Screen April 2014

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Issue 1774 April 2014

Mexico’s talent

in the spotlight ■ Tribeca preview ■ Jeremy Thomas ■ UK agents roundtable

We don’t just shoW oscar Winning films

We make them too academy award wins: Best Film Best Supporting Actress - lupita nyong’o Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay - john ridley Bafta wins: Best Film Best Actor - chiwetel ejiofor

congratulations to all those involved in the aWard Winning 12 years a slave

film4.com

LEADER

Channelling TV

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UK office Zetland House, 5-25 Scrutton St, London EC2A 4HJ 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 3033 2817 Group art director, MBI Peter Gingell +44 (0) 20 3033 4203 peter.gingell@mb-insight.com Chief reporter Andreas Wiseman +44 (0) 20 3033 2848 Asia editor Liz Shackleton, lizshackleton@gmail.com Contributing editors Sarah Cooper, 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) 1604 828 706 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

House Of Cards

peaking with UK stalwart Jeremy Thomas this month, I was impressed by how he was able to look back fondly across his 40-year producing career while also having his finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the industry today. In addition to talking about shrinking budget levels, he also pointed to the rise of television in recent years. Asked if he would work in television, the 64-year old didn’t hesitate before saying: “I am going to work in TV. I have to.”

That’s the smart move for most UK producers these days, and for producers in many other territories around the globe. UK powerhouses like Warp, Ruby and Big Talk have for years worked across both formats, and are stronger for it. The lines are increasingly blurring: Jane Campion is directing for TV; House Of Cards is showing at the Berlinale; and more film companies now go to the MIP markets.

Still, film-makers can’t just snap their fingers and move into TV — there is a new world to learn, and financing structures are very different to feature film (they are usually more streamlined and less patchwork, which isn’t a bad thing). Even with the TV business changing rapidly, there is much to learn from these traditional models and film-makers should listen and learn as they make the transition.

One film powerhouse growing its TV output is The Weinstein Company. The outfit has long been associated with reality shows like Project Runway, but its scripted TV output is growing with productions like War And Peace and Stan And Ollie and acquisitions including Peaky Blinders and Gomorrah.

Nearly every story in this issue reports on overlaps with TV — not by design; it’s just a sign of how the

business is changing. Julie Parmenter of Molinare talks about the lucrative model of turning an episodic series, The Bible, into a feature, Son Of God (this is something Scandinavians have been doing very well, and Michael Winterbottom has successfully pulled off with The Trip and The Trip To Italy).

There is a lot of talk about how top writers, directors and actors want to work in television. Some of that is down to the quality and scope of what we see on TV these days — Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game Of Thrones, House Of Cards, The Walking Dead, True Detective, Boardwalk Empire, Top Of The Lake and The Killing show a different level of creativity and craftsmanship to the TV of decades past.

But even more than the creative pull, working across TV and film makes for much more stable financing. As we all know, it could take a few years (or a decade) to get a film financed and packaged and cameras rolling. Film production companies usually mitigate that risk by having dozens of projects in development at any given time — but even with that, film is a boom-or-bust, stop-and-start industry. The stability of a TV show, whether a mini-series or a long-running episodic show, which has a budget season by season, means companies have cash flow that’s not dependent on a film getting greenlit. With film financing always tough, the fact that companies like Netflix or Amazon are commissioning content can only be seen as a good thing.

As we spell out in our transmedia feature ahead of MIPTV (April 7-10), successful producers will be not just working for the big screen or the small screen, they will be offering content on whatever screen the audience demands. It’s about s quality of storytelling, not size of format. ■

Colombia heats up I returned from jury duty at the 54th Cartagena Film Festival inspired by the quality of the Latin American titles in the official competition. Our winner was Colombian writer-director Ruben Mendoza’s Dust On The Tongue (Tierra En La Lengua).

Producer Daniel Garcia told me this was a script Mendoza had started working on 13 years ago, and it’s certainly worth the wait for this enchanting hybrid of fiction and fake documentary. This was a “little” film that I guarantee will be better than at least a few of the titles in Cannes’ Competition — an inventive and compelling family drama about a violent, womanising (but also charming) grandfather who goes back to the family farm in the hope his more urbane grandchildren will help him end his life.

Colombian films are increasingly important to watch (thanks in part to support from the national film body, Proimagenes), and there are also interesting developments with US partners working in Colombia, such as the New York-based team behind Manos Sucias shooting a new kind of drugs thriller in Buenaventura; and the horror title Gallows Hill, a variation on the haunted house story, shot near Bogota starring Twilight’s Peter Facinelli.

The next big event on the Colombian calendar is the Bogata Audiovisual Market (July 14-18). It, like Cartagena, has a rising reputation in the global industry.

Dust On The Tongue

April 2014 Screen International 1 ■

contents

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April 2014 cover image Gueros, Mexico territory focus, page 32 International correspondents Asia

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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

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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

April 2014 Analysis

People

Festivals

4 BFI backs joined-up approach

10 stirring drama

14 Discovery channels

As The Weinstein Company ramps up its drama productions and acquisitions, Screen talks to the executives behind the push

Tribeca Film Festival programmers Frédéric Boyer and Genna Terranova talk about championing international and American gems

12 A Global touch

16 tribeca’s 2014 hot list

Producer Jeremy Thomas discusses highlights of his 40-year career and looks to the future

Previews of some anticipated world premieres, from Libyan rebels to killer beavers

A new joint-venture scheme from the BFI aims to drive up investment in UK independent films by helping producers and distributors to share the risks and rewards of distribution

Allan Hunter +44 (0) 7904 698 848 allan@alhunter.myzen.co.uk Spain Juan Sarda +34 646 440 357 jsardafr@hotmail.com UK Geoffrey Macnab +44 (0) 20 7226 0516 geoffrey@macnab.demon.co.uk Subscriptions Screen International Subscriptions Department, 3 Queensbridge, The Lakes, Northampton NN4 7BF Tel +44 1604 828 706 E-mail help@subscribe.screendaily.com Screen International ISSN 0307 4617 All currencies in this issue converted according to exchange rates that applied in March 2014

n 2 Screen International April 2014

6 transmedia’s transitions As the digital-focused MIPTV champions a new age of storytelling this month, Screen explores how TV drama and film producers are tentatively branching out into other platforms

8 Making the grade Following its 2012 restructuring post-production firm Molinare has a sharpened focus on highend TV drama as well as feature film post work

19 the people’s choices How US exhibitors are changing along with audiences, including offering an enhanced cinema experience with more varied options

24 Agents of change Agents have an increasingly important role.

At a Screen-hosted roundtable, key UK players discussed how agenting is changing

Territory focus 30 Taking off Mexico’s growing film industry has much to celebrate, from a new wave of talent to steady box-office growth and smart global partnerships

Regulars 36 reviews Critical analysis of Need For Speed, Divergent, Black Coal, Thin Ice and Aloft, plus The Infinite Man and Veronica Mars alongside other leading titles from SXSW

48 ask the experts Festival heads tell us what they wish they could change about their job

32 the most wanted Buzz titles for 2014 from Mexico

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Alamy

in focus UK film finance

The new BFI scheme could boost revenues for producers of successful UK independent films

BFI backs joined-up approach A new joint-venture scheme from the BFI aims to drive up investment in UK independent films by helping producers and distributors to share the risks and rewards of distribution. Andreas Wiseman reports

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n a challenging UK market, producers and distributors should share more risk and reward. That is the idea behind the British Film Institute’s new joint-venture scheme.

The BFI is rolling out the initiative — which will see BFI-backed UK producers split minimum guarantees and revenues with UK distributors — to stimulate investment in UK independent films.

“UK distribution has been in a difficult place in the last few years,” BFI Film Fund director Ben Roberts says. “There haven’t been as many distributors coming on board more challenging films in the early stages, but this could help.

“If this provides a comfort for distributors to invest in some of those riskier projects that we’re investing in, then that can only be a good thing,” he continues.

The BFI will initially launch a six-project pilot test of the optional scheme in order to gauge interest and viability.

Under the terms of the new agreement, a

n 4 Screen International April 2014

In return for sharing distribution risk, the distributor would allow a 50% share of net revenues to be held by the BFI for reinvestment

producer would invest part of a Lottery production award from the Film Fund as its contribution of up to 50% of the UK distribution minimum guarantee (MG) for the film in question.

In return for sharing the distribution risk, the distributor would allow a 50% share (providing producer investment had been 50%) of its net revenues to be held in a Locked Box by the BFI for reinvestment by the producer in their future productions.

From the date distributor’s gross receipts are first received and throughout the recoupment period a ‘distributor base fee’ of 15% will be kept by the distributor as a contribution towards its overhead for distributing the film.

Once all distribution costs and both MG contributions have been recouped, the fee will cease to be payable. From that point on the full fee specified in the relevant distribution agreement will be shared between the distributor and the producer on an ongoing 50/50 basis (or other agreed percentage)

with any ongoing costs deducted ‘off the top’ first.

Sales companies who make the UK sale are not expected to take a commission on the producer’s lottery MG portion.

Sharing risks “For a distributor, this aligns our [distributors’ and producers’] imperatives,” says Alex Hamilton, managing director, eOne UK, and Independent Film Distributors’ Association (IFDA) chair. “Sometimes you want producers to be more focused on the outcome of the film and less on asking us to spend more money.

“This is another way for UK distributors to be able to look at and consider UK films,” he continues. “In the marketplace British films often aren’t as competitive as their US counterparts. At times, we’ve preferred to pick up US films because they are less risky — for example, the p&a can be the same for both UK and US films if you’re going to push them out wide.”

According to BFI executives, the initiative

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has the support of producers’ trade association Pact and broad support from members of IFDA. Studios have not been part of the discussions and Screen understands that at least one or two larger UK indie distributors have expressed reservations about the scheme’s fee structure.

“If a film performs, the upside for producers out of this is very advantageous,” says producer and Pact film policy group chair Marc Samuelson. “We’ve all been in situations where we’ve had films that have worked and yet we can’t understand why there isn’t any overage coming through.

This would mitigate that very significantly.

“This isn’t money to go to the beach with,” he adds. “This is for reinvestment in film. It’s an incredibly useful pot of cash that can potentially transform the nature of a production company.”

The scheme could also see producers benefit from certain distributors’ SVoD deals: “Producers may well benefit from good SVoD deals and if they did a deal with a studio, in theory, they could benefit from that distributor’s Sky deal,” Hamilton says.

Discussions are still ongoing at press time between Pact, Directors UK and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain about the minimum shares of recouped revenues for directors and writers. However, Directors UK and Samuelson both told Screen that an agreement is imminent.

The JV scheme was first proposed two years ago in Lord Chris Smith’s Film Policy Review as a way to incentivise collaboration between distributors and producers. BFI

executives pointed to the complexity of negotiations and the large number of recommendations in the Film Policy Review as reasons for the two-year period between the initial proposal and implementation.

The BFI’s Locked Box structure was first recommended in the 2012 Film Policy Review. The organisation operates a number of Locked Box strands, including one for development, which sees 100% of money that is recouped by the BFI from an investment in development, held by the BFI and available to the producer in question for investment in their next films.

Moving in the right direction The ambition behind the scheme, which is still subject to EC state aid approval, is to produce more financially viable UK films, develop stronger production companies and increase industry collaboration.

In particular, the scheme is aimed at supporting films that have the majority of their pre-sale value outside the UK, and those smaller, more niche films that might struggle to attract a mainstream distributor.

The UK remains a challenging distribution space with both the number of releases and costs rising while the value of new and existing ancillary rights remain uncertain.

While the initiative is by no means an instant industry-wide game-changer, many acknowledge that it is a significant nudge in a better direction that could potentially be transformative for some businesses.

“I think this stands a good chance of working but we won’t really know for a s couple of years,” notes Samuelson. n

What can the new BFI scheme achieve?

‘This is for reinvestment in film. It’s an incredibly useful pot of cash that can potentially transform the nature of a production company’

‘If this initiative provides a comfort for distributors to invest in some of those riskier projects that we’re investing in, then that can only be a good thing’

‘This is another way for UK distributors to be able to look at and consider UK films. British films often aren’t as competitive as their US counterparts’

Marc Samuelson, producer

Ben Roberts, BFI

Alex Hamilton, eOne UK

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April 2014 Screen International 5 n

Transmedia’s transitions As the digital-focused MIPTV champions a new age of storytelling this month, Melanie Goodfellow explores how TV drama and film producers are tentatively branching out into other platforms

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he latest series of TV crime drama Sherlock may have finished its run in most major territories, but fans across the globe are continuing to get their fix of the hit show via an official game app.

Featuring exclusive footage of Benedict Cumberbatch as the iconic sleuth opposite Martin Freeman as sidekick John Watson, Sherlock: The Network app invites players to help solve 10 fresh cases.

It has proven hugely successful, but remains an exception that many in the world of drama would love to emulate.

As TV and digital players gather at MIPTV in Cannes (April 7-10) to discuss ‘A New Age of Storytelling’, how to satisfy the ‘ondemand’ generation and attract their ‘digital eyeballs’, examples of TV drama or film that have been spun off into the digital space remain relatively rare.

Sherlock writers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have long incorporated texting, social media and the internet into the storylines of their contemporary retelling of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective tales. Extending the brand into another digital platform seemed a natural move.

“We’ve wanted to do something like this for a while, but we wanted to get it right,” says Sherlock producer Sue Vertue at London and

■ 6 Screen International April 2014

‘We wanted to find something intelligent that would engage players — whether they were fans [of Sherlock] or not’ Sue Vertue, Hartswood Films

Above: Sherlock: The Network app

Cardiff-based Hartswood Films, which has other credits including Coupling and Edge Of Heaven. “People kept talking to us about the need to do something for the second screen, but I didn’t think that would work. Sherlock’s such a fast-paced show… it’s hard to push viewers to another screen without them missing what’s going on.”

She says an app made more sense. “We wanted to find something that was intelligent and would engage players — whether they were fans of the series or not.”

Hartswood joined forces with London and Sydney-based digital production company The Project Factory to co-finance and produce the app. The latter has a history of creating digital content for TV and film productions, including Downton Abbey and Ken Loach’s The Spirit Of ’45, and last year produced a games app for the Dutch soap Good Times, Bad Times, aimed at retaining audience engagement over the summer break. It applied the resulting in-house software platform Appisodic to Sherlock.

Launched on January 20, the English-language Sherlock: The Network stormed to the top of the entertainment app charts in 34 countries within weeks of its release.

One measure of its success is that the partners are now considering putting it out in

other languages, including Mandarin for China, where the show is a huge hit online.

Dramatic times How to finance and monetise multi-platform content remains a key challenge for players grappling with a universe of connected devices, expanding social media and YouTube.

“The digital space is quite vibrant, but there aren’t that many examples of drama series which have extended the brand,” says Peter Cowley, a multi-platform expert.

