Live From TIFF 2009: T Minus 2: Get Low & Soul Kitchen

T minus two. Nothing to report on, except I ran into a pair of poster one sheets of films I’ll be covering that obviously caught my eye. The first we have the one sheet for (a smaller, clearer version of it can be found on IMDB) Aaron Schneider’s feature length film debut. A cinematographer by trade, Schneider’s last short actually won him the Oscar and this lifts from the short. Written by Chris Provenzano, C. Gaby Mitchell and Scott Seeke, Get Low is based on the winning short Two Soldiers and based on the true story of Felix “Bush” Breazeale. Set in the depression-era 1930s Tennessee, when a man with a shady past (Robert Duvall) tries to find redemption through witnessing his own funeral as part of a funeral home’s promotional stunt. Sissy Spacek plays a woman from his past and Bill Murray makes a rare appearance in an indie pic (up for sale) that has been mentioned in the same breathe as Tender Mercies.

The other one sheet I’ve seen floating around on the web, but could never make out the full design (apologies for the crappy photo). Soul Kitchen is of course Fatih Akin’s attempt at comedy. Playing in Venice, the only comedic element I’ve seen so far is one still that looks like the last supper between friends. The poster below barely mentions anything to do with a resto business. This is the story of a young restaurant owner Zinos is down on his luck. His girlfriend Nadine has moved to Shanghai, his Soul Kitchen customers are boycotting the new gourmet chef, and he’s having back trouble. Things start looking up when the hip crowd embraces his revamped culinary concept, but that doesn’t mend Zinos’ broken heart. He decides to fly to China for Nadine, leaving the restaurant in the hands of his unreliable ex-con brother Illias.