Christine Langan, BBC Films

‘If this had come in as a pitch, I don’t think we would ever have gone there’ Sean Bailey, Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production

Black List — a list of the hottest unmade scripts doing the rounds in Hollywood — and it was around this time that Disney got wind of the project. “A vice-president here, Tendo Nagenda, called me at home in the fall of 2011,” says Bailey. “He said he had just read the screenplay and that I needed to read it tonight, not only because it was very good but because one of its protagonists was Walt Disney.” A script that delved into the workings of the Disney machine was a risky enough proposition for the studio, but that Walt Disney himself had never been portrayed before in a dramatic feature upped the stakes even further. “Occasionally it had come up and we had always dismissed the idea,” explains Bailey, who sat down with his team to look at the repercussions of deciding to either back the project or not. “We talked through every possibility, and what could happen with the script out there in the world, and ultimately landed on the idea that we should go for it. But only if we could get elements that spoke to the calibre we believed the piece to be,” says Bailey, admitting that it was down to the quality of Marcel’s screenplay that they even considered the project. “If this had come in as a pitch, I don’t think we would ever have gone there.” One of those essential elements for Disney was director John Lee Hancock, who had already worked with the studio on The Rookie and The Alamo and who wrote and directed the 2009 film The Blind Side, for which Sandra Bullock won the best actress Oscar. “I had the script sitting on my desk, »

December 6, 2013 Screen International 23 ■

AWARDS COUNTDOWN SAVING MR BANKS

I knew it was highly regarded, and I knew it was supposedly about the making of Mary Poppins, which as much as I liked, wasn’t on my top 10 list. But when I opened the script and read it I was enchanted by it and I thought ‘Wow, I have to do this’,” says Hancock. The director was chosen, Owen says, because he “has the ability to move people and make them laugh without making them feel too manipulated”.

An English sensibility When it came to finding, in Owen’s words, “someone as English as a cup of tea” to play PL Travers, there was one name that came up from the beginning. “My very first meeting with Alison and the Disney execs, I said I had Emma Thompson in mind, and everybody in the room smiled,” says Hancock, whose first task after securing the directing gig was to take a plane to New Orleans to meet Thompson. “We had a lovely dinner together, and we talked about PL and then she was on board.” Meanwhile for Walt, Owen felt it was important to secure “an icon to play an icon. You can’t get any more white picket fence and apple pie than Tom [Hanks]. He really sums up those American values.” “It was one of those rare movies, and this will never happen again, where I got my first choice for every single person,” adds Hancock of the cast which also includes Colin Farrell and Ruth Wilson as young Travers’ parents, Paul Giamatti as PL’s driver Ralph, Bradley Whitford as Disney scriptwriter Don DaGradi and Jason Schwartzman and BJ Novak as Disney songwriting brothers Bob and Richard Sherman. Being able to tap into the memories of the real Richard Sherman — who was a regular visitor to the set, not to mention the instigator of several singalong sessions during the film’s publicity tour — proved to be “the most incredible secret weapon in the world”, says Marcel, who also had access to the tapes from the rehearsal room where Travers thrashed out the script with DaGradi and the Shermans. “Pretty much everything that happened in the rehearsal room in the film really happened, although I haven’t written it word for word. Her childhood is also what really happened, but much more imagined,” says Marcel, who had a light bulb moment after reading a book

■ 24 Screen International December 6, 2013

Emma Thompson, producer Alison Owen and Tom Hanks

had the same father in very different ways. The minute that speech went into the script then I knew it was a film.”