Cowley, a former managing director of digital media at international TV producer Endemol, worked on engaging audiences with shows such as Big Brother before leaving four years ago to set up his own digital multi-platform content consultancy, Spirit Digital Media.

Scripted content from a TV drama or film is the hardest to monetise in a multi-platform environment, he says. “It’s partly to do with the extra cost of producing content for the space — it’s more expensive to do that well for a drama than, say, a reality TV, chat or game show — and the fact that digital revenues are lower,” explains Cowley.

He currently works with shows such as Jamie Oliver’s Food Tube and the scripted real-

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MIPTV TRANSMEDIA

ity show, Made In Chelsea, revolving around wealthy youngsters in south-west London.

For Chelsea, Spirit has been involved in extending the brand into platforms ranging from concert series Live In Chelsea, featuring performances of songs on the soundtrack, to companion chat show Mad On Chelsea, which runs after the weekly broadcast of the show.

“Scripted reality shows like Made In Chelsea and TOWIE (The Only Way Is Essex) work particularly well across platforms because they’ve got so many real-life characters with big social-media followings. They are very brand-friendly shows and hence you can get sponsors,” says Cowley.

Vertue and Barnes, meanwhile, will not reveal precise download figures or how much the Sherlock app cost to build, or whether they have broken even, but sources close to the companies suggest they will.

“I think what has helped the app stand apart is that Hartswood opened up the cast to us and gave us the opportunity to create fantastic exclusive content. You rarely get an app with such high production values,” says The Project Factory creative director Rob Barnes.

The Project Factory hired interactive writer David Varela to write the 10 cases featured on the app. His scripts were signed off by Sherlock writers Moffat and Gatiss.

“It was a collaborative approach to ensure the storyline was unique but fitted the storyworld of the Sherlock series,” explains Barnes.

The footage for the app was shot in the space of a day, with Barnes directing the approved scripts, supported by one of the series’ shooting units.

“We were on set from 10 in the morning until 10 at night. The cast were hugely giving.

Some of Martin’s scenes were recorded with

MIPTV AND THE ART OF STORYTELLING Over the past decade, MIPTV has become one of the key moments of the year when the TV industry calendar contemplates the implications of the digital age. This year’s edition will be no exception.

With its 50th birthday out of the way, MIPTV’s extensive conference and events ‘A New Age of Storytelling’ programme will be focused firmly on the future.

‘Millennials’, ‘engagement’, ‘digital strategy’, ‘on-demand generation’, ‘unique viewers’, and ‘digital eyeballs’ are just some of the buzzwords and terms peppering the programme.

A new event, MIP Digital Fronts, will showcase online content from across the globe in association with YouTube, Maker Studios, French video platform Dailymotion and online media companies Vice and Vuguru.

Speakers will also be drawn from the digital world, with Twitter chief media scientist Deb Roy and YouTube’s head of entertainment Alex Carloss alongside TV executives such as The Borgias creator Tom Fontana and StudioCanal CEO Olivier Courson.

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Beat Girl

an iPhone. It must have been quite strange for him to switch into this slightly different world,” recalls Barnes.

Game on Beyond the issue of how to pay for TV or film content aimed at other platforms, meshing the two worlds of film and TV with gaming is a complicated science.

American genre channel Syfy and video game developer Trion’s joint venture to create the multi-platform TV series and online game Defiance, for example, met with a mixed response when it was launched last year, although it has since drawn a loyal following.

“In the case of Defiance, you had a new story and a new set of writers creating a brand-new universe. At the same time, you’re trying to launch a triple-A computer game, which is not that easy to make,” says Mike Dicks, multi-platform expert and self-confessed ‘digital provocateur’.

“A computer game does not have the same character and narrative development as goes into a TV show,” says Dicks, who operates under the Descience banner.

Live In Chelsea

‘We adopt a multi-platform storytelling strategy so we can test material, build buzz and a community, and generate some revenue’ Nuno Bernardo, beActive Entertainment

In spite of these pitfalls, a few pioneering independent producers are pressing on with the development of 360-degree projects with drama content at their heart.

Nuno Bernardo of Dublin-based beActive Entertainment — whose Portuguese studio produced documentary Road To Revolution and the teen hit Beat Girl — will be presenting transmedia project Collider at MIPTV. The sci-fi project spans a feature film, a graphic novel, computer game and web series, and is one of the nominees for a Digital Emmy.

“We adopt a multi-platform storytelling strategy so we can test material, build a community and buzz, and generate some revenue,” Bernardo says.

“This approach, when we are able to attract significant numbers on our online presence, allows us to get investors’ confidence when we go and ask for money to produce a TV series or a film.”

One thing that every participant in Cannes will probably agree on is that a new age of storytelling has dawned. Where they are likely to differ is how to explore these new platforms s — and whether it is possible to monetise it. ■

The Only Way Is Essex

April 2014 Screen International 7 ■

One of Molinare’s grading theatres

Making the grade Following its 2012 restructuring, post-production firm Molinare has a sharpened focus on high-end TV drama as well as feature film post work, and is readying itself for growth. Wendy Mitchell reports

M

olinare, the film and TV post production firm, celebrated its 40th anniversary in November. Behind that impressive longevity is also a story of renewal. The company had gone into administration in 2012, but was saved in the middle of that year as former CEO Steve Milne and new executive Julie Parmenter pacted with Next Wave Partners to buy the assets and relaunch the company.

Parmenter, former head of global sales operations at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, was named managing director; and The British Film Company’s Milne returned as executive chairman. In April 2013, Saphir Capital Partners also invested in the company. Milne and Parmenter currently own a combined 40% of the company, with Saphir and Next Wave each owning 30%.

“It’s completely different ownership and a completely different structure, but the brand Molinare had to be seamless. The fact that the

n 8 Screen International April 2014

finance structure has changed, hopefully that’s irrelevant for the clients,” Parmenter says. “Everybody recognises the brand… To survive 40 years of business in Soho is something quite special.”

The expert team is key to that, she adds. “In all of the change over the last two years we didn’t have a single key staff member leave, we didn’t have a client leave either. The clients don’t leave because the staff don’t.”

‘We’re hoping the success of The Bible and Dracula will give big US studios the confidence we can deliver’ Julie Parmenter, Molinare

Film and TV clients The revamped Molinare is certainly busy, with top clients coming in at the moment — that includes the BBC’s The Musketeers and Call The Midwife and Sky’s Fleming and The Tunnel on the TV side, and films such as The Grand Budapest Hotel, ’71, God Help The Girl and The Two Faces Of January (all four Berlinale selections).

Milne, who worked on The King’s Speech at Molinare, is an independent producer via The

British Film Company but he still devotes several days a week to Molinare. He had first bought Molinare in 2003 but left in 2010 due to differences of opinion with new owners Century Communications of India. “I had no hesitation leading the 2012 buyout again, and second time around it’s particularly satisfying to see Molinare working routinely on the very best feature films as well as Sunday evening peak-time drama,” he says. “We had four documentaries at SXSW, and for feature documentaries, I believe we are now world renowned. We’d similarly also been involved in five films that screened in Berlin including The Grand Budapest Hotel which utilised our flagship grading theatre.”

The company specialises in grading and digital intermediates, sound, editing, VFX for broadcast, and workflow management.

Recent innovations include upgrading to the latest generation of Baselight hardware and software systems. In April 2013, the company

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Molinare Interview

revamped its main dubbing theatre for film to use Dolby Surround 7.1.

There are currently 120 employees working in two buildings off Carnaby Street in London’s Soho, with a facility boasting 40-plus offline edit rooms, seven online editing suites, three projection theatres, two TV grading suites, eight audio suites, plus an ADR suite and four voiceover booths. The company works digitally but uses CineLabs when clients need film-based assets.

Driving Forward Parmenter had worked with Milne and former Molinare MD Mark Foligno 30 years ago at Tetra Pak. She was familiar with the business, although not a film business veteran.

She sees some connections with the automotive world (she also worked on the Mini and BMW brands in addition to Rolls-Royce).

“For a Rolls-Royce customer, that car wasn’t a mode of transport, it was their dream. For a film or TV programme, that’s the same, it’s someone else’s passion and idea. We have to facilitate it and make it happen and be the best it can be. So the ethos is similar,” she says. “Also, there’s BMW’s efficiency and delivering on promise, doing what you say you’re going to do, on time.

That’s what the TV world wants, efficiency.

They trust you to get on with it.”

She is known as a practical executive. “I like to be hands on. When I worked at RollsRoyce I spent two weeks on the production line building cars… I was the only senior manager to ever do that. Unless you’ve done it, you can’t value what someone else is doing. At Molinare it’s different, I can’t do grading, I can’t do audio, but I can learn the kit and what tools the artists need. And what the clients need.”

Mix of projects The company’s TV-film split is about 70-30, which Parmenter says is a smart mix. “Film is so up and down and TV is more repeat business,” she says, noting recent TV projects recommissioned such as The Musketeers and Yonderland. “We want to do film but to do it as more than 30% of our business is not stable for our team,” she notes.

Other recent film projects include Belle, Kick-Ass 2, The Selfish Giant and The Invisible Woman.

One area of specialisation that has emerged is work on theatrical documentaries. The four documentaries Molinare had in selection at the recent SXSW film festival included: Angus Macqueen and Guillermo Galdos’ drugs cartel story The Legend Of Shorty; George Hencken’s Spandau Ballet history Soul Boys Of The Western World; Florian Habicht’s Britpop story Pulp; and Charlie Paul’s For No Good Reason, with Johnny Depp paying tribute to Ralph Steadman.

Molinare has developed a strong reputation in theatrical documentary work after working on the likes of Man On Wire in the past. For example, the Australian Broadcast Corporation came to Molinare to work on Lance Armstrong documentary Stop At Nothing because of the company’s expertise in

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A still from ungraded Call The Midwife footage; (right) the still graded by Molinare

working on archive footage. “The audio talent we have on theatrical documentaries is very high; that audio team has been nominated for Baftas. And especially when you’re cleaning up archive material, you need those strong theatrical experts,” Parmenter says.

She continues: “A lot of documentary houses don’t do theatrical, only TV, so you need to know it stands up for theatrical. We have a theatre to view it in, and the audio team that has the expertise.”

Because the film VFX market is so competitive, especially in the UK, Molinare decided to scale back its film VFX work and instead concentrate on VFX for TV only. “We were a tiny VFX house. To put in a bid for James Bond would be laughable. So we pulled right out. But because we do so much high-end drama we realised we could do VFX for the dramas.”

The shift in VFX approach was just one of a number of changes that came with the company refinancing. “That was pruning back the branches and making it a much stronger base,” Parmenter says.

Future aspirations include doing more work for the big American companies.

“We’re hoping with the success of The Bible and Dracula it will give the big US studios the confidence that we can deliver that level of quality,” she says. Molinare has a strategic partner in LA, Modern VideoFilm, so it can

‘We have four documentaries at SXSW. For feature documentaries I believe we are world renowned’ Steve Milne, Molinare

run as a 24-hour facility for US partners.

The Bible has been a unique project for the company — the hit US TV series was also adapted into a hot-selling feature, Son Of God. It is a model other producers should consider, Parmenter notes. “That shows if you do a drama at a very high end, it can be easily recut as a feature film. That’s a good way to recoup investment. With us doing everything in-house it’s easy to sit down and reshape it. We’ve got all the materials.”

After its refinancing, the company is in a stable place (and indeed working at capacity so it had to turn down projects for summer 2014) and can now be ready for growth, by growing its own team or considering acquisitions down the line.

“At the moment we are recruiting to grow the business,” Parmenter says. One key area of recruitment is to entice young people to work in the post-production sector across all areas. “We need more management to help with growth, but we want to support the new talent,” she says. “It’s so hard for youngsters to get on the ladder… You need all the skill sets within the company, not just a mixer and a grader, but IT, engineering, HR, finance, administration.” They will also hire one VFX junior through Skillset’s Trainee Finder scheme.

Parmenter says: “Young people need to s know it’s an exciting industry to join.” n

April 2014 Screen International 9 n

INTERVIEW TWC

Gomorrah, the TV show

Stirring drama As The Weinstein Company ramps up its drama productions and acquisitions, Andreas Wiseman talks to the executives behind the push

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oguls Harvey and Bob Weinstein have long been synonymous with prestige dramas of the big screen, such as The English Patient, Cold Mountain, Shakespeare In Love, The Reader and Gangs Of New York.

Over the past year, however, the brothers’ powerhouse sales, distribution and production outfit The Weinstein Company (TWC) has made a concerted push into scripted TV drama, through production and acquisitions.

“A lot of people think, ‘Wow, where did you guys come from?’ when they see how many scripted and unscripted shows we have on our slate,” says TWC COO David Glasser, Weinstein’s chief deal-maker. “But this comes from years of moving towards the small screen.”

Indeed, under the stewardship of president of television Meryl Poster, the company has mined a string of lucrative reality-TV series including Lifetime’s Project Runway, spin-off Project Runway All Stars and VH1’s Mob Wives.

However, it wasn’t until last year that its growing slate of popular factual programmes became supplemented by a host of anticipated scripted dramas, many infused with the big-name film talent that TWC is known for.

Among major series either in, or heading towards, production are big-budget Netflix commission Marco Polo, to be directed by KonTiki directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg; WGN America commission 10 Commandments, which will see film directors including Lee Daniels, Wes Craven and Jim Sheridan each tackle one of the Commandments; and a 10-episode detective drama set in ancient Egypt called Book Of The Dead.

A key part of the company’s small-screen strategy is to revisit the films it has acquired

■ 10 Screen International April 2014

for US distribution in TV format. Thanks to a recent deal with Harvey and Bob’s former firm, Miramax, now owned by Colony Capital and Qatar Holding, TWC is also developing TV spin-offs of some of their biggest hits from the Miramax days, including Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting and Flirting With Disaster.

Investing in drama The ongoing convergence of the film and TV industries is an inevitable factor in the company’s push into scripted drama.

“The scripted world has become one,” explains Glasser, who joined the company six years ago from Syndicate Films International.

“A lot of the film-makers we work with want to make TV and they want to make it with us if those projects reflect our film output.”

That output is largely high-end. “We’re looking to make big event pieces that feel like a feature,” adds the US-based executive, who is regularly in the UK on business. “We’re not going to be making procedural cop shows.”

TWC’s TV push has been turbo-charged by a deal with US lender Union Bank, which has made $370m available to the company for its film and TV operations. Almost half of that money has been earmarked for TV. “We have set up a separate amount of capital internally for our TV operations,” explains Glasser. “We’ve invested a lot in TV to date and [will] invest more in that side of our business because we see it as a big part of our future.”

European push In keeping with Harvey Weinstein’s passion for European film, TWC’s rapidly growing TV slate has a distinctly European flavour, with many of the projects emanating from the UK.

