Once they were ten. Now they are three. Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Attenberg, Robert Guédiguian’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Ruben Östlund’s Play have gone thru into the final round of the European Parliament LUX Prize.
Running between August 31st and September 10th, the 68th edition of the Venice Film Festival would be a dandy last edition for festival impresario Marco Muller even if he doesn't nab the likes of Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmaster, Walter Salles' On the Road, Fernando Meirelles' 360 and/or Zhang Yimou's Heroes of Naking. In his final year of contract, with approximately twenty-two competition slots (minus the already confirmed opening film from Italian res George Clooney and his TIFF-bound The Ides of March), this thursday's announcement should be heavy on items from the the U.K along with a robust presence from European filmmakers headed by Roman Polanski's Carnage.
Update: Two weeks ago we reported that ARTE France is putting their financial support of Israeli films on hold (see below). This week Jérôme Clément, the president of ARTE, is visiting Israel, and in an interview to Ha'aretz newspaper he overturned the decision." ARTE has no intention of putting a stop to the successful collaboration".
The German sales co. known for providing the fest circuit and art-house plexes with subtitled stuff from around the globe will set fire to the Director's Fortnight section this year. If I'm counting right, the Match Factory supply the section with a trio of titles (five total in the fest) including the much discussed on this site Cam Archer's sophomore feature, and they nabbed a Main Comp spot for one of the most celebrated directors of the decade in Apichatpong Weerasethakul latest – a sort of “ghost” story.