Setting the scene

Emma Thompson and screenwriter Kelly Marcel

‘Pretty much everything that happened in the rehearsal room in the film really happened’ Kelly Marcel, screenwriter

revealing Walt Disney’s relationship with his own disciplinarian father, which, in the film, is what finally convinces Travers to hand over her film rights after a 20-year battle. “I didn’t find that out until really late into the writing process,” Marcel continues. “I had kept hitting this wall at the end of the script, thinking why does she give him the rights? And then I picked up this book, which was like the 16th I had read, and it was gold. Because they

Shooting took place for 11 weeks in 2012 in Los Angeles — largely at the Disney Studios in Burbank and in Simi Valley, which doubles for Allora, Australia and appears via a series of flashbacks as Travers revisits a traumatic time during her childhood with her alcoholic father, whom she adored. Owen had been determined to shoot those scenes in Australia, but a trip out there to cast a young PL Travers — played by Australian newcomer Annie Buckley — revealed that most of the old architecture had not been preserved. “When we came back [to Los Angeles] we realised that the rolling sheep country hills of Simi Valley [just outside Los Angeles] looked a lot like the rolling sheep country hills of Allora, plus Simi Valley gave us 360-degree views without any anachronisms,” says Hancock. However, Owen was insistent that the exterior shots of Travers’ London home should be shot in London, at her actual Chelsea home. “I didn’t want to do it on a backlot, because it would have looked a bit chocolate boxy. You can’t make a movie about a woman who didn’t want

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Saving Mr Banks

her book Disney-fied and then do a movie about her life and Disney-fy it.” While the film moves seamlessly between 1961 Los Angeles and 1906 rural Australia on screen, in reality it was “actually like doing two movies”, says Owen. “It was two completely different places and casts, there was no interception at all. The only time the full cast met each other was at the readthrough and at the wrap party.” Meanwhile when it came to capturing Los Angeles in the 1960s, it was about choosing meticulously what went into each frame. “If you were to pan an inch right you would get a 1990s building,” Hancock explains. The shoot at Disneyland was overseen by producer Phil Steuer, Hancock’s producer on The Rookie and, says Owen, it was “like an army manoeuvre”. “We had people working through the night so we were ready to turn over as soon as the sun rose and take advantage of all the light before they opened Disneyland. Once the gates were open and the crowds came in, we had Main Street cordoned off down the centre, so people could only walk down

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one side. We had to be minute perfect on everything,” adds Owen, who also describes it as “the most fantastically exciting day of filming I’ve ever done”. Saving Mr Banks shot on a budget of $35m, which by Disney standards is small, but the buzz surrounding the project meant the team was able to attract top behind-the-scenes talent in the form of DoP John Schwartzman, production designer Michael Corenblith and costume designer Daniel Orlandi, all of whom had collaborated with Hancock before. “Everybody who came on board the movie worked for a lot less than their usual rate because t h e y wa n t e d t o b e involved in it. We were getting A-plus talent for D-minus prices, which adds a lot to the look,” says the director. Following its world premiere as the closing film for the BFI London Film Festival, Saving Mr Banks has already opened in the Annie Buckley plays the young PL Travers

‘When I opened the script and read it I was enchanted by it and I thought, “Wow, I have to do this”’ John Lee Hancock, director

UK (on November 29) and opens wide in the US on December 20. “I’m just hoping that both audiences and critics will respond to the material and laugh and cry as we have in the making of it,” says Owen. “It’s about fathers and daughters, and the art of storytelling and the culture clash between American and English values.” “Pamela is flying the flag for Britain in terms of her adventures in Hollywood. We have a great depth of creative talent in the UK and that relationship and collaboration with the US is endlessly fascinating,” adds Langan, who in her role as executive producer managed to negotiate with Disney to secure the UK TV rights to the film for the BBC. Given its subject matter, it is not surprising that the film has an extra special resonance for the Disney team too. “To see those scenes getting shot and to be reminded of the legacy of the place, and the great talents that have come here before, it is absolutely a special thing,” says Bailey. In recent years movies that use the creative process as a backdrop — notably The Artist and Argo — have fared particularly well at the Oscars and Saving Mr Banks is considered to be a serious contender for best original screenplay, and best actress for Thompson. “Obviously it would be lovely, but the thing that I love to do has already been done,” says Marcel who admits that, having been through the entire process, she can relate to Travers’ reluctance to hand over Mary Poppins. “It’s a weird experience to go from having something that just belongs to you, to sharing it with a whole bunch of people and trusting that they are going to do what’s right with it. I can only imagine how difficult that was for her.” It is on record that PL Travers cried when she saw Mary Poppins on the screen for the first time. Whether it was because it moved her, or because she disapproved of the animated penguins we don’t know, but publicly she maintained that she was unhappy with the end result. So would she have approved of Saving Mr Banks? Says Marcel: “Publicly I think she would have gone out there and said, ‘utterly ridiculous, dreadful, none of it ever happened’. Privately, it would have tickled her that there was a movie about her life. I think she would s have absolutely loved it.” ■