‘We’re looking to make big event pieces that feel like a feature… not procedural cop shows’ David Glasser, TWC

Spearheading the company’s push into European TV are well-known London-based film executives Robert Walak, president, production, acquisitions and TV, Europe; and Negeen Yazdi, EVP acquisitions and co-productions, Europe.

The respected duo now work across film and TV for TWC, a strategy that chimes with the company’s — and industry’s — desire for film and TV synergy.

Among a number of projects being generated out of the UK are an ambitious miniseries adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War And Peace, on which TWC is partnering with Simon Vaughan’s Lookout Point and the BBC, and which TWC will distribute in the US, Canada and China; and Stan And Ollie, a TV film written by Jeff Pope (Philomena) about the later days of comedy duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, also for the BBC. The company has at least five projects in the works with Vaughan.

“We’re looking to balance the slate so we don’t only have high-end literary adaptations,” explains Walak. “We’re also looking to do some darker, genre projects.”

Out of the UK, TWC has also acquired US rights to shows including Tiger Aspect/Caryn Mandabach’s Peaky Blinders and Cattleya/Sky Italia series Gomorrah.

TWC is now working with Italian producer Cattleya on an English-language spin-off of the latter. “We are very excited by what we see of Gomorrah, which could be our City Of God for the small screen,” says Walak.

And the production/acquisition spree is unlikely to end there. As Glasser notes: “There’s an incredible appetite for strong UK s and European shows in the US.” ■

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THE SNOW QUEEN 2: THE SNOW KING Animation, 80 min WIZART ANIMATION

SPIRAL Action, 100 min RUSSIAN WORLD VISION

CHAGALL MALEVICH Historical/Drama, 120 min INTERCINEMA AGENCY

RASPUTIN Historical drama, 8×45 min PLANETA INFORM GROUP OF COMPANIES

SOME LIKE IT COLD Romantic comedy, 90 min SREDAFETISOV FILMS

THE IRON IVAN Drama, 120 min RUSSIAN TELEVISION AND RADIO STAND R7.E1

A global touch Veteran producer Jeremy Thomas talks to Wendy Mitchell about the highlights of his 40-year career and looks excitedly to the future, ahead of a BFI Southbank retrospective

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Born into film He was practically born into the business, or at least within reach of Ealing Studios — his father Ralph Philip Thomas spearheaded the popular Doctor films franchise and his uncle

n 12 Screen International April 2014

Made in Britain The BFI Southbank Jeremy Thomas season programme from March 31-April 29 (In Conversation, April 3) ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

All The Little Animals Bad Timing Blood And Wine Brother Everybody Wins The Hit Kon-Tiki The Last Emperor (3D) Mad Dog Morgan Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence Naked Lunch Only Lovers Left Alive Sexy Beast The Shout Tideland Young Adam

‘All the films I’ve produced have been for the same reason: it’s in my taste’

Jessica Thomas

oday, it is a given that most producers have to work internationally across borders. It wasn’t always so.

Producer Jeremy Thomas pioneered the crossing of global borders; as the London-based veteran looks back at nearly 40 years of producing ahead of a BFI Southbank retrospective in April, he proudly rattles off past locations: shooting his first feature Mad Dog Morgan in Australia, and Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence in New Zealand and the Cook Islands, making Bernardo Bertolucci’s nine-time-Oscar winner The Last Emperor in China, or Jonathan Glazer’s directorial debut Sexy Beast in Spain, and more recently working with Norwegian directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg to make Kon-Tiki in locations including Malta and the Maldives.

“It’s a moment to reflect,” says Thomas, looking at the 16 of his past productions selected for the BFI Made In Britain season.

“My films have been made all over the world from Alaska to the bush of Australia to the depths of China to the middle of the Sahara. It was in this period when you went there and you went there for a long time with a lot of people. It was a different experience; you didn’t have digital communication. Rushes took days to come back. You were isolated making your film; you were in it together.”

“I always felt comfortable as a traveller, and it was subjects that I felt for or was drawn to,” he adds. Plus, because every producer also needs to be a businessman, he adds, “It was also expedient for raising money.”

Japan has been particularly important for his career, starting with 1983’s Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence by Nagisa Oshima and later including Takeshi Kitano’s Brother in 2000.

“It’s very difficult not to be fascinated by Japanese culture — it’s a culture that’s undebased by any other culture,” he says. “I’ve got a continual relationship with Japan. That has been a two-way street for investment in films, and that’s been very healthy for me.”

Thomas says his 50-plus feature productions share one common thread: “All the films I’ve produced or executive produced have been for the same reason: it’s in my taste. It’s about taste, not the market; it’s about originality and the film-maker; it’s about the engagement with the story to be told.”

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JEREMY THOMAS INTERVIEW

Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence

Thomas with John Hurt and Christian Bale on the set of 1998’s All The Little Animals

Gerald Thomas was famed for the Carry On films. He was a young teenager when he started as a runner at Pinewood Studios, where his father worked. By age 20, he was an editor on Ken Loach’s A Misfortune.

Soon after that, Thomas looked outside the UK for his first feature production, Mad Dog Morgan, starring Dennis Hopper and directed

by Philippe Mora. “In London in 1974, it would have been impossible for me at age 23 or 24 to produce my own film because there was this apprenticeship system... In Australia, there was no tradition, there were only a few people making films. We were there and found the money there to make a film.” He returned to the UK to establish the Recorded Picture Company and to make Jerzy Skolimowksi’s The Shout, which won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes 1978.

He considers himself very much “a British producer,” and has produced purely British works such as Stephen Frears’ The Hit and David Mackenzie’s Young Adam.

He made a tough decision in 1988 to remain in Britain after the huge Oscar success of The Last Emperor led to enticing offers from Hollywood. “I’m happy that I decided to stay in London. You can imagine that at 38, after The Last Emperor wins nine Oscars, there was a temptation for me to change my life completely into a different life. But I decided to stay here and remain doing what I understood… It was a choice. This environment suits me, and I don’t think I’d be good in that very, very different environment.”

He also works with North America, of course, with recent projects including Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, shot in Detroit, and Wim Wenders’ forthcoming

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Every Thing Will Be Fine, shot in Montreal.

He says UK film-makers are “lucky” compared to some other territories, thanks to government support via the BFI and backing from Film4 and BBC Films. “We are in a place where there are possibilities, where there are co-production treaties. If you’ve got the right subject, the right people, and you’ve got some level of information and push, you can get films made here… You have to look around the world and see we’re in pretty good shape.”

Changing with the times Thomas has had the same office for decades — at the top of the Hanway Street building where RPC shares space with sister sales company HanWay Films. Despite the comfortable, lived-in look of his office, and the mementos and photos of a 40-year career surrounding him, he is not sitting on his roof terrace stuck in the past. Piled on his desk during our interview are an iPad, a laptop, two landlines and two mobile phones.

While he does speak of a certain golden age of his career, he is very much a man of the present as well. “Everything is in a magnificent moment of change, the realities are what we have to go with as film-making as changed. Audiences have changed. I have embraced fully the modern world.”

He says the business of independent film production has changed so much in recent years it would be impossible to make some of his past films now. “I cannot take a crew into the South Pacific and make a film with David

Making The Sheltering Sky with Bernardo Bertolucci in Niger

‘If you’ve got the right subject, the right people, and you’ve got some level of information and push, you can get films made here’ Jeremy Thomas

The Last Emperor

Bowie about the war and a gay love story. It’s not possible. I could not go to the Forbidden City and take 10,000 people and raise the equivalent of $25m. I couldn’t go to the middle of the Sahara and build a set in the sand dunes… Those budgets don’t exist any more for the $30m or $50m independent movie.”

That doesn’t mean he isn’t relishing the projects he is active on. “Most of the films I make today, you have to smuggle what you want to do into something that you can get made in the reality of what happens for independent cinema today.” He sounds pragmatic, not bitter. “It’s not a moan, it’s a reality,” he adds.

Thomas is still excited to work with newer talents. One upcoming project that he is beaming about is High-Rise, another JG Ballard adaptation (after Crash) that Thomas has wanted to make for years. “For that film, for many years I was going up the wrong street,” says Thomas. He has now figured out a leaner approach to the film, and has hot UK director Ben Wheatley attached.

“I’ve got endless ideas for films. That’s something else that has been good for me; I’ve never had a problem with a mountain of films I want to make,” he says.

And like any other savvy film producer in 2014, he is also eyeing a move into television at some point.

Will he retire any time soon? Not bloody likely. “I love film-makers, I love directors, I love actors, I love putting the deal together.

My friends are in the film business, my family is in the film business, it’s in my very waking, breathing life. I grew up at the table of cinema, it’s never been any other way… My dad said to me, ‘You leave the film business or it s leaves you.’ I don’t intend to leave it.” ■

April 2014 Screen International 13 n

Festival focus tribeca

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he balancing act that has historically defined so much of what the Tribeca Film Festival (April 16-27) stands for informs a pleasing maturity in the 2014 selection.

Caught between the black holes of Sundance and Berlin on one side of the calendar, and Cannes soon following on the other side, Tribeca’s programming honchos must advocate for potential world premieres and champion gems that might find a new lease of life in New York.

By the time of the opening night premiere of Nas documentary Time Is Illmatic on April 16, director of programming Genna Terranova, artistic director Frédéric Boyer and their team will have scoured the global festival circuit, tracked possible break-outs and negotiated tirelessly with rights holders.

Berlin was the final staging post on their travels — a demanding daily routine of multiple screenings before heading back to New York to pull everything together under the gun of looming announcement deadlines.

“Berlin has traditionally been our last stop and we have had success before with [Belgium’s recent foreign-language Oscar nominee] The Broken Circle Breakdown and The Rocket [from Australia],” says Terranova.

“We have a strong history with Berlin titles.

We strategise by having early conversations with them and canvas Berlin to find those films that not everybody is talking about.

When we bring them to New York we’re giving them a different audience. A lot of these films have a lot of success.”

She continues, “The audience here is really respectful to foreign films through us giving them a sounding board. We are pretty selective in the amount of foreign films we show.

Foreign documentaries have been a great platform for us.”

The New York mix And therein lies the trick. Terranova and Boyer must identify not only world premieres but acclaimed known titles that speak to the New York audience and industry. It is also worth noting that while they adore international cinema, non US-films must earn a place at the table.

Six out of 12 World Narrative Competition entries come from outside the US, five out of 12 for the documentaries and 12 out of 22 from Viewpoints including Berlinale Golden Bear winner Black Coal, Thin Ice. Spotlight parades eight out of 31 and Midnight three from seven.

“We want that mix of US and foreign but not only do we want [nationalities] to be diverse, we want the styles to be diverse,” says Terranova.

“We’re extraordinarily excited about [documentary world premiere] Dior And I — it’s a beautiful inside look at [artistic director and John Galliano replacement] Raf Simons.”

There is quite a lot of acclaimed work on show from prestigious showcases. “Out of Rotterdam we got [Tiger winner] Something Must Break and some others,” says Boyer, who notes that the subsequent trip to Germany was also fruitful.

n 14 Screen International April 2014

Something Must Break

Discovery channels Tribeca Film Festival programmers Frédéric Boyer and Genna Terranova talk to Jeremy Kay about championing international and American gems That Swedish drama plays alongside a notable Italian arrival from Berlin. “Human Capital was a perfect movie for the main competition [in Berlin] but it played in Panorama,” he says. “It’s been a huge success for Italy. People were talking about it at the [EFM].”

The programming team tracked a number of Berlinale selections, one of which, Mexico’s Gueros, earned Alonso Ruizpalacios the best first feature prize and screens in Tribeca’s World Narrative Competition.

“The competitions are emblematic of the rest of the programme,” says Terranova, who points to strong individual performances on show, be it Rory Culkin in Gabriel, Saga Becker and Iggy Malmborg in Something Must Break or Ryan Piers Williams in X/Y. “The sales agency opportunity is to get exposure in front of buyers in the US,” she says. “We tend to look for films we feel are going to be a real discovery. Something Must Break is special. Brides [a drama set in the republic of Georgia that also screens in World Narrative] comes from a first-time female film-maker.”

Documentaries are often the first port of call for buyers these days and the World Documentary Competition roster looks solid.

“There’s a tendency for docs to go more towards character pieces and we have a range of people from the ordinary to the extraordinary,” says Terranova.

‘We tend to look for films we feel are going to be a real discovery’ Genna Terranova, Tribeca

“Garnet’s Gold is about a man who we probably would never have heard of were it not for this beautiful doc about an inner journey. This year we have something like Virunga, also out of the UK, about seven people who are going above and beyond to protect this World Heritage Site.”

The strong contingent of international fare in the Viewpoints section includes San Sebastian 2013 Golden Seashell winner Bad Hair (Pelo Malo) from Venezuela and a rare peek into Burma through the lens of Ice Poison (Bing Du).

The balancing act means Terranova and Boyer must also calibrate the right measure of new and established voices.

Roman Polanski’s Venus In Fur screens in Spotlight for the first time since Cannes 2013 and there is a work-in-progress presentation of Sticks, from The Cove’s Oscar-winning director Louie Psihoyos.

Joss Whedon wrote the screenplay for In Your Eyes and renowned documentarian Amy Berg tries her hand at her first fictional story, Every Secret Thing.

Representing the new wave are the likes of Gabriel director Lou Howe, Junebug writer Angus MacLachlan in his directorial debut Goodbye To All That and Gueros director Ruizpalacios.

That is evidence of all the programming team has to juggle. The New York scene can s be grateful for the scope of their ambition. n

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Festival focus tribeca

Tribeca’s 2014 hot list Previews of some anticipated world premieres, from Libyan rebels to killer beavers. By Jeremy Kay 1971 (US)

a strange wooden stick discovered before he was rescued; a stick he believes could point the way to a great fortune.

Dir Johanna Hamilton

Hamilton’s timely companion piece to the WikiLeaks and NSA debates recounts a break-in more than 40 years ago at the Pennsylvania FBI offices to capture documents that would expose illegal government surveillance of citizens at the height of the anti-war movement. The film-makers appear to have scored a journalistic coup here as the perpetrators of the incident reveal themselves for the first time.

World Documentary Competition

Point And Shoot (US) Dir Marshall Curry

Anything by Marshall Curry is worth getting excited about and in his latest documentary, the double Oscar nominee recounts the story of a Baltimore man who joined the Libyan rebels against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

However, once he is captured and imprisoned, Matthew VanDyke must decide where his allegiances really lie.

World Documentary Competition

The Canal (Ire) Dir Ivan Kavanagh

World Documentary Competition

One of the creepier entries in an eclectic Midnight programme, Kavanagh’s latest feature takes place in a haunted house.

A film archivist and his wife’s idyll is shattered by a secret at the same time as the man learns their house was the site of a 1902 multiple murder. As the archivist begins to unravel, the house’s history threatens to repeat itself.

