Tracking Shot November 2011: The Deep Blue Sea, Cool Water, Friends with Kids

At the beginning of every month, IONCINEMA.com’s “Tracking Shot” features a handful of projects that are moments away from lensing and in the same token, we feel are worth signaling out. This November there is a significant drop in mention worthy titles — but we have three seasoned auteurs and a female director making her debut.

Emir Kusturica is supposed to commence filming a comedy with Tahar Rahim toplining. Commencing a production this late might hinder a Cannes 2011 debut. Cool Water is about two Palestinian brothers who smuggle the dead body of their father from Jerusalem to Ramallah with the Israeli Police, a bunch of terrorists and the Russian Mafia breathing down their necks. Let’s hope for the old Kusturica to show up.

Terence Davies (another Cannes regular) is adapting Terence Rattigan’ play with Rachel Weisz in the lead for The Deep Blue Sea. She plays the wife of a British Judge is caught in a self-destructive love affair with a Royal Air Force pilot. Another play being turned into a feature is Killer Joe – the tale of how a debt puts a young man’s life in danger, he turns to putting a hit out on his evil mother in order to collect the insurance. Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch and Thomas Haden Church star in William Friedkin’s film – his first since 2006’s Bug.

Finally, actress Jennifer Westfeldt will produce and direct from her own script, this is about “a pair of thirtysomething best friends who observe the toll that having kids has taken on the couples they know and resolve to bypass that stress by having a child and then date other people.” The writer of Kissing Jessica Stein will employ herself, her hubby Jon Hamm, Megan Fox, the underrated Kristen Wiig and Adam Scott in the NYC-set comedy titled Friends with Kids.

Cool Water
Director: Emir Kusturica
Screenwriter: Gabriel Bornstein
Producers: Mohammad Farokhmanesh, Frank Geiger, Armin Hofmann
Cast: Tahar Rahim
Filming in Germany.

The Deep Blue Sea
Director/Writer: Terence Davies
Producers: Sean O’Connor
Cast: Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russell Beale
Filming in U.S.

Friends with Kids
Director/Writer: Jennifer Westfeldt
Producers: Jennifer Westfeldt
Cast: Megan Fox, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Jennifer Westfeldt and Adam Scott
Filming in New York City.

Killer Joe
Director: William Friedkin
Screenwriter: Tracy Letts
Producers: Nicolas Chartier, Scott Einbinder
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Thomas Haden Church

Filming in New Orleans, Louisiana.