December 6, 2013 Screen International 25 ■

Nikki Csanyi-Wills

AWARDS COUNTDOWN BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM AWARDS

The BIFAs recognise the work of the independent film sector

Independent’s day The Moet British Independent Film Awards celebrate the diverse output of the UK film industry, and provide a significant platform for films and film-makers. By Ian Sandwell

rom growing up on the estates of Bradford to police corruption in Edinburgh via the streets of Paris and Manila, the nominees for this year’s Moet British Independent Film Awards (BIFAs) are as eclectic as ever, highlighting the sheer range of independent films and talent coming out of the UK. Set up by Elliot Grove 16 years ago to champion this vibrant sector, the BIFAs have become one of the most noteworthy events on the British film calendar, in part because of the breadth of work they celebrate — and the surprises that can therefore occur come awards night. In 2010, for example, Gareth Edwards won best director for Monsters over Tom Hooper for The King’s Speech, while last year Toby Jones picked up the best actor prize for Berberian Sound Studio over the likes of Tim Roth and Terence Stamp. The BIFAs can give independent films a meaningful platform, both within the industry and for audiences. Berberian Sound Studio producer Mary Burke of Warp Films says that the film’s four BIFA wins “really helped us in terms of visibility in the industry, and a lot of people were talking about it”.

■ 26 Screen International December 6, 2013

‘The BIFA nominations are another endorsement of the quality and commerciality of the film’ Ken Marshall, Steel Mill Pictures

(Right) Filth has five BIFA nominations

Burke also produced Paul Wright’s For Those In Peril, which is nominated this year, as well as Bunny And The Bull, which beat Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus to the Achievement in Production prize in 2009. “It seems that the jury selects the best films of the year, so you get a sense that it’s about audiences rather than who is friends with who,” she continues. “It’s pretty exciting. It’s like a challenge.” This year’s ceremony takes place on December 8 at Old Billingsgate in London, with BIFA patron James Nesbitt back to host. Nominations were announced on November 11 by Ewan McGregor. David Mackenzie’s hard-hitting prison drama Starred Up leads the field with eight nominations (see box, right), closely followed by Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant with seven. Jon S Baird’s Filth, Sean Ellis’s Metro Manila — the UK’s submission for the foreign-language Oscar — and Roger Michell’s Le Week-End each have five nominations.

Director Penny Woolcock is the chair of this year’s jury, which votes on the winners after the BIFA pre-selection committee decides on nominations from a longlist. The jury also includes former Screen Star of Tomorrow MyAnna Buring, Bart Layton (who won best debut director last year for The Imposter, which was also winner of the best documentary award) and actor Art Malik. Artificial Eye leads the distributor pack with 14 nominations and Jon Rushton, head of publicity for Artificial Eye parent company Curzon, says BIFA recognition adds to the “must-see” factor of its films. “For The Selfish Giant, it adds further kudos on top of the excellent reviews the film received on release,” he says. “As was the case with Fish Tank, awards attention can also lead to an overperformance on DVD and further revenue streams.” Steel Mill Pictures’ Ken Marshall, the lead producer of Filth, says that the BIFA recognition is “icing on the cake”. “The BIFA nominations are another endorsement of the quality and commerciality of the film. That will inevitably filter down not only to the general public, but to the global film industry as well.” The Best British Independent Film category intriguingly sees Stephen Frears’ heavyweight Philomena going up against Metro Manila, The Selfish Giant, Starred Up and Le Week-End. Notable omissions from the nominees include box-office hits Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa and Sunshine On Leith, both of which were eligible under BIFA guidelines that state films must have been either released by November 30 this year, or have been shown at a British film festival. Films must qualify as British, but the talent need not be.