Slaying The Badger (UK) Dir John Dower

Slaying The Badger does not concern cycling’s doping scandals; rather it trains its sights on the notion of teamwork and the will to win in competitive cycling. The subject is Greg LeMond — the first and officially the only American to win the Tour de France — and his intense rivalry during the 1986 Tour with his mentor Bernard Hinault, aka ‘The Badger’.

Midnight

Dior And I (Fr) Dir Frédéric Tcheng

House of Christian Dior artistic director Raf Simons was brought into the fold in 2012 in the wake of John Galliano’s departure and conviction for anti-Semitic comments. Tcheng follows the Belgian designer as he and a lively group of collaborators race to assemble his first Dior Haute Couture collection. In English and French with subtitles.

Spotlight

Virunga

Virunga (UK) Dir Orlando von Einsiedel

World Documentary Competition

Electric Slide (US) Dir Tristan Patterson

A heightened homage to Los Angeles, Electric Slide riffs on the real-life story of Eddie Dodson, the notorious ‘Gentleman Bank Robber’. With a debonair sophistication and a penchant for flirting, Dodson coaxed cash from mesmerised female tellers at more than 60 banks during an epic spree in the 1980s. Jim Sturgess stars alongside Chloe Sevigny and Patricia Arquette. Myriad Pictures handles international sales.

Viewpoints

Every Secret Thing (US) Dir Amy Berg

How about this for a talent mash-up?

Oscar-nominated documentarian Amy

n 16 Screen International April 2014

Gabriel

Slaying The Badger

Precisely the sort of hot-button eco story that festivals and audiences love, Virunga chronicles the efforts of conservationists to protect mountain gorillas at the eponymous Congolese UNESCO World Heritage Site. But there is more: staff at Africa’s oldest national park must carry out their work against the backdrop of a nationwide crisis as business interests and rebel insurgents press in from all sides. In English, French and Swahili with subtitles.

World Documentary Competition

Berg makes her fiction directorial debut from a screenplay by acclaimed writerdirector Nicole Holofcener and recruits Elizabeth Banks, Diane Lane and Dakota Fanning to star. The story follows a pair of detectives assigned to a missing child case in a town with secrets.

Spotlight

Gabriel (US) Dir Lou Howe

Rory Culkin has built up a solid body of work from the sidelines and lands front and centre in Lou Howe’s feature directo-

rial debut. Culkin portrays a vulnerable young man who takes a gamble on a former girlfriend’s compassion and plunges headlong into the emotional unknown in search of happiness. Howe is already being spoken of as a director to watch.

World Narrative Competition

Garnet’s Gold (UK) Dir Ed Perkins

Twenty years after coming close to death on a hike around Scotland’s Loch Arkaig, Garnet Frost remains haunted by the incident. The survivor is also obsessed by

Zombeavers (US) Dir Jordan Rubin

New York audiences will be the first to taste the terror of one of the most buzzedabout market titles at the recent EFM in Berlin — more than two million people viewed the trailer in its first two weeks online. The story centres on a posse of teens who go for a weekend of debauchery at a secluded lakeside cabin. Once there, they encounter a horde of rabid undead beavers.

Midnight

www.screendaily.com

The world is not my home I‘m just a passin’ thru.

Tom Waits

A life full of passion for cinema

Karl Baumi Baumgartner 3rd of January 1949

18th of March 2014

Ti auguriamo buon viaggio, caro Baumi.

PAndorA FilM Alexandra

Björn ortrud

Brigitte

The MATch FAcTory camelia raimond

caroline Maria

christoph

Friederike

Michael

christophe

rainer

Maria

claudia

nadja sergi

Andreas

Fee

reinhard

Genevieve

Martin

PAllAs FilM

Georg

robert Jenny

Thania

sabine

Gwendolyn

Ute

Thomas

Maja

Philipp

hannah

Thomas

Jonathan Viola

echo FilM Kathrin

Ulrike Julien

Kristina

Zsuzsi

Thanassis

Uta

US Exhibition

The people’s choices John Hazelton examines how US exhibitors are changing along with audiences, including offering an enhanced cinema experience with more varied options

A

s they gathered for the recent CinemaCon convention, US exhibitors and distributors had reason to celebrate, with official figures confirming that 2013 produced another record gross at the North American box office.

But that doesn’t mean the US exhibition sector has cause for complacency. For one thing, North American cinema admissions were slightly down for 2013, indicating that increased ticket prices helped produce the record take. And for another, competition for audiences from the home entertainment sector appears to be a still-growing threat.

What exhibitors must do to keep their business growing, says John Fithian, president and CEO of trade body the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), is “offer consumers better choices. Both in terms of the movies we’re scheduling and in terms of the cinema experience we’re offering.”

Better scheduling by distributors, Fithian suggests, might have produced higher admission numbers for a 2013 that offered, for example, too few family films at the start of the year and too many in the summer.

More variety in the cinema-going experience could mean luxury as well as standard seating, a wider range of food and drink options, better sound and projection and the chance to see films on giant screens and in formats such as high frame rate.

The enhanced cinema experience “may just be more choices,” says David Passman, CEO of the fourth largest North American circuit, Carmike Cinemas, “and it may or may not come with additional pricing. But definitely the experience has to be continually improved. We have to realise that if we’re not continually improving it then the consumer will tire of it and do other things.”

The quest to improve the cinema experience once the lights go down might inspire other measures as well.

Earlier this year, NATO issued voluntary guidelines on in-theatre marketing that called, among other things, for trailers to be no more than two minutes long and to appear no more than 150 days before the previewed film’s release date.

Though the guidelines were written after consultation with distributors “there is probably a brewing spat over how long trailers should be,” says Passman, “and how many of them should be seen by the average movie-goer.”

Stricter in-theatre talking and texting policies could also boost attendance, believes Tim League, CEO of the growing Alamo Drafthouse circuit. “We take it very seriously and I would like for all exhibitors to take it

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3D remains a hot topic in the exhibition industry

seriously,” says League. By enforcing such policies, “We’ve found that we’re able to bring a wide variety of demographics back to the theatre.”

Alternative options One promising, and potentially contentious, audience-boosting strategy — alternative content — was the subject of a CinemaCon panel.

Many exhibitors see alternative content — opera, ballet, theatre, sporting events or ondemand repertory cinema enabled by social media-based services such as Tugg — as a way to bring lapsed cinema-goers back to theatres and make more use of high-tech auditoriums, especially as satellite delivery makes accessing content easier.

Alamo Drafthouse, which has roots in the repertory exhibition business, has had success with music and concert events on screen, according to League. “These theatres that we’ve built have incredible audiovisual [offerings],” he says, “so anything that can be done within the space is really fun. And if it helps you out on a slow Tuesday night, that’s great.”

‘If we’re not continually improving the experience then the consumer will tire of it and do other things’ David Passman, Carmike Cinemas

Some distributors appear comfortable with the carefully managed use of alternative content. Some, however, may see it as taking ticket sale opportunities away from their films, particularly in the early weeks of a new release’s run.

Of course there are also technical issues being faced by the exhibition sector.

With the conversion to digital projection completed, the industry is now examining digital delivery possibilities that would create more efficiencies and further cut costs, such as the satellite and terrestrial platform launched late last year by the exhibitor- and distributor-backed Digital Cinema Distribution Coalition.

“Migration towards more efficient and economical forms of delivery in a digital world is very important for the entire industry, distributors and exhibitors,” says NATO’s Fithian.

Satellite delivery is one of several options, Fithian adds, “and we’re looking at them all because we don’t want to keep shipping hard drives for ever.”

Other hot topics in exhibition include 3D attendance and theatrical windows. »

April 2014 Screen International 19 n

I leave you in the evening that however sad, is almost sweet, falling on us, living creatures.

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Karl Baumi Baumgartner 3rd of January 1949

18th of March 2014

Your Directors in lovinG MeMorY Aki Kaurismäki Aktan Arym Kubat Andreas Dresen Ari Folman Bakhtiar Khudojnazarov Bent Hamer Bohdan Sláma Călin Peter Netzer Claire Denis Detlev Buck Dito Tsintsadze Dominique de Rivaz Dušan Milić Edwin Emir Kusturica Eran Kolirin Fatih Akin Filippos Tsitos Francisco Lombardi Fredi Murer Fridrik Thor Fridriksson Gianni Amelio Haile Gerima Hans-Christian Schmid Jan Schomburg Jan Schütte Jane Campion Jasmila Žbanić Jim Jarmusch Kim Ki-duk Leos Carax Malgoska Szumowska Maren Ade Matthias Luthardt Nadav Schirman Olivier Assayas Pål Sletaune Pan Nalin Pedro Costa Pia Marais Rafi Pitts Rajan Khosa Sandra Nettelbeck Sergei Bodrov Sergey Dvortsevoy Stephan Komandarev Sylvie Michel Tomáš Luňák

US EXHIBITION

Though visual spectacles such as Gravity and family films like The Lego Movie are still attracting large 3D audiences in North America, the average 3D take-rate — the proportion of a film’s audience choosing to pay a premium to see it in 3D — is in decline. A recent report from financial services firm Morgan Stanley predicted that the average 3D take-rate, which was 54% in 2011, will this year drop to 39%.

Boosting 3D take Carmike Cinemas’ Passman believes one fix might be putting more 3D prints in circulation during the first weeks of a film’s release.

“We’ve experimented with that,” he says, “and we think that is one way we might be able to improve the 3D take-rate, for the studios as well as ourselves.”

But Passman also suggests that studios should do more 3D promotion. “Paramount went out of its way to promote TransDark Of formers [Dark The Moon]] as a 3D spectacular,”

he reports, “and it had one of the highest 3D take-rates since Avatar.”

Distributors, of course, have their own views. 20th Century Fox president of domestic distribution Chris Aronson believes that early in the current 3D boom exhibitors pushed up ticket prices even for poor quality 3D conversions and now “the price-value proposition is way out of whack. Price sensitivity for the family market is clearly there.

Most families don’t want to shell out the massive additional money that it costs to go to a 3D movie.”

Discussion between exhibitors and distributors on theatrical windows is considerably less heated now than it was a few years ago.

Even the recent simultaneous US theatri-

‘Most families don’t want to shell out the massive additional money that it costs to go to a 3D movie’ Chris Aronson, 20th Century Fox

The Lego Movie

cal and online release of the Veronica Mars movie by Warner Bros — which opened the film on a ‘four-wall’ basis, renting 260 screens from AMC Entertainment — was received relatively calmly by exhibitors (AMC itself says a four-wall arrangement is the only exception it would make to its policy of not playing films made available on other platforms within 90 days of theatrical launch).

But the discussion certainly isn’t over. And it could still become lively again thanks to the studios’ desire to get more home-entertainment marketing bang for their theatrical marketing bucks.

Chris Aronson says that in Fox’s discussions with exhibitors, “We’ve told them that we’re going to try to keep poking into what we call the ‘dark zone’, the time [after] a film leaves the theatre, before it’s exploited in the home. But not at the expense of the theatrical window, because we believe in the theatrical window and we want the theatrical window to thrive.

“We’ve been very up-front with them,” Aronson adds, “and said, ‘If we do something — which you’ll know about ahead of time — and you can prove to us that it impacted your box office, then we’ll be the first ones to say s we screwed up.’” ■

UK & Ireland Managing Director Vue Entertainment is a world class operator and developer of modern state-of-the-art multiplex cinemas. Following a number of recent acquisitions Vue Entertainment now operates across 9 territories including UK, Germany, Ireland, Denmark, Poland, Portugal, Latvia, Lithuania and Taiwan with over 1,300 screens and over 250,000 seats.

As the company evolves from being a UK only based business to the fastest growing and most dynamic cinema operator in Europe, they are creating a new position of UK and Ireland Managing Director to drive the biggest territory within the business (83 cinemas nationwide, 790 screens).

The successful candidate will have: • P roven experience of having operated in a senior leadership role with full P&L responsibility for a business unit • Experience within a fast-moving, multi-site customer facing business with a large workforce The successful candidate will be: • D elivery focused, numerate and analytical in nature with high levels of intellect and emotional intelligence • Able to identify, articulate and implement a clear strategic vision with strong commercial acumen

For more information please contact Elliott Goldstein at The MBS Group: vue@thembsgroup.co.uk or 020 7722 1221 The MBS Group | www.thembsgroup.co.uk

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April 2014 Screen International 21 ■

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24/03/14 08.29

Theodore Wood

Sarah Spear, Curtis Brown

Agents of change Agents have an increasingly important role in the film and TV industries. At a Screen-hosted roundtable, Wendy Mitchell and Andreas Wiseman asked some of the UK’s key players how agenting is changing What has been the biggest change since you started in the business?

Charles Collier There are two clear things that have changed since I came into the business.

Firstly, as agents we have to be operating under the UK system and UK laws and, at the same time, we have to be familiar with and confident at working in the US system. Secondly, every career that we look after should have a variety and balance between film and TV to reach its potential. As agents, we have to be comfortable in both worlds and both in the US and UK. The generation before ours let the US agent do what they wanted.

Josh Varney What I’ve seen change in the last five years is the volume of information-sharing. In the UK we are now getting the same information at the same time as our US counterparts…

A real strength of being in London is that one can sometimes be ahead of the game compared to American agencies. When I started, that wasn’t the case. It was always that the UK film-maker would make their first film here and would then be desperate to for-

n 24 Screen International April 2014

ward their career by moving to Los Angeles.

They no longer think that’s the gold standard.

Jane Villiers The studios themselves have changed. There is now such a huge division between independent films and what the studios are doing; they’re not working with clients in the way that they used to. We used to use US agents to find out what was going on in the studios but that is not as important now.

How closely do you work with your clients’ US agents?

Collier We have American agents who we have intensely close relationships with. When a career gets to a certain size, you just can’t work 24 hours a day.

Sarah Spear I think it’s very different on the acting side to the lit side. There seems to be a very different relationship. On the acting side, it has paid off to bring on board someone who you really trust and we’ve never had our fingers burnt on that.

Varney One thing I’ve seen change is the reciprocation of talent. I’ve personally bene-

‘As agents, we have to be comfortable in the US and UK. The generation before let the US agent do what they wanted’ Charles Collier, Tavistock Wood

fited from building really solid relationships with key agents [in the US] and as the world has gotten much smaller and the international business has got much more important, as a company we’re now representing American writers, actors and directors.

We were able to leverage our relationships here in TV to put together international movies that would previously have been studio movies. We have benefitted from investing in those relationships really early on. That is in no way the rule, but is a real growth area for UK agencies.

Do you think the British talent pool has improved in the last 10 years?

Collier It’s the talent pool that has actually created the industry. Export is up 112% since 2001, largely because of the talent that draws people here. We’re talking about UK talent, the crews and the whole infrastructure.

