Three 大象传媒 Films selected for Cannes
Three
productions from 大象传媒 Films have been selected to screen at the Cannes
Film Festival (15 to 26 May): Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen (Competition),
Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar (Director's Fortnight) and
Francesca Joseph's Tomorrow La Scala! (Un Certain Regard).
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Featuring a remarkable debut from 17-year-old Martin Compston, Greenock-set
Sweet Sixteen is Ken Loach's sixth Cannes Competition contender
since Looks & Smiles in 1981. What do you get if you throw teenage
hormones, fierce ambition, a split family, loyalty to your best
mate who's a bit nuts, motherly love and the odd pizza into the
same washing machine? You get Sweet Sixteen and a rollercoaster
by the Clyde.
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Young director Ramsay is also an old Cannes hand: a two-time Cannes
short films winner, her feature debut Ratcatcher premiered in Un
Certain Regard. Ramsay's latest, Morvern Callar, based on the acclaimed
novel by Alan Warner, stars Oscar-nominee Samantha Morton as a supermarket
worker from a small port town in the west of Scotland. Morvern believes
that life is something you get on with as best you can with what
you've got until the morning she finds that what she's got is a
dead boyfriend on the kitchen floor...
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Award-winning documentary-maker Joseph's micro-budget feature debut,
Tomorrow La Scala!, is the first film to be made under the recently-announced
co-production venture between the 大象传媒 and the UK Film Council's
New Cinema Fund. In Joseph's largely improvised film, an ambitious
young director rehearses Sweeney Todd with a troupe of professional
singers and a chorus of lifers in a prison-bound production of Sondheim's
bloodthirsty opera.
In
addition to the titles screening in Cannes, upcoming 大象传媒 Films'
co-productions include Metin Huseyin's Anita and Me starring
Max Beesley, Kathy Burke, and Meera Syal who also wrote the screenplay,
and Tim Fywell's I Capture the Castle starring Bill Nighy,
Tara Fitzgerald and newcomer Romola Garai.
Currently
in post-production are Stephen Frears' dark thriller Dirty Pretty
Things with Am茅lie's Audrey Tautou, Sergi Lopez (Harry,
He's Here to Help) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (It Was an Accident), and
1930s-set romantic three-hander, The Heart of Me from director
Thaddeus O'Sullivan starring Helena Bonham Carter, Olivia Williams
and Paul Bettany.
Filming
is underway in Scotland on Mifune director S酶ren Kragh-Jacobsen's
latest feature, Skagerrak starring Iben Hjelje (Hi Fidelity;
Mifune) and Martin Henderson (Ring). 大象传媒 Films is co-financing this
production from Denmark's Nimbus Films.
Currently
in pre-production are The Mother from a script by Hanif Kureishi
to be directed by Notting Hill's Roger Michell which is scheduled
to start shooting in June and Entering the Blue Zone from
first-time feature director Sarah Gavron, with a script by Rosemary
Kay, winner of last year's Dennis Potter Award for Screenwriting.
Entering the Blue Zone is the second project from the co-production
venture between 大象传媒 Films and the Film Council's New Cinema Fund.
大象传媒
Films co-productions currently in development include:
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The Assumption from a script by Leigh Jackson and Anthony
Minghella, with Juliette Binoche attached to star; the film will
be produced by Carolyn Choa and David Lascelles and has been co-developed
by 大象传媒 Films, Mirage Enterprises and Intermedia
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Mary, Queen of Scots from a script by Jimmy McGovern (Liam;
Go Now; Priest); co-developed by 大象传媒 Films and Fountainbridge Films
(Rhonda Tollefson and Sean Connery's production company)
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Ted and Sylvia, the story of the tempestuous marriage of
poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, written by John Brownlow and
to be directed by Last Resort's Pawel Pawlikowski.
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The Cry of the Owl from the novel by Patricia Highsmith is
being developed together with producer Lawrence Bender (Pulp Fiction)
for writer/director Tod "Kip" Williams
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Mad Dogs and Englishmen written by Max Wilik and Willy Holztman
and to be directed by Simon Curtis, this film about Noel Coward's
sojourn in Las Vegas is being co-developed together with producer
Stephen Haft.
Alan
Yentob, the 大象传媒's Director of Drama, Entertainment and Children's
Programming, and David M. Thompson, Head of 大象传媒 Films, will be in
Cannes, together with Executive Producer and Head of Development
Tracey Scoffield; Head of Rights and Commercial Affairs Jane Wright;
Head of Production Ann Faggetter; Head of Business and Legal Affairs
Isabel Begg; and Production Executive Michael Wood.
Peter
Kalmbach, the recently appointed head of 大象传媒 Films' Los Angeles
office, will also be in Cannes. As 大象传媒 Films' strategy develops
to encompass large-scale films with international ambitions, the
company aims to harness UK talent to Hollywood know-how.
Kalmbach,
former VP of Acquisitions and Productions at USA Films, is currently
nurturing and furthering 大象传媒 Films' relationships with American
agents and producers.
大象传媒
Films Los Angeles has just announced its option for Saddam's Bombmaker,
the autobiography of Iraqi defector Khidhir Hamza, former head of
Saddam Hussein's nuclear programme. The timely thriller will be
produced by Scott Kalmbach and David Koplan, with Peter Kalmbach
overseeing development and production of the project for 大象传媒 Films.
Earlier
this year, Jim Broadbent took home an Oscar for Best Supporting
Actor in the 大象传媒 Films' co-production Iris, marking the fifth
consecutive year that the feature filmmaking arm of the 大象传媒 has
been represented at the American Academy Awards.
Stephen
Daldry's international box office hit Billy Elliot garnered
three nominations in 2001, E. Elias Merhige's Shadow of the Vampire
received two nominations in 2000, Bill Condon's Gods and Monsters
came away with Best Adapted Screenplay in 1999 and John Madden's
Mrs Brown received two nominations in 1998.
Past
大象传媒 Films successes also include Pawel Pawlikowski's prize-winning
Last Resort, Damien O'Donnell's crowd-pleaser East is
East, and a wide range of films from the best and the brightest
of British talent including Michael Winterbottom (The Claim;
Wonderland; Jude), Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher),
Gillies Mackinnon (Hideous Kinky; Regeneration); Shane
Meadows (A Room for Romeo Brass; Twentyfourseven);
Kieron Walsh (When Brendan Met Trudy) and Julien Temple (Pandaemonium).
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