FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2011
TODAY
www.ScreenDaily.com
Guillotines strikes for We
Hong Kong-based We Distribution is launching pre-sales on The Flying Guillotines, from the award-winning team behind hit Bodyguards And Assassins. The cast includes Ethan Juan (Monga) and Huang Xiaoming (The Message). The $15m film, which follows
an elite crime-fighting unit, is in pre-production for a projected release later this year. The film reunites Bodyguards
And Assassins director Teddy Chen, producer Peter Ho-sun Chan, production designer Kenneth Mak and costume designer Dora Ng. Action choreographer Yuen Bing is also on board.
Jean Noh
Lars von Trier’s happy ending
BY GEOFFREY MACNAB “This film has a happy ending,” Danish maverick Lars von Trier declares of his new movie Melan- cholia, which is being sold at the EFM by TrustNordisk. “It is a fi lm about the end of life on Earth… how can that be happy? You have to see the fi lm to fi gure that out.” Interviewed by Screen via Skype
on a January afternoon during a break from post-production on Melancholia (likely to be ready for Cannes), the 50-something auteur is surprisingly relaxed and good- humoured. “I am getting old, maybe… it is a very well-behaved fi lm I’ve made. I don’t think there will be a lot of aggression.” Not that von Trier is becoming
any less outspoken, remarking about the problems of the Euro- pean fi lm business. “There are so many co-producers. After the fi lm is shown for the fi rst time, every- one has their two minutes of fame where they stand up and say this and this was not good. At a certain point, I [say], ‘Come on, I’m 56 years old, I’ve been doing this all » CONTINUED ON PAGE 32
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Midnight’s Children clocks up key sales for FilmNation
BY JEREMY KAY Glen Basner’s FilmNation has closed key territories on the upcoming Salman Rushdie adap- tation Midnight ’s Children, led by deals with eOne in the UK, Metropolitan in France and Telemünchen in Germany. Production on Deepa Mehta’s
hotly anticipated epic got under- way on February 6, and Basner and his team have licensed rights to Spain (DeAPlaneta), Australia and New Zealand (Village Road- show), Taiwan (SSG), South Korea (Unikorea), Singapore (Multivi-
DANTE’S MONSTER LOVE Arclight Films’ genre label Darclight will kick off sales on Joe Dante’s Monster Love, a comedy-horror love story in pre- production. The director of The Howling and Gremlins returns with the story, written by Greg Pak, of a werewolf and a vampire who fall in love. Elizabeth Stanley and Frederic Brost are producing. Jeremy Kay
“I am thrilled so many distribu- Deepa Mehta
sion) and Eastern Europe (EEAP). Further deals closed in Portugal
(Lusomundo), Switzerland (Ascot Elite), Latin America (Sun), Hong Kong (WEG), Indonesia (PT Amero), Malaysia (WEG), Philip- pines (Multivision), Benelux (Par- adiso), Greece (Odeon), Iceland (Sam) and Israel (Lev).
tors were as excited about Deepa’s fi lm as we are,” Basner said. “With such distinctive source material in Deepa’s capable hands, we antici- pate a film as richly textured as India herself.” David Hamilton is producing
and Echo Lake’s Doug Mankoff and Andrew Spaulding serve as executive producers with Blue Ice’s Steven Silver and Neil Tabatznik. Also, FilmNation has sold crime
caper Gambit, starring Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz, to the Alliance Films Network.
Hubert Boesl Werner Herzog
NEWS Cave men Visit Films takes on Werner Herzog’s 3D Cave Of Forgotten Dreams and sells to France » PAGE 2
DIARY Back on the beat Jose Padilha talks about his smash hit Elite Squad 2 » PAGE 12
SCREENINGS What to see today » START PAGE 37
Devil’s Double travels to UK
BY GEOFFREY MACNAB Icon Film Distribution has snapped up UK rights to $20.4m The Devil’s Double, the Lee Tama- hori Sundance standout starring Dominic Cooper (see Diary, p12). Corsan World Sales did the deal
on the eve of the film’s European premiere here. Icon UK’s acquisi- tion follows Lionsgate’s pick-up of North American rights in Sun- dance and the deal closed with Icon for Australia and New Zealand. Here at the EFM, Corsan is also
Josh Brolin, Hailee Steinfeld and Jeff Bridges from the Coen brothers’ True Grit enjoy Bridges’ “yee-haw” at a photocall here yesterday.
Protagonist’s Tyrannosaur stomps into US, Canada
BY WENDY MITCHELL Protagonist Pictures has sold Paddy Considine’s Sundance award winner Tyrannosaur to Strand Releasing for the US and D Films for Canada. The film screens at the EFM
today and on Sunday. Since Sundance, Protagonist
has also sold the film to Wild Bunch for Benelux and Front Row Filmed Entertainment for the Mid- dle East. Distributors already in place include Optimum Releasing for the UK, Madman for Australia and New Zealand, and NonStop Entertainment for Scandinavia. At Sundance, the fi lm won the
Bangkok Knockout hits buyers
BY JEAN NOH Sahamongkolfilm International has fi nalised a raft of pre-sales on action adventure Bangkok Knock- out: BKO, due for a world premiere in the EFM tomorrow. Optimum picked it up for the
UK, TF1 for France, Madman for Australia and New Zealand, Clover Films for Singapore, Queen Film
for Indonesia and Sonamu for South Korea. The fi lm previously sold to Magnolia for the US. In Panna Rittikrai’s fi lm, a group
of pals whose fi ghting styles vary from Muay Thai and Capoeira to Kung Fu and Tai Chi, must fight for their lives when one of their friends is kidnapped. Gilbert Lim, executive vice-pres-
Bangkok Knockout: BKO
ident at Sahamongkolfi lm Interna- tional, said: “Most of our buyers know us as a company that can deliver some of the best action sequences in cinema.”
world cinema directing award, dramatic, and the world cinema special jury prize, dramatic, for breakout performances by Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman. Mullan plays a rage-filled man
who meets a charity shop worker (Colman) who carries a secret about her husband (Eddie Marsan).
screening footage of Roland Joffé’s Singularity. Corsan is also launch- ing Shrapnel, a new project from John McTiernan.
WestEnd seals Oz deals
London-based WestEnd Films has secured high-profile sales to Hopscotch in Australia for two of its hot EFM titles, Albert Nobbs and the recently announced A Late Quartet. Frank Cox and Troy Lum negotiated the deal. Yaron Zilberman’s Love
Quartet stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener and Christopher Walken. Ireland-set Albert Nobbs,
which finished shooting on February 5, sees Glenn Close playing a woman who has to disguise herself as a man. WestEnd premieres Michal
Aviad’s Invisible in Panorama and will show first footage from Albert Nobbs here at the EFM. Geoffrey Macnab
DAY 2
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