We didn’t have the studio system or mass direct public subsidy like the French, it had to come from the talent first. The sheer energy of the talent has built what I think is a

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Agents Roundtable

Duncan Heath, Independent

really meaningful industry. Together with some recent very good government thinking like the tax credits on TV, there has been a huge boom again for our creative industries.

UK writers are absolutely everywhere across high-end TV. Varney American studios are making a great deal of their product out of our UK studios.

The smart producers out there know that there’s no business in just being pigeonholed as a British producer making British product on the off chance it might travel. There’s a level of ambition that I didn’t feel when I started in the business. Talent is happy to stay here, live here and build here. Where the money comes from is less relevant than where the project happens.

Villiers We are in a very global industry and we all represent directors from Europe. When you think of someone like David Heyman and what he’s done here, it is fantastic.

How is international finance influencing the way you’re working globally?

Varney For me, in terms of television, sales and formats, you can get more money — TV not film — from international territories than you can by going to the States.

Collier I find there is much better access now to India in particular because there are good strong cultural links between our countries and there are big Indian investors. Likewise with Russia. What makes London unique in terms of financing projects is that we’re able to bring together US finance, but with European subsidy. We’ve got a good balance here.

Our tax credit system means we do have pub-

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lic investment that I would always argue is essential to build a talent pool. We sit perfectly between the European subsidy model and the US. Are packagers at the US agencies such as CAA, UTA and WME the gatekeepers now?

Duncan Heath I think the word package is a pretty overused word… Also it’s worth asking why there are basically three agencies in a much larger field in the US, but 500 agencies in London? There’s an interesting dilemma there… Why do we have so many small agencies here? If you look at TV packaging that’s just a points system. With film packaging, I think the power of the agencies is on the decline compared to the earlier days in my career. I know that any director or writer of mine who hears they’re part of a package would quite rightly scream and shout.

Varney Duncan’s question is a really important one. Why are there so many agencies in a small space? I think the UK is all about individual relationships with talent and the small agencies have a place to be able to give that personal attention to their talent… As a boutique start-up, there’s definitely a place for us amongst some incredibly sophisticated, longstanding agencies.

Spear I think we’re more comparable to managers in the States…When you have the conversation with the clients about why they would have a manager, what we do is we cover what a US manager would do anyway.

Heath The truth is that we have a tiny business. If you are totally honest, do you think that once your client is working primarily in

Our expert panel Charles Collier Tavistock Wood (Alicia Vikander, Olga Kurylenko, Ronan Bennett) Duncan Heath Independent (Steve Coogan, Matthew Vaughn, Mike Newell) Sarah Spear Curtis Brown (Robert Pattinson, Dev Patel, Tom Sturridge) Josh Varney 42 (Lynne Ramsay, Terry Gilliam, William Monahan) Jane Villiers Sayle Screen (Yorgos Lanthimos, Andrea Arnold, Clio Barnard)

the States you have the same relationship with them if 100% of their work is coming out of the American studios? A successful UK actor will at some point have a US lawyer, US agent and US manager. American agents are much more aggressive and it’s slightly stretching the truth to say that we always have a wonderful relationship with them.

Spear Skype is key. Certainly for actors, the huge difference is that in the past you had to go over to LA and spend your time over there.

With the technology now, you don’t have to move over there, you can have people with successful studio careers but they can still be based here. The younger ones can audition and download on the same day, that’s completely different from five years ago and certainly 10 years ago. That’s keeping a lot of people here.

Varney There are many facets to being a representative in this climate. You need to be an agent protecting the talent. Secondly, you need to be a manager to build a career from its infancy to global standing and also you need to be entrepreneurial and find work for your client… When the American agencies are becoming more aggressive and coming after our clients early on, one has to be more than an agent in the US sense.

Is there a perception that UK agents aren’t aggressive enough in terms of getting clients and packaging?

Varney You’ve got to be careful with the word packaging. A package means something very specific: an agency putting together a film or TV project and charging what is essentially a »

April 2014 Screen International 25 n

Theodore Wood

Roundtable Agents

Charles Collier, Tavistock Wood

producer’s fee for it. That’s fine and that does exist. In TV it’s a huge business, but in film, it’s less prevalent than it was 10 or 15 years ago. I feel if you’re doing the job of a smart agent over here, every day you are packaging your clients’ work. Whether you’re charging a fee for it is irrelevant… It’s what the best entrepreneurial agents are doing every day.

A lack of diversity – both in front of and behind the camera – remains a big problem in the UK. To what extent is this on your radar?

Collier Look at the stats, compared to every other sector in the UK you’ll find the creative industries as a whole steal a massive march on everything else. A lack of ethnic diversity is something we’re all committed to improving.

Varney TV commissioners and networks are making a concerted effort to rectify this.

There’s been a real move to create more diversity.

Heath As agents, we answer to the marketplace. How much clout do we have in terms of changing that? My guess is very little. Agents are colour blind. It’s our nature to go for people who are really talented. I don’t think we go out of our way to fight in that battle.

I think it’s just time. In 10 years time the issue will be irrelevant.

Collier Duncan’s right, in that you can only give the market what it wants, but there are times when you can tell them that they should

n 26 Screen International April 2014

Josh Varney, 42

think differently… Traditionally, London has been a good place for talent from an ethnic background to flourish on the international stage. I’m sure there’s more work to do.

Villiers If you look at where the talent is coming from in terms of ethnicity, it’s theatre and they really are colour blind, compared to TV, where the commissioners have been hugely responsible for not having enough diversity.

Varney It’s not just about on-screen talent. It’s also about people working in the industry, including agents. We’ve all been guilty of it.

It’s much easier to work with or hire someone who is a friend of a friend or who has a particular background or a relative within the industry, than it is to take a chance on someone with none of those things. The majority of people who work within the agency environment are normally one removed from a family connection. That’s something I think we can all work harder to change. Michael Foster’s charity [Creative Access] – which is all about taking those people who wouldn’t normally get the leg up into the industry through an intern scheme – is a stroke of genius, and all of the agencies are either employing people from that initiative or intend to do so.

Spear We have a big intern scheme and two out of three of our most recently hired film and TV agents are from ethnic-minority backgrounds. That said, there’s much more we can do.

‘The difference is now, if you’re going to survive, you have to be much more entrepreneurial’

Heath There is a very serious point that drama schools are expensive and much more public-school driven. One of the things we should be doing as agents is ensuring that every agency is helping out people who can’t afford it.

Collier We should be fighting as a group like crazy to ensure the government recognises how essential those drama schools are.

Duncan Heath, Independent

Would more agency consolidation be helpful?

‘The marketplace is changing on a daily basis.

It’s the biggest challenge, particularly in TV’ Jane Villiers, Sayle Screen

Collier If you’re a smart agent in a small agency or in a large agency, you should be able to extract the same information. What a big agency can sometimes do is cover up those agents who are not as entrepreneurial and not as forthright or willing to go out and get the information, because it provides a comfortable environment. There’s a small group of smart agencies that would survive in any climate — that 500 agencies figure is a bit misleading.

Varney If you look at CAA and WME, their ability is to leverage their relationship with talent and say, ‘I’ll sell your movie in the US.’ They take 10%-15% on a US sale at $8m; that’s rather nice for a small indie movie.

There’s a huge potential growth side to that for the agency in the UK that gets that kind of scale… Where the American agencies have been brilliant is having the different divisions serve the mothership, but one has to be care-

www.screendaily.com

Jane Villiers, Sayle Screen

ful of taking your eye away from the core business of being a good representative.

What is the biggest challenge facing you in the next five years?

Is there the space for independent agencies to grow in the UK?

Varney It’s making sure that you remain relevant in a business that is changing daily in terms of digital distribution platforms, and retaining entrepreneurial relationships with your clients.

Villiers It’s a knowledge of what is happening because the marketplace is changing on a daily basis, particularly in TV. I think the other challenge in terms of TV is the role of the broadcaster, which I think will be diminishing over the next few years. We will not be getting the deals we used to get and could rely on. We have to understand where we’re going to get the money and who the players are going to be. In a sense, it’s the same with film.

Collier To grow the creative roots in London, which I think is the best place in the world to have them. To retain intensely personal relationships and at the same time be outward looking towards an entire global market and be able to adapt and change as that market does and at an increasing speed. It’s that balance between the personal and a sophisticated business model.

Heath You’ve got to understand finance and be wary and aware that unless you are incredibly bright, you’ll be swallowed by the American agencies. You should probably have offices in Europe and Australia and not rely totally on what happens here in the UK. Spear It’s a balance of being personal to clients but s absolutely keeping ahead of where the industry is. n

Heath You can grow as much as you like. What we’re all guilty of as agents is hoping the business will look after us. Wakey wakey, it won’t. The difference between when I started and the business now, is that if you’re going to survive, you have to be much more entrepreneurial. There are so many more players. It used to be much simpler… you’re going to have to understand much more about the business than just saying, ‘Hello, any casting?’ You have to know about hundreds of things.

Collier We have to be very sharp because now we’re dealing with a world in which the right career is spread across theatre, film and high-end TV. We’re seeing the boundaries start to disappear… The VoD market is booming and we’re seeing players like Netflix and Amazon enter the market. We need to be strategically very sophisticated about the work we do.

Heath With all the talent we’ve got, why don’t we have the equivalent of an American studio in the UK? We often have to go out of the UK to set up a British film as we only get dribs and drabs in investment. We don’t have the same as France. All our studios are primarily servicing studios. Why don’t we have a one-stop shop? It would be nice to think there was someone you could go to in London; that we could just do the deal here.

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TERRITORY FOCUS ■ MEXICO OVERVIEW ■ HOT PROJECTS

MEXICO’S NEW ROAD G

ravity is not a Mexican film, but Alfonso Cuaron’s five-time Oscar winner certainly shows the heights of ambition from Mexican talents like Cuaron, his son and writing partner Jonas, and his DoP Emmanuel Lubezki. Cuaron’s best director speech even gave a shout out to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, another Mexico-born stalwart who is now readying Birdman.

Film-makers like Cuaron and Inarritu have paved the way for an exciting new generation of Mexican talents, from the gang at Canana (Diego Luna, Gael Garcia Bernal and Pablo Cruz) to 2013 Cannes best director winner Amat Escalante and genre star Jorge Michel Grau.

In addition to hot talents, Mexico’s booming box office is another reason why global companies such as Partici-

pant Media are keen to make inroads in Mexico — just as savvy Mexican producers understand the growth potential across the Spanish-speaking world.

This is certainly a market that will see steady growth in the years ahead, and I can’t wait to see the next crop of Mexican films that will demand attention on the world stage.

Wendy Mitchell, editor

Viento Aparte

www.screendaily.com

April 2014 Screen International 29 ■

Taking off Beyond Alfonso Cuaron’s Oscar win, Mexico’s growing film industry has much to celebrate, from a new wave of talent to steady box-office growth and smart global partnerships. Jeremy Kay reports

Cesar Chavez

B

efore Gravity director Alfonso Cuaron hoisted aloft this year’s Academy Award, Golden Globe and DGA Award, there was 2007. That was the year when the irrepressible talent of Mexico’s most celebrated crop of modern film-making sons coalesced into an extraordinary night of Academy recognition.

Cuaron was up for adapted screenplay and editing Oscars for Children Of Men, and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu had earned a directing nod for Babel. Meanwhile, Guillermo del Toro and Guillermo Arriaga were in the frame for writing foreign-language nominee Pan’s Labyrinth and Babel, respectively.

None of the quartet would win individual honours that Oscar night — although Pan’s Labyrinth cinematographer Guillermo Navarro and art director Eugenio Caballero saw Oscar glory — yet the dazzling haul of senior nominations had not gone unnoticed.

They were winning Ariel Awards in their native country and directing international blockbusters in the US. The Mexicans had arrived.

Behind the success of this established cadre and the promise of more to come from them — let alone the prospect of a new wave of talent — lies a vibrant and supportive industry and film-going culture.

As exhibition infrastructure, box office grosses and production incentives continue

n 30 Screen International April 2014

to grow and the prestige of festivals such as Guadalajara, Morelia, Guanajuato and Los Cabos increases, so does the number of US suitors looking to gain a foothold in Latin America.

Box-office boom Hollywood studios have been enjoying success in Mexico for years. Combined box office for all industry product released in the territory climbed 53% in local currency terms over the last five years, from $592.8m (peso7.8bn) in 2009 to a record $904.6m (peso11.9bn) in 2013.

Attendance has mushroomed by 43% from 179.5 million in 2009 to 257.4 million in 2013.

A steady multiplex growth curve led by Cinepolis and Cinemex is responsible in no small part: a 39% surge from 3,500 screens in 2009 is keeping exhibition on course to cross 5,000 this year.

Cinepolis CEO Alejandro Ramirez says that with an annual average of 2.1 visits per film-goer and a broader choice of films, the strategy at the largest chain in Latin America is to keep on growing by an average of 200 to 250 screens a year.

The group operates 299 cinemas and 2,754 screens in Mexico, with plans for 158 new Mexican and 129 international screens in 2014. Brazil and India are the prime targets further afield.

‘There’s an overall general growth in Mexico’ Alexandre Lippens, CDC United Networks

“The past decade has been very positive for Mexican box office,” says Paramount Pictures International president Anthony Marcoly.

“The territory has become a top five or six market for the studios. Year-on-year growth has been in the high single- to low doubledigits consistently.”

“There’s an overall general growth in Mexico,” says CDC United Networks founder and CEO Alexandre Lippens. “Brazil experienced substantial growth in 2010-11, but these two territories essentially have about the same box office. Growth in Mexico has been steady.”

Lippens notes the polarised effect on box office, whereby Hollywood blockbusters can overperform and local titles can get lost at sea.

Local-language production is still hit-ormiss and has remained at around 5% of total grosses since 2009 — although Instructions Not Included and Nosotros Los Nobles powered local share to 10.3% in 2013 and landed at five and 21 on the all-time top 25 pantheon.

This is music to the ears of Jorge Sanchez, head of Imcine (the Mexican Film Institute), the support body that administers various film funds and oversees the film school system, among other duties. For Sanchez, Cuaron’s recent success at the Academy Awards reflects well on the ambitions of the industry. “Our film-makers have done really good work,” he says, “And whether it’s here or abroad, we’re as proud as we are when Chich-

www.screendaily.com

overview Mexico

thrilled with the quality of the slate that Mundial has built up,” says Ford.

“This US-Latin market is very complex,” adds Cruz. “We consider the US an extension of Latin America. We share values that are consistent in terms of strong values and strong connection and spirituality.”

Nosotros Los Nobles

The Ardor

Instructions Not Included

arito scores a goal for Manchester United.”

Mexican production incentives include the Fidecine fund for commercially skewed projects, Foprocine for arthouse fare and the Eficine 189 tax stimulus designed to attract private investment.

