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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 – SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5 2014
AT ZURICH FILM FESTIVAL www.ScreenDaily.com
John Malkovich
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Experts herald ‘golden age’ of film finance BY ANDREAS WISEMAN
Malkovich spies his Golden Eye John Malkovich will head to Zurich later this week to present his latest film and receive the festival’s Golden Eye award. The star of Dangerous Liaisons, Red and Being John Malkovich will be in town on Saturday to introduce thriller Cut Bank — which receives a gala premiere screening at ZFF — alongside director Matt Shakman. The honorary Golden Eye prize will be presented later that evening on the festival’s award night at Zurich’s Opera House. Malkovich will accept the honour from Veronica Ferres, his co-star in The Casanova Variations. Cut Bank, which played at Toronto and receives its European premiere here, centres on a young man (Liam Hemsworth) who dreams of escaping his small town. But his efforts to do so set a deadly series of events in motion. The film also stars Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Dern. Producer Laura Rister will also be in attendance for the Zurich screening. Sales on Cut Bank are handled by eOne Entertainment. Koch Media has distribution rights for German-speaking Europe. Malkovich has spent three decades in film from early roles in The Killing Fields and Empire Of The Sun to more recent performances in Cesar Chavez and The Casanova Variations. He recently wrapped work on NBC TV series Crossbones, a fictionalised take on notorious 18th century pirate Blackbeard. Michael Rosser
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More funds are becoming available for film-making but are leading to inflated budgets, according to finance experts. “It’s a golden age for film finance,” film lawyer Lindsay Conner told delegates at Zurich Summit. “This is partly because we came out of the trough of 200810, when we went from 45 banks lending to only nine. We’re seeing capital available from a wide variety of places. Banks are more willing to lend and there’s no shortage of high-net-worth individuals willing to back films.”
“There are more and more funds out there,” added Conner, partner and co-chair of the entertainment and media practice at law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. “With interest rates so low, more funds want to expose some portion of their capital to the alternative investment risk.” However, the amount of capital is leading to inflated budgets and does not guarantee good product, warned Claudia Blümhuber, CEO of financier Silver Reel Partners. “There’s so much capital available that there are a lot of people entering the business without the
requisite experience,” she said. “They will completely overpay and burn like hell. I think a lot of people will move out of this space again in two years’ time.” Later in the day, Ubisoft Motion Pictures CEO Jean-Julien Baronnet discussed the dangers that can arise from studios adapting video games. “Hollywood studios are looking for big IP and the core age of the gaming audience is exactly the one studios want,” he said. “But you have to understand gamers’ fanaticism for the brand. You have to retain the DNA of the brand.”
ZFF
Del Toro shows two faces of Escobar Benicio Del Toro has said he tried to capture the two faces of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in his latest film. At a ZFF press conference for Escobar: Paradise Lost, Del Toro said: “Escobar had two faces. He was a family man. He seduced a whole country but at the same time he brings it down. That was Pablo. He became a Robin Hood who also bled the country out.”
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SCREENINGS
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Northmen conquer Zurich BY ANDREAS WISEMAN
Benicio Del Toro meets the Zurich public
BY ANDREAS WISEMAN
TODAY
The Che star also revealed he had mixed feelings about the infamous Escobar. “I have pity for him. I don’t like what he did. He was a talented man who wasted his talent. But he brought a lot of suffering to a lot of people. He isn’t someone to emulate.” Del Toro stars alongside Josh Hutcherson and Claudia Traisac in the thriller directed by Andrea Di Stefano, which centres on a young surfer who meets the
woman of his dreams who also happens to be the niece of the Colombian drug lord. The Hunger Games star Hutcherson joked he was “seduced’ by Del Toro during the shoot. “I met Benicio a few years ago when he directed me in a short film. I’ve seen his movies and I know what he does on set. He’s pretty intense so I was a little nervous. But knowing him personally from before helped”.
The cast and director of Northmen: A Viking Saga sailed into Zurich at the weekend to launch their ambitious epic. Director Claudio Fäh described the opportunity to direct the $10.5m Swiss action film as a “dream come true”. “When Ascot Elite asked me whether I wanted to make this film, it was always a pretty simple answer. Who wouldn’t want to?” he said at a press conference ahead of Northmen’s world premiere. The film has sold to a number of mainstream distributors including eOne in a multi-territory deal. “It is quite unique to make a film out of Switzerland that has broad international appeal,” said Fäh. The actors added that the shoot was a physical and mental challenge. Ed Skrein, a former Screen Star of Tomorrow recently cast in the upcoming Transporter reboot, said of the process: “It was a very immersive project, emotionally as well as conceptually. It means a lot to us. We have a lot of emotional investment in the project, more than we might do usually.” “The toughest thing about the movie was the scope and our ambition,” added Fäh. “There were many moving parts.”