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Starred Up

For Those In Peril

BIFA co-directors Tessa Collinson and Johanna von Fischer acknowledge that response has generally been positive to this year’s nominations, but that BIFA is never “going to get it 100% right for everybody,” von Fischer says. “Sadly when films are polarising, it can mean it won’t get through because where one person would definitely vote, another definitely wouldn’t,” she explains. “That’s why we say to our preselection committee to not vote for a film unless they believe it deserves a nomination. At least then there’s a feeling of passion in everything that gets there.” Collinson has nothing but praise for BIFA’s pre-selection committee of 70 experts, who watched more than 200 films for this year’s nominations. “They’re so on it and demanding to watch films and are responding to them. The support... has been great.”

New trophy A big change for the 2013 awards is the introduction of a new signature trophy designed by Fredrikson Stallard and created by Swarovski. “It’s something the industry and our members have been pushing for and we’ve finally got it,” explains Collinson. “It’s a huge commitment from Swarovski and to us, so that is pretty special.” This year, there was also a longer period — three weeks — between longlisting and the nominations. “Every year we sit down with our advisory committee and we try to tighten things a bit,” says von Fischer. “There are a few things we looked at and thought we could tweak, and we’ll continue to do so.”

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The BIFA ceremony comes before the first round of Bafta voting, so do the codirectors believe BIFA wins could add films to the Bafta agenda? “People are definitely looking at BIFA,” Collinson says. “It’s very clearly defined with Bafta. We’ve grown into an area and it has grown into a more international area, and the two complement each other.” Von Fischer concurs: “If Bafta wasn’t doing what it’s doing, we couldn’t do what we do.” From a distributor’s viewpoint, Curzon’s Rushton feels the BIFAs have developed into an “increasingly important part” of the UK industry. “BIFA has made its awards fun, credible and valuable to the film industry. They can also highlight excellence that can be missed by the generally older and more conservative Bafta voters, such as with Berberian Sound Studio. In fairness to Bafta, it has countered that this year by having an extra nomination for the Outstanding British Film based on a jury vote.” Yet it is not just the films like Berberian Sound Studio that feel the benefits of BIFA recognition. It boosts the production companies behind them too. “As producers, it means a lot to us that we have a place to celebrate the hard work we’ve done, and be recognised by our peers,” notes Warp Films’ Burke. “We’re trying to build a legacy, and getting that recognition year after year from BIFA is something that cements that legacy within the industry.” It is a sentiment echoed by Steel Mill Pictures’ Marshall. “It sends out the message that we develop and produce films that are ambitious and of a high standard. In turn, it should give more confidence to potential commercial partners. In an increasingly competitive landscape, BIFA recognition can only be beneficial.” Along with showcasing the best of UK independent film, BIFA’s co-directors point to the night bringing together newcomers and established names as a defining strength of BIFA. “There’s no segregation at BIFA,” Collinson says. “There’s no VIP area. If you’ve made a good film or delivered a good performance, you have a right to be there whether you’re known or not.” Von Fischer adds: “It represents what we both enjoy. The new guys walking up the red carpet with the people that s they’ve admired and been inspired by.” ■

MOET BIFA NOMINEES 2013 BEST BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM

Rupert Friend, Starred Up Jeff Goldblum, Le Week-End Eddie Marsan, Filth Ben Mendelsohn, Starred Up

Metro Manila Philomena The Selfish Giant Starred Up Le Week-End

MOST PROMISING NEWCOMER

BEST DIRECTOR Jon S Baird, Filth Clio Barnard, The Selfish Giant Sean Ellis, Metro Manila Jonathan Glazer, Under The Skin David Mackenzie, Starred Up