International producers can benefit from VAT exemption complemented by the ProAV fund that provides a rebate of up to 7.5% on Mexican spend of at least $3.1m.

“The industry is still growing in Mexico,” says Xavier Hernandez, head of sales at Corazon Films, a partner of the International Distribution Company network set up by Summit Entertainment and NuVision founder Pedro Rodriguez several years ago.

“Even thought the ticket price is not cheap for most of the people, it’s cheaper than other [forms of entertainment]… There are alternatives like 3D, 4D and Imax having a lot of success. It’s a big market… a lot of people like watching movies in theatres.”

Strong partnerships Canana, the producer-distributor set up in 2005 by Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna and Pablo Cruz, is one of several notable Mexican players with offices in Mexico City and Los Angeles, the others being Alex Garcia and Lemon Films.

Several years ago Canana launched joint sales venture Mundial with IM Global and it is

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The Liberator

‘Knowing the Spanish-speaking marketplace is extremely important to us when we start to think 10-15 years from now’ Jim Berk, Participant Media

also a partner with Participant Media, Chile’s Fabula and Colombia’s Dynamo on the young co-production entity Participant PanAmerica.

It is said that Mexican film-makers at times do not know how to present themselves to the rest of the world and work with their counterparts. That is partly why Canana was eager to strike a deal with finance, production and sales specialist IM Global.

“This helps us position those films in the wider international arena,” says Cruz. He adds that Mundial also offers “the fact that we know what this Latin American market is going through and we can approach the international space knowing that”.

Canana aims to produce two, possibly three, films a year and distributes around 12 predominantly arthouse titles.

“From IM Global’s perspective, we wanted to legitimately be a player in Latin America,” says IM Global founder and CEO Stuart Ford.

“Hopefully in so doing we can discover great talent — be they film-makers or on-screen — and build a set of relationships with financiers, broadcasters and producers that can have a knock-on effect on the rest of the business.”

Mundial vice-president Cristina Garza was selling Canana production Cesar Chavez at the recent EFM in Berlin and the slate has included box-office hit The Liberator, A Wolf At The Door and Jorge Michel Grau’s upcoming Curse The Darkness. “We’re super-

Future opportunities The success of Mexican films on Netflix, Carlos Slim’s Claro TV and Grupo Televisa’s VEO has not gone unnoticed at Canana, itself a player in the digital space. Cruz believes the digital arena may help to erode resistance to Spanish-language content in Latin America from outside the originating territory.

“Inevitably we will extend into South and Central America,” he says. “Between Mexico and Central America this is almost 180 million Spanish-speaking people. Spanish is a language that unites us. We have never been able to make it work on a theatrical or film-by-film basis, but VoD will allow us to connect the dots.”

Expansion has been the name of the game at Participant Media, giving rise to the Participant PanAmerica arrangement.

“It was created to co-finance Latin American films that require gap financing or up to half the budget,” says CEO Jim Berk of Participant Media, which can fully fund should it so choose. “We come in with equity and cofinance the movie with them.” The first film to emerge from the arrangement is Bernal starrer The Ardor directed by Pablo Fendrik and now in post with US rights up for grabs.

Berk says Latin American tax incentives are “really strong” and provided an impetus to seek partners from the region.

“Twenty-eight per cent of the US market is Hispanic,” he adds. “It’s the fastest-growing segment, so understanding and having a relationship and knowing the Spanish-speaking marketplace is extremely important to us when we start to think 10-15 years from now.

It’s why we have a TV partnership through Pivot with Univision.”

It is crucial to look ahead, as Todd Brown of LA-based XYZ Films is only too aware.

“It’s definitely an area we’re looking for opportunities to move into,” says Brown. He says the impetus to investigate potential ties came when he met We Are What We Are director Jorge Michel Grau at Guadalajara a few years back.

This enabled Brown to not only get to know the film-maker but pay attention to the emerging class of Grau and the likes of Fernando Urdapilleta and Gabriel Marino, some of whom are graduates from the Centro De Capacitacion Cinematografica (centre of cinematic training).

XYZ Films is now developing Grau’s Keep Quiet, an elevated werewolf story in the vein of We Are What We Are, and is in the process of securing government funding.

“What’s happening in Mexico now,” says Brown, “is you’re getting a generation that was young when Inarritu broke out and these guys in that wave would have been in their teens and are saying, ‘We could do that.’” s And they are doing it. n

April 2014 Screen International 31 n

mexico hot projects

The most wanted Buzz titles for 2014 from the rising stars of Mexico’s film industry The Beginning Of Time (El Comienzo Del Tiempo) Dir Bernardo Arellano

Antonio Perez Carbajal and Bertha Olivia Ramirez star in Bernardo Arellano’s film as a couple in their 90s who peddle tamales on the street after the government suspends state pensions. The sudden appearance of their estranged son and grandson bodes well. Agrupacion Caramelo Cinematografica, the company Arellano set up with April Shannon and others, produced the story backed by private funds and prize money from Arellano’s 2010 San Sebastian Films in Progress winner Between Night And Day. Post-production support comes from Imcine and a work-in-progress grant from the Los Cabos International Film Festival. Arellano’s third feature, Franco’s Night, was recently presented in the Cartagena film festival’s producers market.

Contact April Shannon, Agrupacion Caramelo Cinematografica aprils@agrupacioncaramelo.com

Desierto Dir Jonas Cuaron Jonas Cuaron, who co-wrote Gravity with his father Alfonso, has begun shooting his sophomore feature in Baja California.

Cuaron Senior produces and Gael Garcia Bernal and Jeffrey Dean Morgan star in the cat-and-mouse tale of an American vigilante on the trail of a migrant worker.

Carlos Cuaron, Charles Gillibert and Alex Garcia also produce the Esperanto Kino production in association with CG Cinema, Orange Studio, Canana and Itaca Films. David Linde and Bernal are among the executive producers.

Contact Araceli Velazquez araceli.velazquez@agstudios.com

Gueros Dir Alonso Ruizpalacios Ruizpalacios is officially one to watch after his Panorama selection scooped the best first feature award in Berlin, where Mundial handled international sales.

Gael Garcia Bernal serves as executive producer and Ramiro Ruiz produced the coming-of-age story set against the 1999 student strikes, as two brothers journey across Mexico City in search of a legendary musician. Sebastian Aguirre, Tenoch Huerta, Leonardo Ortizgris and Ilse Salas star.

Contact Mundial cristina_garza@mundialsales.com

n 32 Screen International April 2014

Lonely Stars (Estrellas Solitarias) Dir Fernando Urdapilleta One of the new wave of exciting graduates from Mexico’s Centro de Capacitacion Cinematografica (CCC), Urdapilleta makes his feature directorial debut with a story about drag queens in Mexico City.

Backing comes from the Foprocine (Mexican Fund for Quality Cinema). Urdapilleta aims to have the movie ready this summer and is in talks with distributors. Henner Hoffman and Karla Bukantz produced and the executive producers are Antonio Urdapilleta and Alejandra Garcia. Dana Karvelas and Jorge Arriaga lead the cast.

Contact Centro de Capacitacion Cinematografica divulgacion@elccc.com.mx

Mexico’s Most Wanted

Mexico’s Most Wanted (El Charro Misterioso) Dir Jose Manuel Cravioto

LatAm has lined up an autumn release in Mexico for the true story of Alfredo Rios Galeana, the most prolific bank robber in the history of Mexico, who went by the moniker El Charro Misterioso. When he wasn’t pulling off more than 80 heists and escaping from prison, Galeana was a masked Mariachi player who sold records to the masses. The story charts Galeana’s criminal career and the final showdown with the federal agent who took him in.

Contact Mundial cristina_garza@mundialsales.com

The Obscure Spring (Las Oscuras Primaveras) Dir Ernesto Contreras

Jose Maria Yazpik, Cecilia Suarez, Irene Azuela and Margarita Sanz star in Contreras’ feature about a plumber and a coffee shop worker whose desire for each other reaches a crescendo with the onset of spring. Carlos Contreras wrote the screenplay and Monica Lozano, Luis Albores, Erika Avila, Jose Maria Yazpik, Carlos Meza Yazpik and Eamon O’Farril produced the Tintorera Producciones, Agencia SHA, Alebrije Cine y Video production with support from Fidecine, Eficine and Estudios Churubusco Azteca. No distributor is attached yet.

Contact Ernesto Contreras todaslasrespuestas@gmail.com

Open Cage (Los Baninos) Dir Max Zunino Another story about the ramifications of

Lonely Stars

economic hardship, Zunino’s Open Cage explores the growing friendship between a rebellious teenager and her grouchy old neighbour who bond in order to get by.

The feature recently received its world premiere in Guadalajara 12 months after it won the work-in-progress awards at Guadalajara Construye and, more recently, a grant from Ventana Sur Primer Corte 2013.

Contact Max Zunino maxzunino@me.com

Paraiso Dir Mariana Chenillo

The Beginning Of Time

Viento Aparte Dir Alejandro Gerber Bicecci Bicecci’s story, which premiered at the Guadalajara film festival in March, took the film-maker on a 1,600-mile journey when it shot in early 2013. Sebastian Cobos and Valentina Buzzurro star in the story of two youngsters who trek to their grandmother’s home after their mother suffers a stroke. The film is supported by Foprocine, Imcine, Albricias Produccion and Estudios Churubusco.

Contact Albricias Produccion vaho.albriciasproduccion@gmail.com

Chenillo’s follow-up her multiple Ariel Award-winner Nora’s Will centres on a happy couple whose marriage is challenged when they relocate to Mexico City and go on diets. Andres Almeida and Daniela Rincon star and Canana’s Pablo Cruz produced. Mundial handles international sales and Videocine will release in Mexico on June 29. “Paraiso is a film about change,” says Chenillo. “It is about the fear we feel when our life changes, causing things to slip out of our control.”

The Well (Manto Acuifero)

Contact Mundial cristina_garza@mundialsales.com

Contact Mundial cristina_garza@mundialsales.com

Dir Michael Rowe Gael Garcia Bernal produces the new film from Michael Rowe — winner of 2010’s Camera d’Or for Leap Year — alongside Julian Levin and Arturo Sampson. Canana will release in autumn. The Well centres on an imaginative eight-year-old girl from a broken home who pines for her father and discovers a secret about him that will change her forever. Zaili Sofia Macias, Tania Arredondo and Arnoldo Picazzo star.

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

Reviews in brief

Better Living Through Chemistry

Dirs/scr: Geoff Moore, David Posamentier. US. 2014.

92mins

Better Living Through Chemistry gets some amusing moments from the always watchable Sam Rockwell and a good supporting cast but seems content to leave it at that. It is probably too insubstantial for theatrical markets. Rockwell plays Doug Varney, a mild-mannered small-town pharmacist with a domineering wife (Michelle Monaghan), an unpleasant father-in-law (Ken Howard) and a troubled pre-teen son. When Doug makes a delivery to unhappy trophy wife Elizabeth (Olivia Wilde, last seen in Her) the meeting sparks a drugfuelled affair that nearly destroys his world. Ray Liotta makes a brief appearance as Elizabeth’s husband and Jane Fonda has one short, slightly risqué scene. Fonda also provides an intermittent voiceover that tries to be winkingly self-referential but feels more like a sales ploy.

John Hazelton CONTACT METRO FILMS

www.metro-films.com

The Food Guide To Love

Dirs: Dominic Harari, Teresa de Pelegri. Sp-Ire-Fr. 2013. 91mins

There is a good deal of by-the-numbers rom-com fun to be had with The Food Guide To Love, and while the ingredients never quite combine to make it a classic dish it is given a dash of heart and verve thanks to the whole-hearted lead performances by Richard Coyle and Leonor Watling. The film has a charm that may make it appealing to distributors of mainstream rom-com fare and the power of Fox behind it should see it get strong home entertainment and television outings. Coyle plays a charming food writer whose columns, television appearances and playful charm combine to make him popular with the ladies. But for some reason he can only make it to the six-month mark in any relationship until he meets Bibiana (Watling), a feisty Spaniard who falls for the wrong men.

Mark Adams CONTACT FOX INTERNATIONAL www.foxinternational.com

Non-Stop

Dir: Jaume Collet-Serra. US-Fr. 2014. 106mins

Initially, Non-Stop promises to be a fun, slick paranoid thriller, but eventually it becomes clear that there is not enough ingenuity to go along with all the ludicrousness. Reuniting with his Unknown director Jaume Collet-Serra, Liam Neeson gives a reliably grizzled and haunted performance, but Non-Stop makes more noise than sense. Neeson plays Bill Marks, an alcoholic former New York cop who is now an undercover US air marshal. On a plane headed to London, he receives text messages threatening a passenger will be killed every 20 minutes and demanding $150m. On the action front, Non-Stop has a few diverting moments, including a claustrophobic fight in an airplane bathroom.

Tim Grierson CONTACT STUDIOCANAL

www.studiocanal.com

n 36 Screen International April 2014

Need For Speed Dir: Scott Waugh. US. 2014. 130mins

A little motivation goes a long way in Need For Speed, a technically polished but narratively bloated and muddled adaptation of the bestselling videogame racing series of the same name. Alternately slick and over-plotted, the tonally confused result runs out of gas before the finish line.

The story centres on Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul), a small-town mechanic who street-races muscle cars on the side with a tight-knit group of friends. Needing cash, Tobey takes a job building a souped-up custom car for Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper), an arrogant professional driver who also happens to be dating his ex-girlfriend, Anita (Dakota Johnson). When a racing tragedy befalls a pal, Tobey ends up pulling jail time, framed for a crime he didn’t commit.

When he gets out of prison, Tobey reluctantly partners with car broker Julia Maddon (Imogen Poots), while setting his sights on revenge against Dino. The venue is a high-stakes underground race whose backer, Monarch (Michael Keaton), chooses the participants.

Need For Speed, which in addition to checklisted components from some of its more popular videogame iterations, summons forth a pastiche of elements nipped from The Fast And The Furious series, Smokey And The Bandit, The Cannonball Run and Gone In 60 Seconds, is a prime example of a movie where less would have been more. In its needy and needless reach for gravitas, and occasional ham-fisted attempts to ground its conceit in the real world, the movie irreparably drains a lot of momentum from what could be an energising, fun, diversionary romp.

Director Scott Waugh, who previously co-directed 2012’s Act Of Valor, knows his way around helicopter and crane shots (aerial unit directors of photography Michael Kelem and David Nowell also deserve a tip of the hat), which helps give the movie isolated pockets of cathartic connection. Waugh (who also takes a co-editing credit) understands the importance of spatial relationships in action film-making.

Stepping out into feature film leading roles after the conclusion of his award-winning run on TV’s Breaking Bad, Paul acquits himself as well as the screenplay will allow. The film grants him a couple of small moments of exasperation, posed angst and smouldering cool, but this is no great test of range or even charisma.

