Also in Friday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs: The estate of author William Faulkner is suing over a quote used in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris; Iranian dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi wins a major peace prize; And a preview of the weekend’s Specialty Release newcomers.
Box Office Weekend Looks Soft with Holdovers Set to Outpace Newcomers
Cloud Atlas, and Silent Hill Revelation may not gross more than holdover Argo. Teen comedy Fun Size and surfing drama Chasing Mavericks are also tracking soft, THR reports.
William Faulkner Estate Is Suing Over a Quote Used In Midnight in Paris
The Faulkner estate is suing distributor Sony Pictures Classics for copyright infringement, commercial appropriation and for violating the Lanham Act. In Midnight in Paris Gil Pender, the disillusioned Hollywood screenwriter played by Owen Wilson, says, “the past is not dead. Actually, it’s not even past. You know who said that? Faulkner. And he was right. And I met him, too. I ran into him at a dinner party,” Deadline reports.
Stephen King Tale Heads to the Big Screen
King’s fantasy-horror Mercy is an adaptation of Stephen King’s short story Gramma. British actress Frances O’Connor will star in the project that Peter Cornwell will direct from a script by Matt Greenberg. The story concerns a mother with two young sons who come to discover their ailing grandmother is a witch, THR reports.
Iranian Filmmaker/Dissident Jafar Panahi Wins 2012 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought
The European Parliament awarded the prize to Panahi and a dissident lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh in a “message of solidarity and recognition to a woman and a man who have not been bowed by fear and intimidation.” Panahi’s films are known for their humanist perspective on life…
The annals of filmmaking are filled with stories of people who managed to make movies against all odds, without money, without shooting permits, without proper professional equipment. This Is Not a Film, the 75-minute film directed by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb that made its debut at Cannes last spring and is now, thankfully, arriving in theaters Stateside, may be the ultimate achievement in stealth filmmaking, considering that Panahi is currently serving a six-year jail sentence and has been banned by the Iranian government from making films for 20 years. And yet somehow he has made a movie that found its way first to one of the world’s major film festivals, and now to other parts of the world: This Is Not a Film is a small but extremely significant message in a bottle. That metaphor is almost literal: The picture made its way to Cannes via a USB drive — which was smuggled in a cake.
The movie covers a day in Panahi’s life as he’s waiting to hear the results of his appeal. It was shot with a digital camera (manned by Mirtahmasb, a documentary filmmaker, who is also heard asking Panahi questions off-camera) and an iPhone (wielded, slyly, by Panahi, because how much harm can a little home movie do?). Mirtahmasb’s camera captures the mundane details of Panahi’s life as he makes and takes calls on his cell phone (including one from his lawyer), answers the door for the food-delivery guy, feeds some greens to his daughter’s large, and surprisingly personable, pet iguana.
From these mundane details spring all sorts of provocative, frustrated conversations about the nature of filmmaking under a repressive regime. At one point, Panahi reveals that he’s going to tell the story of a script that he wrote before his…
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Controversial Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani was recently banned from her homeland after the French fashion magazine Madame Le Figaro published topless photos of her, thus prompting a support page on Facebook featuring other Iranian activists posing topless or entirely nude. Oy, guys, you’re doing it wrong.
I’m all for freedom and would love to see things like A Separation’s dual Oscar nominations and Farahani’s personal choices and just basic human rights of filmmakers like Jafar Panahi respected. Yes to all these things!
But let’s be honest: If your goal is to raise global awareness with a Facebook page in Farahani’s name, then you’re probably best off not turning the site into some lo-fi variation on AdultFriendFinder — which was never especially hi-fi to begin with. (Click the image at right for a NSFW look.) I doubt that the conservative-minded leaderships of both Facebook and Iran will be down with this, and then what? We’re right back where we started.
Anyway, the page is currently hovering around 3,500 likes. I’d lend it some #ConsiderUggie juice, but he’s nude in his photos, too, so hey. Anyone want to volunteer a more persuasive approach?
[via TheWrap]
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The annals of filmmaking are filled with stories of people who managed to make films against all odds, without money, without shooting permits, without proper professional equipment. This Is Not a Film, or In Film Nist, the 75-minute film directed by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb that has screened here out of competition, may be the ultimate achievement in stealth filmmaking, considering that Panahi is currently serving a six-year jail sentence and has been banned by the Iranian government from making films for 20 years. And yet somehow he has made a movie that has found its way to one of the world’s major film festivals: This Is Not a Film is a small but extremely significant message in a bottle.
The movie covers a day in Panahi’s life as he’s waiting to hear the results of his appeal. It was shot with a digital camera (manned by Mirtahmasb, a documentary filmmaker, who is also heard asking Panahi questions off-camera) and an i-Phone (wielded, slyly, by Panahi, because how much harm can a little home movie do?). Mirtahmasb’s camera captures the mundane details of Panahi’s life as he makes and takes calls on his cellphone (including one from his lawyer), answers the door for the food-delivery guy, feeds some greens to his daughter’s large, and surprisingly personable, pet iguana.
From these mundane details spring all sorts of provocative, frustrated conversations about the nature of filmmaking under a repressive regime. At one point, Panahi reveals that he’s going…
Full Story »