THE DOUGLAS HICKOX AWARD FOR BEST DEBUT DIRECTOR Charlie Cattrall, Titus Tina Gharavi, I Am Nasrine Jeremy Lovering, In Fear Omid Nooshin, Last Passenger Paul Wright, For Those In Peril

BEST SCREENPLAY

Harley Bird, How I Live Now Conner Chapman & Shaun Thomas, The Selfish Giant Caity Lotz, The Machine Jake Macapagal, Metro Manila Chloe Pirrie, Shell

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN PRODUCTION A Field In England Filth Metro Manila The Selfish Giant Starred Up

BEST TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT

Jonathan Asser, Starred Up Clio Barnard, The Selfish Giant Steven Knight, Locke Hanif Kureishi, Le Week-End Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope, Philomena

Shaheen Baig, casting, Starred Up Johnnie Burn, sound design, Under The Skin Amy Hubbard, casting, The Selfish Giant Mica Levi, music, Under The Skin Justine Wright, editing, Locke

BEST ACTRESS

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Judi Dench, Philomena Lindsay Duncan, Le Week-End Scarlett Johansson, Under The Skin Felicity Jones, The Invisible Woman Saoirse Ronan, How I Live Now

BEST ACTOR Jim Broadbent, Le Week-End Steve Coogan, Philomena Tom Hardy, Locke Jack O’Connell, Starred Up James McAvoy, Filth

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Siobhan Finneran, The Selfish Giant Shirley Henderson, Filth Imogen Poots, The Look Of Love Kristin Scott Thomas, The Invisible Woman Mia Wasikowska, The Double

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR John Arcilla, Metro Manila

Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer The Great Hip Hop Hoax The Moo Man The Spirit Of ’45 The Stone Roses: Made Of Stone

BEST BRITISH SHORT L’Assenza Dr Easy Dylan’s Room Jonah Z1

BEST INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM Blue Is The Warmest Colour Blue Jasmine Frances Ha The Great Beauty Wadjda

THE RAINDANCE AWARD Everyone’s Going To Die The Machine The Patrol Sleeping Dogs Titus

Right: the new BIFA trophy

December 6, 2013 Screen International 27 ■

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

idfa Reviews in brief Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case

Dir: Andreas Johnsen. Den. 2013. 85mins The strange, tense and at times harrowing life of Chinese artist and provocateur Ai Weiwei as he served out time under house arrest is powerfully and at times movingly presented in Andreas Johnsen’s absorbing documentary. As film crews and journalists ask Weiwei constantly for statements he has to stop them at his door since he is banned from talking. But when the door closes Johnsen is behind the scenes to record his bizarre life. Mark Adams

CONTACT DR INTERNATIONAL SALES drsales@dr.dk

Song From the Forest

Dir/scr: Michael Obert. Ger. 2013. 96mins An immersive delight that follows globetrotting American musicologist Louis Sarno as he tracks down soon-to-be-lost musical traditions, Song From The Forest — an award winner at documentary festival IDFA and a strong buzz title among buyers — has the style and tone of a film that can crack theatrical distribution as well as being a must for other film festivals. Debut director German journalist/author Michael Obert veers between the mean streets of New York and the lush rainforests of Africa as Sarno sets about his absorbing work. Mark Adams

CONTACT DECKERT DISTRIBuTION info@deckert-distribution.com

My Name Is Salt

Dir: Farida Pacha. Ind-Switz. 2013. 92mins My Name Is Salt starts as a mystery before transforming into an absorbing story of one family and their tussle with nature. Year after year, thousands of families move to a desert in India and work for eight months to produce salt until the monsoon returns. The film follows one family as they dig up the equipment they bury each year and begin the laborious task of working the salt fields. The film is highly watchable as it allows the characters to grow and develop. Mark Adams