Poots, on the heels of a similarly fresh turn in That Awkward Moment, delivers a loose-limbed performance that augurs a continued upwards trajectory. She is quirky and slightly off-centre — just what a movie like this needs.

With all his scenes shot in discrete fashion, Keaton serves as a sort of emcee/Greek chorus for the film. He delivers much liveliness, but is poorly directed, his exhortations awkwardly interwoven throughout.

Its lighter material connects best, and there is the core of an enjoyable movie somewhere in here, but Need For Speed seems too hell-bent on trying to blend together the serious and exaggerated to deliver a convincing suspension of disbelief.

Brent Simon

CONTACT WALT DISNEY STUDIOS

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reviews

Reviews in brief

Muppets Most Wanted

Dir: James Bobin. US. 2014. 108mins

Muppets Most Wanted is a harmless if largely uninspired musical comedy offering that casts Jim Henson’s puppet creations on a globe-trotting adventure. The film shrugs, sings, wings and winks its way through a caper narrative, figuring or hoping that simply consistently acknowledging its shambolic narrative will somehow translate as wit. A lesser effort than its predecessor in every way, this cheerful confection will largely appease younger viewers but leave older audiences unstirred. On the heels of their triumphant reunion the Muppets are casting about for how to capitalise on their recaptured popularity when an unscrupulous manager, Dominic Badguy (Ricky Gervais), books them on an international tour.

The story this time feels small and miscalculated, however, and minus the mooring presence of the previous film’s Jason Segel and Amy Adams, there isn’t an engaging enough connection between the Muppets and the human actors.

Brent Simon CONTACT Walt Disney Pictures

Ironclad: Battle For Blood

Dir: Jonathan English. UK. 2014. 108mins

Divergent Dir: Neil Burger. US. 2014. 140mins

The dystopian young-adult-oriented Divergent will no doubt be compared endlessly to The Hunger Games, and certainly this film’s backers won’t mind if they can enjoy some of that franchise’s theatrical success. But despite a strong cast and some capable effects work — to say nothing of a rousing final third — this adaptation of the smash Veronica Roth novel suffers from genre déjà vu as well as that familiar first-instalment problem of having too much set-up and not enough payoff.

Divergent could find a sizable niche for itself in a marketplace that will also include Muppets Most Wanted, Noah and Captain America: The Winter Soldier in the next few weeks. The popularity of Roth’s trilogy of Divergent books will provide a considerable boost, and rising star Shailene Woodley (The Descendants and The Spectacular Now) adds to audience awareness.

Set in Chicago more than 100 years in the future, Divergent establishes a world that has been decimated by war, prompting civilisation to divide people into five factions based on principal qualities such as intelligence (Erudite) or honesty (Candor). Sweet-natured teenager Beatrice (Woodley) is raised in a family that is part of Abnegation, the selfless faction, but she is now at an age where she can take a state-run test that will determine which faction she should join as an adult.

To her surprise, her test comes back as inconclusive, which might mean she is a Divergent, a shunned group of individuals that belong to no faction and are forced to survive on their own on the outskirts of society. Hiding her test results, she announces that she is joining Dauntless, the athletic faction, in part because she idolised

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their adrenaline-fuelled behaviour as a little girl. But first, she and her fellow Dauntless candidates must endure a gruelling boot camp where the weakest will be eliminated and left to live with the rest of the faction-less outcasts.

Sci-fi adventures about untested characters who are anointed “the one” are nothing new — they have been with us since Star Wars and The Matrix — and with Divergent, director Neil Burger (Limitless) settles for a visual and narrative style that offers few surprises. The movie’s attempts to impress the viewer with its dark dystopia boast plenty of grim skill — Gravity production designer Andy Nicholson drapes Chicago in endless variations of grey and disrepair — without ever really conjuring a sense of dread. Divergent rarely goes anywhere without evoking earlier (and often better) films.

This is even more unfortunate considering Woodley has shown such promise playing young women struggling with feelings of inadequacy or anger. In Divergent, she is not given much of a character to play, but does what she can to make Beatrice’s adolescent uncertainty palpable.

Burger has surrounded Woodley with a sharp cast, including her Spectacular Now co-star Miles Teller as one of her Dauntless competitors, but everyone appears hemmed in by the recycled, humourless material. Playing a mysterious leader of this future world, Kate Winslet only rarely gets to flash the grown-up intelligence and wit that are usually part of her considerable appeal.

A bludgeoning and brutal bit of medieval mayhem, the bloodthirsty sequel Ironclad: Battle For Blood may well lack the characters, storyline and — by the look of it — budget to make it a successful follow-up, but it goes all out in terms of stabbings, hatchetings, beheadings and general gore to try and make it appealing to fans of the original. The 2011 film Ironclad, also directed by Jonathan English, proved a surprise modest success (both with some critics and cinema-goers) with its no-holds-barred Magnificent Seven style storyline. Here the director tries to repeat the format — a band of mercenary types are recruited to defend a castle against marauding Scots — but suffers from the law of diminishing returns.

Blood flows, but the story is weary, some of the dialogue clumsy and the performances are scattershot at best.

Mark Adams CONTACT CONTENT MEDIA CORP www.contentfilm.com

300: Rise Of An Empire

Dir: Noam Murro. US. 2014. 103mins

300: Rise Of An Empire unfolds in 480 BC, but it might as well be ‘KC’, or Known Commodity — such is the previously laid track this punishingly brutal follow-up to Zack Snyder’s influential 300 about the battle of Thermopylae and a group of Spartan soldiers’ defence against an army of Persian invaders, unfolds upon. With its low-angle shots, ominous thunderclaps, glistening pecs and bellowed celebrations of freedom, Rise Of An Empire peddles a particular, fetishised form of masculine hero worship in telling the story of a concurrent naval campaign, but all in the service of little more than a state-of-the-art showcase for unremitting violence. There is absolutely a place for this sort of faux-historical entertainment but Rise Of An Empire lacks characterisation and intrigue to make it work.

Brent Simon

Tim Grierson

CONTACT SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

CONTACT WARNER BROS

April 2014 Screen International 39 n

»

reviews

SXSW Reviews in brief Beyond Clueless

Dir/scr: Charlie Lyne. UK. 2014. 90mins

The American high school movie gets well and truly dissected and debated in Charlie Lyne’s debut feature Beyond Clueless, which thoughtfully puts together a compilation of extracts from more than 200 movies — some well remembered, some best forgotten — that examine the heartbeat of the teen movie genre. Fully funded by more than 500 Kickstarter backers in January 2013, the film was a perfect SXSW premiere given its teen stature and nice score by acclaimed pop duo Summer Camp.

Add to the pot, narration by cult teen star Fairuza Balk (who starred in The Craft and Almost Famous) and you have a smartly structured film.

Sticking strictly to films from the 1990s and 2000s, the film makes the solid argument that teen cinema came of age during that era and that far from being a genre to be laughed at it remains a successful and often astute phenomenon.

Mark Adams CONTACT FILM SALES COMPANY www.filmsalescorp.com

Pulp

Dir: Florian Habicht. UK. 2104. 90mins

The subheading for this enjoyable documentary about British band Pulp is: A Film About Life, Death and Supermarkets. While in truth there is little actual debate about life, death or even supermarkets this is a film that revels in Pulp’s great and profound relationship with their fans, most especially those from their home town of Sheffield. The core themes of their famous song Common People are what run through the film, as it reveals the deep and real affection the people of Sheffield have for the band and how the city had a formative effect on the band’s music and lead singer Jarvis Cocker’s lyrics in particular. You can take the band away from Sheffield, but you can’t take Sheffield away from the band. It is perhaps a niche music film — the band are well known in certain territories — but it reveals its story with a good deal of charm and insight.

Mark Adams Contact Altitude Film Sales www.altitudefilmsales.com

The Legend Of Shorty

Dirs: Angus Macqueen, Guillermo Galdos. UK. 2014.

86mins

An absorbing insight into the life and times of Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera (aka El Chapo, meaning ‘shorty’), this smoothly made documentary is also the beneficiary of great timing. After more than 13 years on the run, El Chapo, the leader of the biggest drugs cartel in history, was captured in Mexico on February 22. A hastily put together fresh ending means The Legend Of Shorty is as up-to-date as possible, and makes the perfect introduction to a man whose criminal career is currently all over the news pages, and whose legend as a local folk hero sits alongside his reputation as a man who used bribery and violence to further his plans. It is an absorbing and fascinating film, tracing the life and career of a terrifyingly powerful man.

Mark Adams CONTACT PROTAGONIST PICTURES www.protagonistpictures.com

n 40 Screen International April 2014

SXSW

The Infinite Man Dir/scr: Hugh Sullivan. Aus. 2014. 85mins

The time-travel film may well be a well-worn movie genre, but Australian film The Infinite Man takes it off in new directions as an oddball inventor uses his device to try and craft the perfect moment for him and his girlfriend. It is a smart, funny and oddly romantic indie film that deserves to find international distribution as well as further festival exposure.

Writer-director Hugh Sullivan’s complex tale may well weave in paradoxes and metaphorical issues of time travel, but in the end it is simply about the extreme measures one control-freak will take to try and recapture lost love. Playfully puzzling and bittersweet in tone — it is genuinely funny to start with, though frustratingly the humour gives way to spiralling drama and pathos — it feels fresh and intriguing and is always watchable.

Dean (Josh McConville) is a tense obsessive who is desperate to replicate the joy he and girlfriend Lana (Hannah Marshall) had a year earlier at a remote resort.

But when they arrive they find the once-busy hotel is now a ghost town. However, Dean has a written schedule (“I hold in my hands a blueprint of the perfect weekend,” he states), and he is determined they will enjoy their time together.

There may be no restaurant, music and even clean sheets, but Dean has brought with him a brain-recording device that he claims can help them recapture their time together. But just as they are about to have sex, up drives Lana’s ex-boyfriend Terry (Alex Dimitriades), a hulking man (proud of the fact he threw javelin at the Olympics) who wants Lana back. After Dean has a confused and confusing conversation with Lana she leaves with Terry, leaving Dean upset.

A year later Dean calls Lana from that same abandoned hotel, pleading for her to come and see what he had constructed. He transports them a year back to their last encounter where they can try and right wrongs, spy on the earlier versions of themselves and work through the new blueprint Dean has assembled.

He insists he knows how to make her happy, but as the various versions of themselves start to accidentally interact things get more and more confusing for Dean and various paradoxes emerge. In one he and Lana spend months working their way through the Kama Sutra, while another version of him spies on the couple making love… though things get even more complex when Terry also happens to come back in time and cause trouble all over again.

Beautifully written and engagingly complicated, the only slight frustration is that the initial high level of wit and humour gets left behind as the time travel shenanigans get more and more intense, but at the core of The Infinite Man is a real sense of clever warmth and astute film-making structure.

Mark Adams CONTACT SHORELINE ENTERTAINMENT www.shorelineentertainment.com

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reviews

SXSW Reviews in brief

I Believe In Unicorns

Dir/scr: Leah Meyerhoff. US. 2014. 80mins

A dreamy and quirkily twisted coming-of-age story, Leah Meyerhoff ’s I Believe In Unicorns treads very familiar territory, but it does so in a unique and striking style, resulting in an appealing left-field story of teen love, adventure and trauma. Teen love is never easy as this tantalising and troubled road trip romance proves. Its quirky qualities may well help make it appealing to distributors, while young star Natalia Dyer is an exciting talent to watch. Writer-director Meyerhoff admits that it is a very personal film, and that Dyer plays a fictionalised version of herself. The premise is a simple one — a young girl runs away from home and into the arms of an older boy, only to discover that their life together is not the fantasy she had imagined. It is deftly directed by Meyerhoff, and while never groundbreaking in terms of its slight storyline, it more than makes up for that in terms of its delicate and magical qualities.

Mark Adams CONTACT JESSICA LACY info@unicornsthemovie.com

The Mule

Dirs: Angus Sampson, Tony Mahony. Aus. 2014.

103mins SXSW

Veronica Mars Dir: Rob Thomas. US. 2014. 107mins

Veronica Mars’ return to her Southern California hometown of Neptune proves bittersweet for both her and the audience in this feature film continuation of the cult TV show. For Mars, it means recognising that the past she swears she has outrun isn’t as far away as she would like — and for viewers, there is a gradual recognition this nostalgic reunion isn’t quite as entertaining or satisfying as it should be. Kristen Bell remains a tart pleasure as the titular gumshoe, but Veronica Mars doesn’t so much expand the short-lived show’s universe as recycle it, and without the lively mysteries and poignant undercurrents that made the programme so engaging a decade ago.

Veronica Mars has drawn attention because of its makers’ ambitious Kickstarter campaign, which raised an impressive $5.7m from more than 91,500 backers. Consequently, Veronica Mars will be a test case for how a new model of film financing can work, with observers curious if the project’s monetary contributors will ultimately be pleased with the final product. Though never a hit series, the Veronica Mars show, which ran for three seasons starting in 2004, was a critical smash — whether that can translate into serious theatrical gross is an open question, especially since the film will work best for those familiar with the original show.

When the movie begins, the uninitiated are given a quick recap of what happened during the series. It has been nine years since the show’s conclusion, and Veronica is living in New York with her dutiful boyfriend Piz (Chris Lowell) and about to join a law firm. She is happy to be away both geographically and mentally from the high school angst of her Neptune upbringing, but when her old boyfriend Logan (Jason Dohring) calls to say he is suspected of killing his girlfriend, she reluctantly decides to return to her home town to help clear his name.

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The original series, which was created by Rob Thomas (who directed and co-wrote the film), drew much of its strength from Bell’s strong, sassy performance as the smart, no-nonsense Veronica who was, nonetheless, troubled by the same insecurities that affect most teens.

The combination of ironic pop-culture referencing, fun mystery stories and relatable adolescent woes made Veronica Mars an off-kilter treat.

Although there are fleeting pleasures to be had in seeing much of the old Veronica Mars cast back together, the story that has reunited them isn’t very memorable. Bell and her cohorts go through their expected paces, expertly delivering wise cracks and heartfelt confessionals on cue, but the investigation into Logan’s dead girlfriend lacks the nifty twists and entertaining showcases for Veronica’s sharp intellect that were a hallmark of the show.

The murder mystery isn’t enthralling enough, and Veronica’s romantic uncertainty isn’t sufficiently captivating, so audiences may have to content themselves with spotting the film’s mildly clever allusions to iconic moments from the TV show. (Viewers may be less patient with self-indulgent cameos from the likes of Dax Shepard, who is Bell’s real-life husband, and James Franco.)

Because Veronica Mars was financed through Kickstarter donations, there is a perception Thomas has made the film without studio interference. (Warner Bros is handling distribution.) This is an encouraging development for artists who don’t want to be at the mercy of corporate bottom-lines, but the Veronica Mars movie’s mediocre execution suggests that creative freedom doesn’t necessarily result in superior entertainment.

