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.
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.
Many accused Isabelle Huppert of playing favourites when Haneke finally won for his long overdue Palme. De Niro has worked with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn --- will the brotherhood remain intact with a vote going towards Malick?
Have you ever wondered what are the films that inspire the next generation of visionary filmmakers? As part of our monthly IONCINEPHILE profile (read here), we ask the filmmaker the incredibly arduous task of identifying their top ten list of favorite films. We cap off the year with Ry Russo-Young, whose Sundance Film Festival selected and Gotham Award winner YOU WONT MISS finally receives a December 10th release followed by a nationwide roll out.
This August, we profile David Michôd, who when asked to be profiled was (still is) in the midst of a lengthy promotional screening/press junket tour for his directorial debut, Animal Kingdom which will receive a limited release in New York, Los Angeles on August 13th via Sony Pictures Classics.