CONTACT LEAFBIRD FILMS www.leafbirdfilms.com

n 28 Screen International December 6, 2013

Powder Room Dir: MJ Delaney. UK. 2013. 86mins

A smart and savvy comedy about the notion of sisterhood, set largely in a London nightclub’s women’s toilet, the pacy and enjoyably racy Powder Room is a low-budget delight, brimming with terrific performances (especially from lead Sheridan Smith) and scintillating dialogue. The film might lack the starry cast and high production values that might see it break out internationally, but it is a genuinely well-made new British film (from first-time feature director MJ Delaney) that wears its heart on its sleeve and should be acclaimed for offering up such a thoughtful and amusing look at how contemporary young women talk and act. And while it is about women (and offers up some great female roles) men should also pay attention. Adapted by playwright Rachel Hirons from her play When Women Wee, the story essentially offers a snapshot of the unedited, uninhibited and unconcerned conversations and attitudes of a variety of women as they enter the sanctuary of the women’s toilets. Down-on-her-luck Sam (Smith) is determined to make an effort on her Friday night out, despite the fact she has lost her job, lacks confidence and has still not gotten over being dumped by boyfriend Sean. She joins an old friend, Michelle

(Kate Nash), now a fashion blogger living in Paris, who is in London with her best pal Jess (Oona Chaplin). Sam’s sense of inadequacy is fuelled by these two women’s tales of fashion, parties and men and to impress them she starts to invent stories about her life. The arrival at the club of her old — and rather different — friends Chanel (Jaime Winstone), Saskia (Sarah Hoare) and Paige (Riann Steele) sees her trying to juggle conversations and keep the two groups of women apart. Things gradually spiral out of control and Sam is forced to take a good, hard look at herself and work out what — and who — is important to her. The talented Sheridan Smith manages that rare balance of making the rather self-destructive Sam both vulnerable and feisty, and while Sam’s decision-making is somewhat dubious her journey through the evening is one of important selfdiscovery. Smith’s innate charm, warmth, twinkle-eyed humour and intelligence shines through and her character is the beating heart that holds the film together. Mark Adams

CONTACT VERTIGO FILMS www.vertigofilms.com

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Awards countdown

Jason Statham delivers the punches and Sylvester Stallone the script in this 1980s-style actioner

Highlights of Doha’s inaugural youth film event reviewed in brief

The people and the events on the awards circuit this week — in pictures

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Reviews in brief Black Nativity

Dir/scr: Kasi Lemmons. US. 2013. 93mins Refreshingly light on Christmas schmaltz, writer-director Kasi Lemmons’ Black Nativity reinvents Langston Hughes’ 1960s play of the same title as an engaging contemporary musical drama. This classy holiday season offering should connect with upmarket black and religious audiences, though crossover success might be a challenge for worldwide distributor Fox Searchlight. Having characters break into song during naturalistic drama can be tricky, but Lemmons pulls off the transitions and finds inventive ways to stage elaborate song sequences. John Hazelton

CONTACT FOX SEARCHLIGHT

The Seventh Code

Oldboy

Dir: Spike Lee. US. 2013. 103mins The most fascinating element of the US remake of Park Chan-wook’s revenge thriller Oldboy is the person who directed it. Working outside his comfort zone — to intriguing but ultimately disappointing effect — film-maker Spike Lee has crafted a movie far pulpier and more nihilistic than he has ever attempted before. There are considerable pleasures in watching Lee work in B-movie mode, but his remake’s determined darkness doesn’t add up to much. Those familiar with Park’s 2003 original, which was itself based on a Japanese manga, will recognise the set up. Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin) is a drunken, boorish salesman who in October 1993 is being chastised by his ex-wife for forgetting his three year-old daughter Mia’s birthday. But a boozy night out goes terribly wrong when Joe wakes up in a mysterious hotel room, the doors sealed shut, the phone missing and the windows non-existent. Joe struggles to understand why he is being held, and by whom. After 20 years of this agony — heightened by news reports that he has been accused of his exwife’s brutal murder — Joe awakens in a chest in the middle of a grassy field. Confused but happy for his freedom, he searches for clues to explain the meaning of his abduction and to prove his

