Edited by Sarah Cooper
sarah.cooper@
emap.com For more tales from the Croisette, see
ScreenDaily.com/home/blogs DIARY
film before the book was even published. “I like taking meaty material, risky stuff. And I just thought it was a bloody good story.” And the result? “It’s not a high-
Lynne Ramsay Something to talk about
BY SARAH COOPER We Need To Talk About Kevin, which screens tonight in Com- petition, may be one of the hot- test tickets in town, but director Lynne Ramsay is trying not to feel the pressure. “I’ve not had a chance to be nervous because I’ve been finish-
ing up the movie,” says Ramsay, who describes the shoot in Con- necticut as “the most enjoyable I’ve ever been on”. Adapting Lionel Shriver’s con-
troversial novel about the parents of a dangerous teenager was never going to be an easy task, but Ram- say knew she wanted to make the
An American dream
BY SARAH COOPER Netherlands-born actress Famke Janssen is in town for one night only for the market screening of her directorial debut, Bringing Up Bobby (sold by Bankside). The Paris Texas-inspired drama about a European con artist who goes to Oklahoma with her son to escape her past. Janssen, who lives in New York,
says there are parallels between the film’s central character (played by Milla Jovovich) and her own experiences. “When I first moved
The Cannes Magic show
Event company Magic Garden has arrived in Cannes, taking over the former Jimmy’z nightclub. Located in the heart of the Palais, Jimmy’z was for years a members-only hotspot for the French glitterati — going some way to make up for the loss of Boite Canal which sadly closed its doors (and cut off the flow of free champagne) a few years ago. Magic Garden will now install club Les Marches “to host chic, glamorous events designed exclusively for cinema’s leading stars”. A dancefloor and an intimate lounge terrace will welcome revellers, May 11-22. Nancy Tartaglione
to the States, my perception was based on what I’d seen in the mov- ies. Milla’s character is kind of liv- ing out her skewed idea of the American dream, which she has taken from the movies.” Janssen chose Oklahoma
because she “always liked the idea of putting a European creature in the most American of settings”. Apart from the 100-degree plus
temperatures during the shoot last summer, Janssen says the biggest challenge was raising the finance. “We had the usual horror stories
Famke Janssen directs Bringing Up Bobby
of independent film-making.” With no plans to give up the day job, Janssen is heading to Berlin tomorrow where she is shooting Paramount’s Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters.
Mads with passion
BY SARAH COOPER The only thing we love more than a royal romance is a good scandal — which is why we were especially excited to hear about Nikolaj Arcel’s A Royal Affair, which combines both. The Zentropa-produced film,
set in 18th-century Denmark, centres on King Christian VII’s German physician Johann Struensee (played by Mads Mikkelsen), who had a passionate affair with the queen, fathering her child (now that would have made The King’s Speech more interesting). “It’s the most romantic and
dramatic film I’ve ever done,” Mikkelsen tells us from the set in the Czech Republic, where shoot- ing has just wrapped, before he
n 18 Screen International at the Cannes Film Festival May 12, 2011 A Royal Affair
flies into Cannes to help TrustNor- disk promote the film. “It’s the biggest and most spec-
tacular love story in the history of Denmark,” says the film’s executive producer Peter Aalbaek Jensen. Of course if it happened today,
we wouldn’t know about it because Struensee would have taken out a superinjunction.
Sleeping Beauty
school killing movie at all, it’s a tragedy about a mother and son relationship,” says Ramsay, who describes her lead actor, Ezra Miller, as having something of the “young James Dean about him”. Her first two features, Rat-
catcher and Morvern Callar, both screened at Cannes, but Ramsay and the Croisette go back even further: her graduation film, Small Deaths, won the jury prize for best short back in 1996. So what’s been her Cannes
highlight? “The best time I ever had was the first time, at the Trainspotting party. These days I’m thinking about my next movie, but I still fancy a glass of cham- pagne on the beach.”
Julia Leigh
Acclaimed Australian novelist Julia Leigh makes her debut film with Competition title Sleeping Beauty, a drama about a girl called Lucy (played by Emily Browning) who allows herself to be drugged and used by wealthy men as an overnight bed buddy.
Lucy is reckless with her life. Are you commenting on her generation or individuals from any generation? Lucy’s perverse provocation to the world is, “My cheek is turned, try me.” She does have a recklessness of sorts. She makes her submissiveness more than mere submissiveness: it is a radical way of being. It is not up to me to comment on the rest of the question. You chose to hold the camera still, to shoot principally in wide shot and to use long takes. Why? The camera does move — it is not locked off — but the movement is slow and steady and, hopefully, the feel of the camera is of being a tender witness. Lucy is being observed in her sleep by the men who visit her in the sleeping chamber. The style allows the audience to use their imagination as they watch and to witness her to the point of complicity. In what ways did being a novelist help you make this film once you’d written the screenplay? Both a novelist and a film-maker do similar things: they build complex
characters and worlds, and work with the flow of time. The processes are very different once you go from page to realisation, but you are still making thousands and thousands of decisions while you’re going from something ephemeral to… [establishing] a tone, an atmosphere, tension. What advice would you give to anyone making a film for the first time? I think it’s important to always hold in mind what you initially set out to achieve, no matter what happens, and to behave in a way that earns people’s respect. What do you hope to get out of Cannes, both for you and the film? Cannes has for so long shaped my love of cinema and introduced me to so many films that I have loved. In the same way, I hope the festival will introduce this film to many people. I’m especially delighted for Emily [Browning] that the film has been selected. For me personally, I am excited but I will be a stranger in unknown territory. What is next for you? I have a couple of film projects that I have developed which I’m considering, and I will continue to write novels. Sandy George
Sleeping Beauty is screening in Competition tonight
Meet the debutants JULIA LEIGH,SLEEPINGBEAUTY
Today
Sunny high 23°
Tomorrow
White cloud, high 21°
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