Eric Lavallée

The TIFF preemed The Patron Saints was my introduction to the extremely gifted husband and wife directing team of Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky. Some called their vigorous docu-essay depressing, I couldn't have been more animated by this unclassifiable document and I can just imagine how much of an atypical role was designed & developed for their film lead, Melissa Leo. Expectations levels are high enough to think we'll find something more fierce than her performance in Frozen River.

Haven't been this excited for a farm-related drama since the Blu-Ray release of Days of Heaven. It'll be interesting to see how Bahrani and his wingman DP Michael Simmonds tackle a project which is bigger in production value than his previous three indie gems. With Man Push Cart and Goodbye Solo, Bahrani focused on the immigrant experience, and now with purebreds Dennis Quaid and Efron this looks like apple pie Americana. We're hoping something close in terms of family dynamics to Jeff Nichols' Take Shelter - worth noting is the participation of Goodbye Solo's Red West.

Thanks to one Republican party member for giving this project tremendous buzz when it was in the development stage - rumors that an the Academy award winning director had classified Bin Laden information in her possession is beyond ridiculous, but aligning herself with scribe Mark Boal assures an authenticity, fleshed out combat zone situations and characters (soldiers quirks have always been a point of fascination for me. We saw how great journalism and popcorn could be a winning formula on the smaller scaled The Hurt Locker, but working from a backdrop and a form she is accustomed to, this might be slightly less badass than her Oscar wining pic but a great pulled from the headlines account.

While we have a stronger allegiance to the other Anderson, the child at heart Wes Anderson can't do any wrong with first loves, summer camps, concerned parents by enlisting the help of the likes of co-writer Roman Coppola (The Darjeeling Limited), regular DP Robert Yeoman and with Fantastic Mr.Fox's Composer Alexandre Desplat with a slew of supporting plays both new (Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Harvey Keitel) and old (Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman). I'll be more buzzed about this when the first images and trailer arrive.

Talk about having this project tattooed to his heart (and arm - see pic above) - one of our U.S indie filmmaker revelations to watch out for is helmer Matthew Porterfield. His sophormoe feature, Putty Hill was a major hit at several film festival stops in 2010 (where we meet up with him for this viral interview) and the pic was not surprisingly mentioned on several top lists of the year 11'. He didn't waste anytime putting this project together - in one of the most funniest crowd-sourcing pleas, and we're kind of excited for this project in the way thousands incomprehensibly fell for music-imbedded in narrative Once.