Search results for: Denis Villeneuve

The young filmmaker is in the financing stages of his next project, a Canada-France co-production that would only allow the filmmaker to make a cameo appearance as the lead has been locked up by Louis Garrel, and now helping out with the funding, the name of Nathalie Baye has been added to the cast. Baye will take on the role of the mother in Laurence Anways.

Mostly void of dialogue, moral degradation is the film's key concern, but the notion of resilience (perfectly fitted and enveloped in Romanian, surprisingly very English 4 months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days actress Anamaria Marinca) provides this portrait with an almost lyrical rawness and explains the plight that many female refugees have had to endure, forget or overcome.

There are still plenty of "to be announced" surprise films including Danny Boyle's 127 Hours that will be unveiled hours before they screen, but for the most part, this year's Telluride festival can claim the North American premiere status away from TIFF on a large number of Cannes items (this includes Michelangelo Frammartino's must see, still unsold, docu-essay Le Quattro Volte) and they can also claim first dibs on world preems for acquisition titles such as: Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal's Chico and Rita (see pic above), Justin Chadwick's audience tickler The First Grader, the Dmitry Vasyukov with Werner Herzog doc Happy People: A Year in the Tagia and Errol Morris' Tabloid.

You'd think a festival with 300 + film title offerings would pretty much covers all bases, but I think there'll be more broken hearts than usual as a result of the unbalanced production year that was 2009. Like a vintage year for wine, Toronto International Film Festival co-directors Piers Handling and Cameron Bailey should see in 2010, a significantly higher number of World and North American premieres (loads from Cannes and Venice) than previous years for the 35th edition.

The producers behind Julie Bertucelli's The Tree (#80) have finally decided that a closing film showcase is too good to give up (there was word that they decided not to accept the spot) -- in the same gesture, she becomes one o the rare female filmmakers included in the top section.