Eric Lavallée

I have always enjoyed Paul Greengrass's work, because watching his films make you feel like you're inside the story. For Gun Hill Road, I employed documentary-style camerawork, and shot in densely populated areas that clearly reflected the world I wished to portray. Motion Film Group

Today's announcement for the 2011 Venice Film Festival lineup basically crosses off plenty of sure bets we had been anticipating and makes us circle a bunch of titles we thought had a chance for a 2011 showing but now become hot items for the 2012 campaign. Films such as Juan Diego Solanas' Upside Down, Rodrigo Cortés' Red Lights, Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Headshot, Brillante Mendoza's Prey look more and more like Cannes 2012 items, while acquisition titles such as Antonio Campos' Simon Killer and Nick Cassavetes' Yellow wouldn't be out of place for a Sundance showing.

Sony Pictures Classics knows their market well. Loaded with a cast of actors who were ripe back in the 70's (Keaton, Kline, Shepard, Wiest and Richard Jenkins whose career really took off in the last decade), SPC have picked up Lawrence Kasdan's Darling Companion and have set it for their 2012 slate.

Finally. Perhaps the crowd pleaser of the 2011 Cannes edition has finally found a home - with the provider of retro art-house cinema. Janus Films who make about one theatrical pick-up every 24 months have secured the North American rights to a film that might have gone home empty handed (it was however bestowed with the FIPRESCI Prize), but essentially slayed the majority of the international press with its slow burn, simplistic charm. Aki Kaurismaki’s Le Havre will be set up for a release in the autumn and will surely premiere at major upcoming North American fests such as Telluride, TIFF and Chicago.

Once they were ten. Now they are three. Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Attenberg, Robert Guédiguian’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Ruben Östlund’s Play have gone thru into the final round of the European Parliament LUX Prize.