Whiles the likes of Terrence Malick, Todd Haynes, Alexander Sokurov, Giorgos Lanthimos and J.C. Chandor no where to be found in the fall fest season...
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.
TIFF's co-directors Cameron Bailey and Piers Handling have got us salivating with the smorgasbord list of world premiere offerings for next September. Opening film comes as a surprise, as we've haven't heard much about it, but seeing that doc filmmaker Davis Guggenheim has a great relationship with the festival, From The Sky Down a doc about U2 (20 or so years after Phil Joanou's U2: Rattle & Hum) will take centre stage. Doc-programmer guru Thom Powers makes sure that the fest will be a rocking good edition by also adding Pearl Jam Twenty from fanboy Cameron Crowe.
At the same time that the Hong Kong Film Festival is held (currently in full swing), Filmart (21 - 24 April) unveiled several titles that caught our eye and that we look forward to in the near future. Among the noteworthy items promoted at the event, the lineup at Emperor Motion Pictures includes four major films, "The Great Magician", "The Last Supper", "The Viral Factor" and "Diva".
I was wondering why Peter Mullan's Neds wasn't included in Venice. I was wondering why the Midnight Madness section didn't name Koen Mortier's latest. I was wondering why Cannes regular Bent Hamer wasn't in Cannes. TIFF's CWC section has all three high profile items, plus Venice Film Festival's Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichard) and Three (Tom Tykwer). Reichard will participate in Kelly Reichardt in a Mavericks discussion about the behind the scenes of her process.