Imran Jaffery

What do a career filled with masterpieces and living legends status get you in Hollywood? The ability to cast whoever you damn well want in your pictures, that’s what. The suddenly prolific filmmaking duo the brothers Coen have cast minor character actor Richard Kind and stage thesp Michael Stuhlbarg to star in their next film A Serious Man for Working Title and Focus Features.

Get ready for the most minimalistic martial arts epic ever mounted. Hou Hsiao-Hsien has finally gotten the funding to begin work on his long in development entry into the wuxia canon The Assassin. Taiwan’s newly established National Development Fund has stepped up with $2.6 million dollars for the project, the fund’s first. With a total budget of around $8.65 million the film is far and away the biggest budget Taiwanese production ever and certainly the famed director’s largest undertaking in his 28 year career.

Carter’s tome recounts his experiences working as an aid worker in Sarajevo during the Balkan War in 1992. In his determination to help the Bosnian Serbs, who eventually lost some 10,000 citizens (including 2,000 children) to the siege, he famously brought mega-band U2 into the fold to bring attention and relief to the tragedy. Brazilian director Andrucha Waddington, winner of the Prix Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2000 for the heartwarming Me You Them, will helm the film.

The pain continues with the news that Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg have signed on to star in Antichrist, the Danish douchebag’s long talked about return to horror. Though I would argue all of his films have been a kind of horror onto humanity, but I digress.

Rinko Kikuchi, whose star making Oscar nominated turn in Babel put her on the map, is in talks to star in Isabel Coixet’s next film Map of the Sounds of Tokyo. Spain-based shingle Mediapro, who are in bed with Woody Allen for three films including his latest Victoria Christina Barcelona, are producing.