Tracking Shot August 2010: Café De Flore, On the Road, La Piel Que Habito, The Moth Diaries

At the beginning of every month, IONCINEMA.com’s “Tracking Shot” features about a half dozen projects that are moments away from lensing and that we feel are worth signaling out. This August, we’ve got a good grouping of titles that are positioning themselves for a Cannes release next May.

On the indie front, any hopes of seeing Lee Daniels’ Selma go into production appear to be dashed, financing woes might pull the plug on the production despite this being a perfect opportunity, especially in today’s climate, to re-introduce a film which has racism in the forefront. We are awaiting confirmation on a filmmaker from our American New Wave 25 profiles to confirm a start date this month, but three established veteran indie filmmakers will be commencing production shortly: Rodrigo García is looking to direct Glenn Close’s Albert Nobbs project, Mark Pellington’s low budget I Melt With You will get the greenlight soon and Mary Harron will film a horror film (The Moth Diaries) in Montreal. Also in the North American French metropolitan city, we’ll see C.R.A.Z.Y. and The Young Victoria‘s Jean-Marc Vallée directing a pairing of Vanessa Paradis with a first time actor in musician Kevin Parent in Café de flore.

Four Cannes regulars will begin production this month: we have Paolo Sorrentino’s English language debut film This Must be the Place, Pedro Almodóvar’s La piel que habito, Bruno Dumont L’empire and Walter Salles’s On the Road.

Albert Nobbs
Director: Rodrigo García
Screenwriter: Glenn Close, John Banville, István Szabó
Producers: Close, Bonnie Curtis, Julie Lynn
Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Orlando Bloom, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Michael Gambon, Janet McTeer and Close.
Filming in Dublin, Ireland

Café de flore
Director/Screenwriter: Jean-Marc Vallée
Producers: Pierre Even, Marie-Claude Poulin, Patrice Vermette
Cast: Vanessa Paradis and Kevin Parent
Filming in Montreal and Paris

I Melt With You
Director: Mark Pellington
Screenwriter: Glenn Porter
Producers: Rob Cowan and Norman Reiss
Cast: Jeremy Piven, Thomas Jane, Arielle Kebbel, Rob Lowe and Sasha Grey
Filming in California

La piel que habito
Director/Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar
Producers: Pedro and Agustín Almodóvar
Cast: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya
Filming in Spain

L’empire
Director/Screenwriter: Bruno Dumont
Producers: Rachid Bouchareb, Jean Bréhat and Muriel Merlin
Cast: Unknown
Filming in the North of France.

The Moth Diaries
Director: Mary Harron
Producers: Jon Katz and Edward R. Pressman
Cast: Scott Speedman, Cody Kennedy, Lily Cole
Filming in Montreal.

On the Road
Director: Walter Salles
Screenwriter: Jose Rivera
Producers: Charles Gillibert, Nathanaël Karmitz, Jerry Leider, Walter Salles and Rebecca Yeldham
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund and Kirsten Dunst
Filming in Mexico

This Must be the Place
Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Screenwriter: Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello
Producers: Francesca Cima, Nicola Giuliano and Andrea Occhipinti
Cast: Sean Penn, Frances McDormand, Harry Dean Stanton
Filming in Ireland, Michigan, New Mexico, NYC