Eric Lavallée

This might sound weird since his legend status was confirmed in the late 70s, but I'm actually excited about the prospects of a Francis Ford Coppola following in the footsteps of his daughter and becoming an "indie" filmmaker. Tetro wasn't the grand return to form for the vet filmmaker that plenty were expecting, but I deem the experiment as a renewed passion for low budget filmmaking. Stemming from a nightmare the director had, this 7 million dollar horror film going by a great title and is sees B-list actor Val Kilmer topline (he was a blast in The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans) and this could be part of a string of works where the filmmaker is making films for himself. If Godard and Resnais can do it, so can FFC.

Khrzhanovsky's 2005 debut 4 (Rotterdam winner) was originally conceived as a short and it took four years to complete, which sort of gives us a clue on how much time and effort the Russian filmmaker puts into his craft. Dau was part of 2006's Cannes Film Festival’s filmmakers’ workshop “L'Atelier du Festival” and was lensed by one of my favorite dp's in Lol Carwley (Ballast, Better Things, Four Lions and the Sundance 2011 pair HERE and On the Ice.

Eran Kolirin left quite the impression with the Cannes winner and international film festival favorite The Band’s Visit (2007), which was among the best archetype for films that deal with cultural differences and it was done in a smart, moving and profound and in a very subtle manner. In my estimation, we should experience another dramatically rewarding effort with his sophomore pic.

The I Love You Phillip Morris team of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa had a mention-worthy first outing (too bad its domestic theatrical release was sullied from the get-go), but my thinking is that the Bad Santa scribes won't have many problems ratcheting up loads of other projects after this sophomore gig receives its mid-summer release. A 2010 Blacklist mentioned screenplay appears to be the kind of the Steve Carell vehicle we like - plus you've got yourself a good ensemble in Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, Marisa Tomei, Julianne Moore and Kevin Bacon.

Give me the option between Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich, and I'll go for this Spanish helmer instead. Despite not caring much for Juan Antonio Bayona's El orfanato (The Orphanage), there's no debating how skilled the filmmaker is in eye-candy department -- my thinking is handing him a big budget natural disaster film will only allow him to expand his palette and with the Watts and McGregor wearing their panicked and horrified look stripes, this 2010 BlackList script might make for great popcorn fair.