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innocence. Soon, Joe comes into contact with the nameless mastermind (Sharlto Copley) behind his imprisonment, who tells him that he has Joe’s now-adult daughter Mia (Elvy Yost) held captive. The man explains to Joe that he will release Mia if he can uncover the answer to two questions: what is the nameless mastermind’s name? And why did he lock up Joe in the first place? Working from a script by Mark Protosevich, the director embraces his characters’ bitter, scarred hearts, going for a remorseless neo-noir tone ruthless in its execution. The original Oldboy was both praised and condemned for its stylish hyper-violence, and Lee doesn’t skimp on the bloodshed, even cheekily paying homage to some of Park’s most outrageous moments. But if Park’s film could be faulted for its lack of insights into the depravity possible within the human soul, Lee’s remake suffers even more in that regard, despite one hell of a third-act twist taken from the original. This Oldboy proves Lee could make a demented, jet-black thriller if he so desired. But that didn’t mean he had to make one whose dark delights are so superficial. Tim Grierson

CONTACT FILMDISTRICT

Dir/scr: Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Jap. 2013. 60mins At first glance, The Seventh Code, which stars Atsuko Maeda, looks like a travelogue thrown together in a hurry to advertise the city of Vladivostok; it will be a letdown for the admirers of Japan’s master of mystery and suspense. At best to be taken as a kind of fairy tale, which might explain the arbitrary meanders of the plot, it has been occasionally advertised as Kurosawa’s first action movie, a gross exaggeration as there is only one sequence in the entire film to justify it. Dan Fainaru

CONTACT KING RECORDS akiko-uchida@kingrecords.co.jp

The Mole Song — Undercover Agent Reiji

Dir: Takashi Miike. Jap. 2013. 120mins With over 90 films to his credit, Takashi Miike may be slowing down at the ripe old age of 53, but his predilection for outrageously violent campy films inspired by manga remains intact. Based on the 35-volume manga hit by Noboru Takahashi, The Mole Song —Undercover Agent Reiji is a comically absurd story about an incompetent cop fired from the police only to become a mole and infiltrate a yakuza gang. Dan Fainaru

CONTACT PONY CANYON www.ponycanyon.co.jp

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December 6, 2013 Screen International 29 n

7-10 April 2014 Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France

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Reviews

AJYAL reviews in brief A Shout From Within

Dir: Jan Xavier Pacie. Qatar. 2013. 93mins An engaging insight into the young Filipino community living in Doha, Jan Xavier Pacie’s A Shout From Within is a fascinating film for young people shot at the Philippine School in Doha, written and performed by young students from the school. That it rarely indulges in simple background shots of the city makes it even more engaging — it is just an everyday tale of students at a school. The themes of the stories are all treated with equal dramatic focus with the various strands nicely tied together. Mark Adams

CONTACT RENDERFARM GRAPHICS www.renderfarmtown.com

Wajma (An Afghan Love Story)

Homefront

Dir: Gary Fleder. US. 2013. 100mins The timing would seem right, coming on the heels of the conclusion of zeitgeist-tapping US television hit Breaking Bad, for a movie in which a selfsacrificing hero walks tall into a small town and takes steps to take down the meth trade. Alas, the punishingly witless action flick Homefront is more like a movie from the 1980s than these times. Starring in a script from Expendables mate Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham delivers all the expected scowls and growls, but there is no originality, nuance or even dumb-fun catharsis to recommend this inept exercise in punch-’em-up justice. Statham stars as Phil Broker, an undercover DEA agent by way of Interpol who is working to bring down a Louisiana biker gang peddling meth when things go sideways. Flash forward a couple of years, to when retired single dad Broker’s 10-year-old daughter Maddy (Izabela Vidovic) has a schoolyard altercation with a bullying classmate. The offending kid’s junkie mother, Cassie (Kate Bosworth), takes exception and leans on her meth-cooking brother Gator (James Franco) to try to intimidate the small town newcomer. When Gator finds out about Broker’s past, however, he sees an opportunity. Hoping to ingratiate himself with those who can expand his little drug empire, Gator taps his carnal acquaint-