A darkly amusing Australian comedy that dwells on some of the more unpleasant physical side effects of being a drug smuggler, The Mule is an enjoyably mix of crime and dark laughs, littered with strong performances. With an impressive sense of time and location it is an oddball trip based on a real-life story. Co-directed by Mahony and Sampson (who also plays the lead role), it is the tale of a simple man who makes a series of wrong decisions, finds himself caught in a terrible situation, and has to try and defy his own bodily functions. On his return to Australia from Bangkok, reluctant drug mule Ray panics at customs and finds himself held by police. Detectives take him to a local airport hotel — legally they can hold him for seven days without charging, and they simply plan to wait and let nature take its course.

Mark Adams CONTACT EONE FILMS INTERNATIONAL www.entonegroup.com

Animals

Dir: Collin Schiffli. US. 2014. 85mins

A bleak and often grim story of how two smart, young middle-class lovers descend into a world of drug addiction and criminality, Collin Schiffli’s Animals is a clever but tough tale. Sad and grim, it charts a familiar filmic route (such as Candy and Drugstore Cowboy) but shrewdly keeps the story dour and downbeat, which in truth may not help distribution but should help it secure further festival slots. David Dastmalchian and Kim Shaw are terrific as Jude and Bobbie, an intelligent and attractive pair who now live in their car and have a series of scams to raise the money to score drugs.

The film’s flashbacks show a happier time when they lived together and while there is much talk of giving up drugs, Jude is hooked big-time and even when there is a chance of salvation for Bobbie, he still reels her back into his dark world.

Mark Adams

Tim Grierson

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CONTACT ICM

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April 2014 Screen International 43 n

reviews

Berlin in brief

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Dir: Wes Anderson. US. 2014. 100mins A whimsical and deftly magical tale of love, robbery, murder and comedy mishaps all set against the fantastical backdrop of an imaginary central European region, the beautiful and thoroughly enjoyable The Grand Budapest Hotel sees Wes Anderson deliver his best film. It will enchant fans of his signature precious and deadpan comedy style and draw in those who may be new to the unique Anderson vision. As usual, Anderson sets his story within a world of his own creation, this time shifting his tale to a spa town in the fictional Alpine country of Zubrowska in the 1930s.

The key backdrop is the elegant Grand Budapest Hotel, presided over by Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes), a legendary concierge at the famous hotel between the wars.

Mark Adams CONTACT FOX SEARCHLIGHT

20,000 Days On Earth

Dirs: Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard. UK. 2013. 95mins Nick Cave says he isn’t interested in things that he understands. Yet this distillation of the man himself — reflective, sensitive and inventive — tells you much about an artist’s understanding of his art. 20,000 Days On Earth suggests a diary of the rock tour from hell, a subject that Cave knows very well. Instead, most of the hybrid doc/drama is intimate, with enough performance and fireworks to remind you of the subject who happens to be speaking softly about his parents and his childhood. Richly textured, the portrait is also a valuable calling card for Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, both artists and feature first-timers who previously worked with Cave on music videos. In 20,000 Days On Earth, Cave has added documentary cinema to his expanding arsenal of modes of expression. It is hard to believe that his team will be stopping here. In one of his many moral appeals, Cave advises the slackers out there not to waste a moment of the day. He is probably already writing a sequel.

David D’Arcy CONTACT HANWAY FILMS

www.hanwayfilms.com

Stations Of The Cross

Dir: Dietrich Brüggemann. Ger-Fr. 2014. 107mins This is a rigorous, stylistically impeccable tale of a 14-year-old girl who, in a sheer act of faith, sacrifices herself to restore the health of her autistic younger brother. Dietrich Brüggemann’s film consists of 14 ascetic, immobile takes, each one inspired by the stations of Christ’s journey to Calvary: shades of Michael Haneke and references to classic religious paintings will certainly not go unnoticed. Played by all participants with a straight face which helps underline the bitter irony behind it, Stations Of The Cross (Kreuzweg) marks the progress of the protagonist towards her inevitable self-immolation. This ferocious satire of the ultra-orthodox Catholics in the south of Germany belonging to the fictitious Society of St. Paul will be highly praised by all those opposing religious fanaticism, but will have little effect on the fanatics themselves, who are unlikely to be ever exposed to it.

Dan Fainaru CONTACT BETA CINEMA

www.betacinema.com

n 44 Screen International April 2014

Berlin film festival

Black Coal, Thin Ice Dir/scr: Diao Yinan. Ch. 2014. 106mins

The unadorned, unflattering, raw and lifelike portrait of a mid-size Northern Chinese town in winter, all frozen and covered in thick layers of snow, is the best thing in Black Coal, Thin Ice (Bai Ri Yan Huo), the new film from Diao Yinan (Night Train). What is missing is a solid, well-told plot to keep audiences alert and justify the painstaking trouble taken with the background.

The film, which won Berlin’s Golden Bear, is a mystery story presented almost exclusively from the point of view of an ex-cop, and dealing with a series of grisly murders, with the victims’ bodies chopped to pieces and spread over a large territory, hundreds of miles apart. It is an interesting premise but its credible, authentic background cannot fill the yawning gaps left time and again in the plot.

Divorced policeman Zhang Zili (Liao Fan) is seriously wounded and two of his colleagues are killed while attempting to arrest a couple of culprits suspected of having committed the first in this series of crimes.

Once released from hospital after a long convalescence — or so it seems — he is retired from the force, has to take on a job as security guard and drowns his frustration in alcohol.

Five years later he understands, after meeting Wang (Yu Ailei), an old colleague who is now a police inspector, that more crimes of the same kind had been committed and gone unsolved and decides to go investigating on his own, if only to give a sense to his empty existence.

All the victims seem to have been connected at some time with the same woman, Wu Zhizhen (Gwei Lun

Mei, looking forlorn, lost and melancholy), who works in a small laundry. He tries to approach her, inevitably falls in love with her but, once a lawman always a lawman, he goes on digging for new facts and information that might reveal the truth.

From this point on, major leaps of faith are required to follow the story. You have to ignore all the red herrings strewn throughout: the dead men identified beyond the shadow of a doubt, who are apparently not so dead, and a lead suspect arriving in the story out of thin air. Once the case seems to be solved, there is a coda, the plot twisting once more for the final revelation, before ending in a spectacular display of fireworks.

With the help of an experienced script editor in preproduction, the same story with the same ingredients, but put in a different order (and with some more work on characterisation), could have the potential of turning this film into a real detective story, with the vast variety of characters revealed through the investigation turning out to be relevant. For suspense and tension, the structure of each scene would need to be altered and the flow of information coming from the screen to be changed as well.

As it is now, the one thing that an audience can hope to latch onto is the realistic feeling of each frame, offering the equivalent of a visit to one of the more remote and less fashionable corners of China, at one of the less attractive times of the year.

Dan Fainaru

CONTACT FORTISSIMO

www.fortissimo.nl

www.screendaily.com

stop in toronto and start something big.

In 2013, 4743 industry delegates from over 80 countries attended the Toronto International Film Festival, resulting in over 45 film sales.

This year, make it happen in Toronto.

Registration opens May 1.

Visit tiff.net/industry to learn about the services and programming that we provide.

速 Toronto International Film Festival Inc.

The Annual Film Industry Football Event Five-a-side football tournament Sunday 11 May 2014 Millwall Football Club, Bermondsey A fantastic chance to play where the professionals score.

Join us once again and battle it out with forty 5-a-side football teams from the film, digital and entertainment industries.

Book your team and enjoy a fantastic days football, fun competitions, sports massage and goodie bags.

To see what you’ll be a part of take a look at our video from last year’s event http://vimeo.com/66635860.

All the money raised will go directly to Action for Children’s vital work to support the UK’s most vulnerable and neglected children and young people.

To reserve your team place in this sellout event, please email Helen Parsons via fife@actionforchildren.org.uk or for more information call 07718 114 001

Previous participants Lionsgate, Vue, Warner Bros, Disney, Universal, Empire Design, STUDIOCANAL and LOVEFiLM. Registered charity nos. 1097940/SC038092/company no. 4764232 Produced by Action for Children 11/2012 13/14 0280

reviews

Berlin in brief

’71

Dir: Yann Demange. UK. 2014. 99mins A tense and exciting action-drama about a young British soldier out of his depth on the mean streets of Belfast in Northern Ireland in the early years of the Troubles, the impressively mounted ’71 is a remarkably assured feature debut for Yann Demange. While politics lie at the heart of the film, its story doesn’t aim to tackle the deeply thorny issue of the sectarian divide, instead it aims to focus on the horrors of a teen soldier being caught up in a situation he can barely understand. The film balances intense and often thrilling action with intriguingly developed and complex supporting characters. The young lead soldier (Jack O’Connell) may be something of an innocent abroad, but those he comes into contact with are caught up in the dark complexities of the two violent sides of the conflict. ’71 is also a great calling card for the talents of French-born, UK-based director Demange.

Mark Adams CONTACT PROTAGONIST PICTURES www.protagonistpictures.com

Blind Massage

Berlin film festival

Aloft Dir/scr: Claudia Llosa. Sp-Can-Fr. 2013. 112mins

Claudia Llosa’s third feature is her first in English. The tale of familial guilt and estrangement, told within a frozen landscape and with lashings of New Age hooey, is gorgeously visualised, very well acted but only intermittently convincing. Nevertheless, with Llosa’s growing reputation and an appealing cast, a strong arthouse showing could be on the cards.

It opens with a ravishing rendering of a wintry landscape, shining grey, with wind caressing the ice and snow. It is a long way from the parched Peruvian locations of her debut, Madeinusa, and Berlin Golden Bear winner The Milk Of Sorrow. And with the change in temperature come decidedly cooler temperaments.

Jennifer Connelly plays Nana, a single mother of two boys, who works on a Canadian farm and is one tough cookie. We first see her delivering a piglet with a coworker, quickly followed by sex on the premises before clocking off for the day. It is casual, emotionless. When Nana gets home, the conversation with her father is no warmer, suggesting there is no love lost between them.

It is surprising when such a no-nonsense individual takes her sons to see a healer, known as The Architect, in the middle of nowhere. But this is a last resort for Nana, whose youngest boy is seriously ill.

From this moment, Llosa splits her narrative, moving between the events that follow the first encounter with The Architect, and a period several years later. Here, a journalist (Mélanie Laurent) seeks the help of Nana’s eldest son Ivan (Cillian Murphy) in locating his mother, who has since become a famous, but elusive artist and healer.

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Though at first hostile, for very good reason, Ivan joins the journalist in her search.

Each time Llosa steps behind the camera she pushes herself into a new, more expansive milieu: from the Andean village of Madeinusa; to the Peruvian capital, Lima, in The Milk Of Sorrow; and now to Canada and the Arctic Circle. Whatever the setting, an interest in the metaphysical remains a constant.

But the superstition under scrutiny in the previous films was so rooted in the communities being depicted that Llosa’s storytelling became a satisfying blend of magic realism and anthropology; in contrast, the beliefs in Aloft — less part of a culture than of cuckooland affectation — are harder to swallow and far less interesting.

The film is strongest when charting the tragic consequences of Nana’s pursuit of the gift she is led to believe she has. When, years later, she is spouting psychobabble to appease her son, and the now grey-haired woman inadvertently evokes Holly Hunter’s eccentric guru in Jane Campion’s Top Of The Lake, Aloft comes down to Earth with a bump.

Both Connelly and Murphy are excellent, she as a mother unable to soften herself for her child, he a man carrying both guilt and a sense of abandonment for too many years. They keep the story on track until the denouement simply asks too much of them, and us.

Demetrios Matheou

CONTACT DREAMCATCHERS www.thedreamcatchers.eu

Dir: Lou Ye. Ch-Ger. 2013. 114mins Tui Na, the Chinese title of Blind Massage, is a form of therapy often practised in China’s medical massage centres for the blind. There are over 50,000 licensed blind masseuses in China, and Bi Feiyu’s bestselling novel, which Ma Yingli has adapted for the big screen, focuses on the lives and loves of the practitioners in one such Nanjing centre. It is not hard to figure out why Lou Ye (Mystery, Souzhou River) was technically attracted to this project, and he throws every angle of light and darkness at its visual ebb and flow, from jarring moments of high melodrama to the more gentle, blurred edges of love. With the book well known in China, coupled with some bravura performances from blind and sighted actors alike, Blind Massage stands to perform well in the Chinese marketplace. International reaction may be divided, however, with some seeking a more coherent piece.

Fionnuala Halligan CONTACT WILD BUNCH

www.wildbunch.biz

In Order Of Disappearance

Dir: Hans Petter Moland. Nor-Swe-Den. 2014.

115mins A delightfully droll tale of bloody revenge, Hans Petter Moland’s dark and funny In Order Of Disappearance (Kraftidioten) may well fit loosely into the much-hyped Nordic noir bracket, but thanks to a series of nicely oddball performances and a plethora of killings it could even fall into Coen Brothers or Tarantino territory. While perhaps not to all tastes — and possibly too mainstream for a Berlin competition film — it is a sustained and engagingly absurd film that demands wide distribution and could just as easily be acquired for remake rights alone. The film marks the fourth collaboration between Moland and his lead actor Stellan Skarsgard — they first teamed on 1995 drama Zero Kelvin — and while hyped as an action comedy it is far more a darkly funny crime tale that borders on being a fully fledged underworld blood fest.

Mark Adams CONTACT TRUSTNORDISK

www.trustnordisk.com

April 2014 Screen International 47 n

»

ASK THE EXPERTS

We ask festival heads and programmers…

‘What’s the one thing you wish you could change about your job?’

‘If I could add 14 hours to each day, I might be able to see half of the films I should see during the year’ Chris Fujiwara

Artistic director, Edinburgh International Film Festival

‘Not enough hours in the day. I wish there was more time to really immerse even more deeply into the work full-time instead of being rushed between screening and all the other producing demands of the job in a very tight time constraint’ Janet Pierson

Head of SXSW Film

‘Industrial fibs: “It’s not the right fit,” “She’s only available on opening weekend,” and other reliable fictions of the film world’ Cameron Bailey

Artistic director, Toronto International Film Festival

‘I wish someone would finally crack a proper smello-vision technology. After trawling the world for the latest, greatest films about food, wine and food culture, it’s getting a bit ridiculous not being able to taste or smell the screen’ Lia Rinaldo

Managing director, Devour! The Food Film Fest

DAVID NUGENT, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, HAMPTONS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

‘I’d like to be able to change how we can watch films we are considering. I prefer DVDs, but getting them on a tablet to watch can be a pain. And secure links are fine, but with changing passwords, necessity of a strong internet connection and inability to watch in transit, they present their own challenges. Also, I would love there to be less email. And I would like for our industry to put less stock in the immediate social media reaction to films premiering at festivals’

■ 36 Screen International March 2014

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