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ance Sheryl (Winona Ryder) to offer up Broker’s location and identity to the imprisoned gangster whose son was killed in the aforementioned undercover sting gone wrong. The crime boss’s emissary, Cyrus (Frank Grillo), turns out to be even more of a psychopath than Gator. Homefront is adapted from one of a series of novels by Chuck Logan featuring Broker, and there is the core of a layered study of modern-day rural rot here but any subtext is sacrificed at the altar of lowest-common-denominator stupidity. Stallone’s screenplay, full of empty, puffed-up talk of “backwoods reckoning”, plays like a dumbjock, steroidal riff on Walking Tall, or a cousin of 1989 cult classic Road House, minus any of the latter’s fun or sense of self-awareness. Franco delivers a suitable amount of scumminess, but nothing on par with his indelible turn in Spring Breakers from earlier in the year. Ryder and especially Bosworth flesh out their distasteful characters to the extent allowed by the script. Statham, meanwhile, skates through this material, his glowering charisma set on autopilot. Brent Simon

CONTACT MILLENNIUM FILMS www.millenniumfilms.com

Dir/scr: Barmak Akram. Afg-Fr. 2013. 86mins A stark, but ultimately gripping story of a young Afghan woman whose life is turned upside down when she becomes pregnant when not married, Barmak Akram’s impressive drama is an easy fit into the film festival circuit. The film may well be a bleak examination of how honour must be upheld, but the shooting style also offers great insight into how young people in modern-day Afghanistan live. The first part of the film is the most intriguing — and appears to offer an honest and open view of life for young people in the country — though it acts as a prelude to the more predictably melodramatic moments to come. Mark Adams

CONTACT DOC & FILM INTERNATIONAL www.docandfilm.com

On The Way To School

Dir: Pascal Plisson. Fr-Mex. 2013. 100mins The beautifully shot documentary On The Way To School (Sur Le Chemin De L’Ecole) is a touching and at times powerfully simple story of the obstacles various groups of children have to overcome to make their way to school. From the Kenyan wilderness and the hills of Patagonia, through to the Atlas Mountains and the Bay of Bengal, director Pascal Plisson follows the often arduous and at times amusing journeys these youngsters have to undertake in the name of education. The message is simple: don’t forget how lucky you are to get to school. Mark Adams

CONTACT WILD BUNCH www.wildbunch.biz

December 6, 2013 Screen International 31 n

awards countdown

Getty Images for IFP

The people and the events on the awards circuit this week

Inside Llewyn Davis star Oscar Isaac (centre) at the 23rd annual Gotham Awards, held at Cipriani Wall Street in New York on December 2, where the film won best feature. Other winners included Matthew McConaughey, best actor for Dallas Buyers Club and Brie Larson (right), best actress for Short Term 12. Before Midnight director Richard Linklater (pictured left with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) was among those receiving tributes on the night.

BAFTA/James Guan

The Wolf Of Wall Street director Martin Scorsese (centre) leads the jury, which also includes Patricia Clarkson (left) and Golshifteh Farahani (right), at the 13th Marrakech International Film Festival, which runs until December 7.

Saving Mr Banks drew spirited crowds for its UK launch. (Top) Nannies-in-training at the famed Bath-based Norland College were treated to a screening of the film as they unveiled their new student uniforms. (Bottom) Fans gathered for a singalong in Leicester Square, the same spot where Mary Poppins opened almost 50 years ago.

n 32 Screen International December 6, 2013

Bafta held its first events in Hong Kong starting December 1, including a special award to 106-year-old Run Run Shaw. His great nephew Darren Shaw is pictured with actor Eddie Redmayne.

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